Edward Nelson spent five years living with and exhaustively interviewing the Eskimo around the Bering Strait in Alaska in the late 1800’s. During his stay, he became intimately familiar with their customs and conception of natural phenomena such as eclipses. In his report to Congress, Nelson later recounted:

“Nearly all epidemic diseases are supposed to come from the moon, but occasionally they descend from the sun. An eclipse of the moon is said to foretell an epidemic, and…Among the inhabitants along the lower Yukon it is believed that a subtle essence or unclean influence descends to the earth during an eclipse, and if any of it is caught in utensils of any kind it will produce sickness. As a result, immediately on the commencement of an eclipse, every woman turns bottom side up all her pots, wooden buckets, and dishes.”

– Edward Nelson

It is hard to fault these primitive people. The Eskimo did not have microscopes or other scientific instruments to use in their investigations of plagues, but there is still much we can learn from them. Although they were not scientifically advanced enough to understand the orbital mechanics that create eclipses they discovered a relationship between eclipses and history that is far more profound:

“In the village of Paimut, on the lower Yukon, in December, 1880, I overheard people talking about a recent eclipse of the moon and all agreed that it foreboded either an epidemic or war. Some thought that it meant a raid of the Tinné, living higher up the river, as revenge upon the Eskimo for having killed some moose the year before…”

– Edward Nelson

It is a fact of nature that every eclipse is caused by the earth or moon blocking the light of the sun; but it is also a very real historical fact that a variety of calamities follow eclipses.

For instance, there was a partial solar eclipse that occurred over the north eastern United States on September 17, 1811. The War of 1812 followed the eclipse and coincidentally nearly every major battle was fought in the area that the eclipse had darkened. But wars are not the only calamities that have followed eclipses. God has several means with which he judges:

“For thus saith the Lord God; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?”

Ezekiel 14:21 (KJV)

Following the total solar eclipse of June 1918, God used the plague of “Spanish” flu which killed an estimate 50-100 million people to bring an end to WWI.

May we hope in God’s mercy following the eclipse of April 8th.