ENTRY 25- WORSHIPPERS OF SUN

Language 4 Entry Nª 25



WORSHIPPERS OF SUN

The sun has always been worshipped as a god for many extinguished tribes, for many people, like the Egyptians , at a certain time when Akhenathon was pharaoh, he changed the religion, with him Egyptians had to worship only one god, it was the sun, he called it Athon. In southamerican culture, the Aztec and maya tribes. The sun for them was everything. It represented the success of a crop, warmth and light. The Incas called it Inti.
The tradition of worshipping the sun has not disappeared. I saw two pictures which appeared on “The Buenos Aires Herald” Friday, June 22, 2007, because of the summer solstice in England and winter solstice of southern hemisphere.
One picture is on page 6 and shows a groups of young people gathered in front of the remains of Stonehenge. The title says “Sun disappoints worshippers” and the epigraph says that drummers pound the parchments and visitors mill around and listen at the ancient Stonehenge monument, seen in the background, in England yesterday after thousands waited in vain for the summer solstice sunrise yesterday. The sun was obscured by clouds.”
The second photograph is on page3 under the title of “The dawning of a New year”, and in the picture there are many indigenous people wearing traditional clothes, like “ponchos” hats, and they look happy and they are with their hands up smiling to the sun, in contrast with the previous photo, where the people looked disappointed, and they looked as if they were cold. The epigraph of the second photo says “Aymara Indians hold up their hands to catch the first rays of dawn in a traditional New Year’s ritual held at the Tiwanaku ruins near La Paz yesterday. The Aymara calendar, now in year 5515, begins each year at the southern hemisphere’s winter solstice.”
Perhaps the ancient tribes which gathered in Stonehenge, celebrated the new year, as the Aymara tribes do. They used to worship the first ray of the sun on the solstice, but the stones cannot tell us anything. On the other hand the Aymara tribe has survived enough time so as to make the world know what their traditions are.