Native American Skies: The North Star

The ancients looked up to the sky and saw a reflection of the earth.  It was a representation of all that was happening or had happened and provided understanding for those learned in interpreting the signs.  When the ancients observed all of the sky revolving around the stationary North Star, of course, they saw it as significant.  It represented the center of the cosmos. 

 

 

Nahookos Bika and Nahookos Bi'aad
father/hunter and mother/provider

The Navajo call this important star, Nahookos Bikq (Na hoe kos Bih kwo) which means Central Fire.  It is the cosmic center of the Navajo night sky and represents the central hearth, the fire, centered in the home or Hogan.  And in the sky, it burns between the great father/hunter and great mother/provider constellations.  (Note:  Great Father is essentially the Big Dipper, Great Mother is the constellation Cassiopeia)

From “Sharing the Skies” by Nancy C. Maryboy and David Begay: “In Navajo culture, the central fire in a traditional Hogan has multiple values and therefore is extremely important.  It provides stability for the family, as well as a sense of security and well-being.  Nahookos Bikq provides warmth and tranquility as well as a focus, place, and means for ceremonial healing.”

the North Star changes over time due to precession

Nahookos Bikq as observed by the ancient Navajo is in the same today.  But, that tells us that this interpretation is fairly recent.  Because of a slight wobble in the axis of earth—called “precession”—the polar north changes over time.  Earth goes through one such complete precessional cycle in a period of approximately 26,000 years or 1° every 72 years, during which the positions of stars will slowly change.  The Egyptians looking at their North Star in 2700 B.C. would not have been looking at Polaris.  They would have been looking at the star “Thuban”.  Today Thuban is several degrees away from center.  In 1100 A.D. even Polaris was several degrees off center.

 

The cardinal directions were very important to the ancients.  In the ancient Cherokee water ceremony

for cleansing,  they paid tribute to seven directions—up, down, center, east, south, west, and north.  In Chaco Canyon, the Great Kiva called Casa Rinconada is perfectly aligned with a north-south  axis.  Today, we might use the North Star to establish north.  But, in 1100 A.D., when it was built, Polaris was 6-degrees from the pole.  There are several methods they could have used, however.  I think the most likely method was to mark the alignment during one of the solstices when the sun rises due east and sets due west.  Another is the old Boy Scout method of placing a stick in the ground and marking the shadows at the sun progresses.  The shortest shadow points north.

The Ancestral Puebloan, or Anasazi, were an agriculturally based society that build permanent homes and pretty much stayed in one place.  They could build permanent astronomical markers to help them identify important dates using the sky.  Nomadic tribes, however,  could not.  The Pawnee used a sky map painted on a buckskin.  From “Living the Sky” by Ray A. Williamson:

“The north star, whose name in Pawnee is literally “the Star That Dows Not Walk Around,” they compared to the god Tirawahat.  North Star was chief over all the other stars and saw to it that they did not lose their way.  As depicted on the star chart, the north star is among the largest stars, and certainly much larger than those near it.  This is directly contrary to the actual celestial appearance of the north star, which is fainter than, for example, several stars near it in Ursa Major [Big Dipper].”

On the chart, the “dippers” of the Big and Little Dippers represented stretchers and the “handles” represented the procession of mourners following.  This came from a story told by the Pawnee about the council to decide where the gods would stand in the sky.  Two members became sick and were carried on stretchers and still journey in the sky this way as a model to the Pawnee for caring for their sick.

 Who knows at what point Polaris centered on the pole in the north enough to appear to “not walk around”.   Even 500 years ago, a discerning observer could have seen it revolving around an empty space in the sky.   We assume that ancient mariners used the north star for navigation, but it has only been used for the last 500 or 600 years.  Before that, the sun or constellations were used in conjunction with a “cross-staff” or astrolabe.  Before that, crude compasses were used but they were not very accurate.  Before that, they hugged the shoreline and used line of sight to navigate.  To me it is a striking example of how times change and people adapt.

 

 

 

 

Watch a NASA video featuring Nancy C. Maryboy and David Begay on archaeoastronomy

 

by Courtney Miller

www.CourtneyMillerAuthor.com

 

 

Native American Skies: Pawnee Morning Star Ritual, Part 4

Skidi Pawnee Sacred Bundle

There is no “visible” Big Black Star in the night sky so why did the Pawnee name it “Black” Star?  There are numerous references where the Pawnee called the star “The Big Black Meteoric Star” or referenced a Sacred Bundle as “The Big Black Star Meteoric Bundle”.   Astronomer, Von Del Chamberlain, speculated that a meteorite may have fallen from the part of the sky near Vega (thought to be the Big Black Star).  Since meteorites are black soon after they hit the earth, the Pawnee may have taken it to be a message from the star.  Sacred Owlwolf posted a story on “nativeartsculture” which he credits his “great aunt Sini Rain Drops Caller” for telling him.  It is the story of “Osage Sky-Seeing” who saw a falling star one night and found it the next morning.   The meteorite spoke to him in his dreams and told him that it had come from “a star that stands in the heavens a little to the east, but south.”  Although, the meteorite that belonged to Osage Sky-Seeing is not the same one associated with Big Black Star, it illustrates how the Pawnee might have associated a meteorite as a messenger from a star and named it accordingly.

As discussed in Part 3, each Pawnee village had a “Sacred Bundle” that contained those things used for their ceremonies and rituals.   The Sacred Bundle for the Big Black Star contained a buckskin map with painted stars on it and represented a detailed map of the sky.   It is not an accurate reproduction of the night sky according the Ray A. Williamson (Living the Sky) but, rather, “it was likely to be more important to the Pawnee to paint the crucial constellations as they understood them from their corpus of myths.  In use, I suspect that the chart served to remind the owner of the bundle and his intimates of the stellar patterns and their stories.”

Skidi Pawnee buckskin Sky Chart

So, what is on the Pawnee Star Chart?  Again, from Williamson, “The North Star, whose name in Pawnee is literally, “the Star That Does Not Walk Around,” they compared to the god Tirawahat.  North Star was chief over all the other stars and saw to it that they did not lose their way. … Rotating around the north star and nearest to it were the groups of stars that represented stretchers.  According to the myth, in the first council, when decisions were being made about where the various gods would stand in the sky, two people became ill.  The stars placed them on stretchers in order to carry them along.  They still journey in the sky, traveling continually about the Star That Does Not Walk Around, and serving as a pattern for humans.  The stretchers are the bowls of the Big and Little Dippers.  The stars that follow (that is, the respective handles) are the Medicine Man, his wife, and Errand Man.

“The chart is divided roughly in half by a series of small painted dots and tiny crosses that represent the Milky Way.  … the Pawnee … considered it the road to the world of the dead.  … Near the center of the chart and below the Milky Way is a large circle of eleven stars called the Council of the Chiefs, who were in the sky to watch over the people.

“… Opposite the Council of chiefs on the other side of the Milky Way is the Pleiades, a compact group of six stars.  The priests used the appearance of the Pleiades, as seen through the lodge smoke hole just after sunset in early spring, to establish the time for planting ceremonies.

“…The arrival of spring … was watched for in the skies by the heliacal appearance of the two stars called the Swimming Ducks.  These were identified by the astronomer Ray Moulton as the stars Lambda and Upsilon Scorpio, which form the stinger of the Western constellation Scorpius.”

James R Murie, whose mother was Pawnee, explained, “The time for the ceremonies of the Evening Star bundle was primarily determined by the recurrence of the thunder in the spring; but it should be understood that it was not at the very first sound of the thunder that the ceremony was held, for it might have thundered at any time.  The approximate time was fixed by the appearance of two small twinkling stars (the Swimming Ducks) in the northeastern [sic: this should read southeastern] horizon near the Milky Way.  When low, deep, rumbling thunder was heard, starting in the west and rolling around the entire circuit of the heavens, then it was time for the Thunder Ritual to be recited.”

The Swimming Ducks were on the star chart near the Milky Way.  To the right was what the Pawnee called the snake, which was the body of the Western constellation Scorpius.  The rolling thunder was symbolic of Tirawahat’s messenger Paruxti telling the Pawnee that life was renewed and the ceremony signified the beginning of the year for the Pawnee and a tribute to the gods.

 

This is not all of the stars depicted on the buckskin Star Chart.  Many of the others have not been identified.  But, there is no question that they also served as sacred reminders of the special relationship the Pawnee had with star gods of the night sky.

 

Link to Part 1

Link to Part 2

Link to Part 3

-- Courtney Miller

Native American Skies -- Pawnee Morning Star Ritual, Part 3

Pawnee Chief

In Part 1, we learn of human sacrifice to the Morning Star by the Skidi Pawnee.  Astronomer Von Del Chamberlain explained, “The sacrifice of a captured maiden … are all part of the symbolic re-enactment of the original conquering acts of Morning Star, as seen in the heavens”.  In Part 2, we learned the story of Morningstar defeating the “hardships” placed in his way by Evening Star and how he prevailed and their maiden child came down to people the earth.  In Part 3, I want to show how the Skidi Pawnee adapted the story of the heavens into their lives.

Quoting from “Living the Sky” by Ray A. Williamson, “According to their own stories, the Pawnee received much of their ritual direction from the stars.  They claimed that at one time they organized their villages according to stellar patterns.  Each village, they said, possessed a sacred bundle given to it by one of the stars.  When the different villages assembled for a great ceremony, their spatial arrangement on earth reflected the celestial positions of the stars whose bundles they possessed.  Then there were eighteen separate Skidi Pawnee villages, each associated with a different star.

“ … four of the villages belonged to the four semicardinal stars that Morning star overcame in his quest for Evening Star.  These villages were termed the leading villages because each took its turn in leading the annual ceremonial cycle,beginning when the various sacred bundles were opened in the spring after the Evening Star Ritual. … they served as the pillars of Heaven that held the sky away from the earth. 

“In the traditional Pawnee earth lodge, the four posts that held up the roof represented the four stars that held up the sky. … The northwest star … was associated with spring, the mountain lion, yellow corn, and a female star, Yellow Star.  Yellow Star was married to Red Star, who ruled over the southeast in the summer … associated with red corn and the wolf.  Big Black Star, which stood in the northeast, was the autumn star.  He was associated with black corn and with the bear.  He was married to the southwest, or white, star.  She, in turn, ruled over winter and was associated with white corn and the wildcat.”

Skidi Pawnee Star Chart

Astronomer Chamberlain used the star colors and their prominence and timing in the sky to surmise that the Yellowish star is Capella, Antares the Red Star, Sirius the White Star, and Vega the Black Star.  Of course, no star is black, so its relationship and pairing with the other stars led him to suggest it is the black star.  They believed that the Black Star bestowed knowledge on them and in the Black Star’s bundle they carried a buckskin with a detailed chart of the stars painted on it.  In Part 4, I will reveal what the chart contained.

As you can see, the Pawnee tried to model their lives after the night sky, interpreting what they witnessed above and applying it below.  Curiously, unlike most other cultures, the Sun and Moon played only minor roles. 
 

Link to Part 1

 

Link to Part 2

 

by Courtney Miller