#ethnoastronomy

Filipino Ethnoastronomy 🌌🇵🇭

How did our ancestors see the stars? What did they associate them with? How did they use them to mark the changing of the seasons?

Two prominent stars were Orion and Pleiades. While, some Spanish terms for the stars, such as Tres Maria or Tatlong Maria, used to refer to Orions Belt, and Rosaryo, for Pleiades to refer to the rosary, are more commonly known today, our ancestors had native terms and beliefs in these stars.

They used the movement of the stars, sun, and moon to know when the seasons changed from the wet and dry season, to when to start planting or clearing the fields based on kaingin farming. They saw images of hunting traps, crabs, coconut trees, ripples or bubbles in the water, a weaving loom, and more.

⭐ One of the most well known astronomers & known as the father of Filipino Ethnoastronomy, was Dante Lacsamana Ambrosio.

He paved the way to relearning about how our ancestors saw the stars and did fieldwork to collecting names and beliefs of different stars throughout the Philippines. He made several articles talking about Filipino Ethnoastronomy and also published his book, Balatik: Katutubong Bituin ng mga Pilipino. He unfortunately passed away in 2011.

➡️What about you? Do you know any local names and beliefs of stars in your language or hometown that you'd like to share?

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Mga katutubong pangalan ng mga tala ni Orion at ng konstelasyong Pleiades, mula sa BALATIK: Katutubong Bituin ng mga Pilipino ni Dante L. Ambrosio

The myth of Apollo leaving Delphi in his yearly travelling to Hyperborea for the three winter months  is well known. During this time, the god was said to be absent from Delphi and no consultations took place. Nonetheless, there might be more concrete elements to this story than first meets the eye: it might be linked to the night sky.

The constellations that are visible from Delphi in different times of the year might give us a clearer understanding of how important dates were determined. Three constellations seem to be of special importance here: Cygnus (the swan), Lyra (the lyre) and Delphinus (the dolphin). As one can see, those constellations are all very closely together.

Before we get into details as to how those constellations might have played a role in determining oracular dates, it´s worth mentioning that all of them are strongly related to Apollo. The lyre is one of  Apollo's most important symbols, this goes without saying. Also his transformation into a dolphin plays an important role in the founding of his Delphic oracle, according to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo:

[...] but they were encountered by Phoibos Apollo;

down on the sea he suddenly leapt, in his shape like a dolphin,

on the swift galley, and lay there, a monster enormous and fearful;

Swans are also strongly associated with him and with Hyperborea. Take, for example, Callimachus' Hymn to Delos:

...and with music the swans the gods’ own minstrels, left Maeonian Pactolus and circled seven times round Delos, and sang over the bed of child-birth, the Muses’ birds, most musical of all birds that fly.

Additionally, lyric poet Alcaeus tells us:

When Apollo was born, Zeus equipped him with golden headband and lyre and gave him also a chariot of swans to drive, and sent him to Delphi and the spring of Castalia, thence to declare justice and right for the Greeks; but when Apollo mounted the chariot he directed the swans to fly to the land of the Hyperboreans. Now when the Delphians learned this, they composed a paean and a tune and arranged dancing choirs of youths around the tripod and called on the god to come from the Hyperboreans.

It´s not hard to find imagery of Apollo associated with lyres, swans, sometimes dolphins, or even all of them at once:

The imagery is very intertwined, which makes a lot of sense if the idea of an astronomical background is true. 

Oracular Dates

During its early days, oracular activity took place only once a year, in the seventh day of the Delphic month of Bysos, likely equivalent to the Attic month Anthesterion, which in modern calendars might fall roughly in February/March. With time, this practice gave place to consultations once a month, always on the seventh day, according to the standard lunar calendar calculations. This was not all year round, however: as previously stated, there was no activity in the winter months, when the sanctuary.

How exactly might that be linked to the constellations above?

The landscape of Delphi is covered by mountains, which in many ways restricts the view of the sky. Interestingly, taking the Temple of Apollo as the point of reference for observation, the three constellations seem to vanish and return (in fact not being visible behind the rocky Faidriades) in a way that seems to align really well with the Hyperborean narrative: During January, February and March, it was not possible to observe them at their zenith, from Delphi. Around the 7th of Bysos, they reappear from the first time, and would only be absent again with the subsequent winter.

The geographical characteristics of Delphi also meant that it was likely that other locations in Greece could observe the changes in the stars and calculate the dates in which oracles would take place with enough anticipation so as to organize the travel all the way to Delphi. Heliacal rising of the constellation Delphinus would be visible two weeks earlier in a flat horizon, when compared to Delphi.

This was especially important in older times when the oracle was a once a year event, but, given the Panhellenic nature of the site and the localised calendars that were so common in Ancient Greece, the use of astronomical cues seems like a feasible and reliable solution.

This post was mostly informational but I do believe it holds interesting ideas that might inspire reconstructionists, Delphic or otherwise (upcoming 7th of Bysos I´m looking at you!)

Further reading:

Efrosyni Boutsikas. Landscape and the Cosmos in the Apolline Rites of Delphi, Delos and Eros. In: L Käppel and V Pothou. Human Development in Sacred Landscapes. 2015

Download handbook of archaeoastronomy and ethnoastronomy

Notes from Gary Urton's "Animals & Astronomy in the Quechua Universe"

    The astronomical observations of the Inca included what are known as yanu phuyu or "dark cloud" constellations. These are fixed clouds of interstellar dust located in the brightest streak of the center of the milky way. To the Inca, these interstellar dust clouds represented earthly animals:

mach'acuay, the serpent

hanp'atu, the toad

yutu, the tinamou bird

llama, the llama

uñallamacha, the baby llama (or llama's umbilicus, or serpent)

atoq, the fox

    "Mirrors" used for Astronomical Observation, Machu Picchu

In Inca mythology and astronomy the water cycle is very important. "The Spring and the Lakes are the owners of the animals." Just as animals first were born out of a subterranean spring, just as they drink from the rivers of the earth, they also exist as dark cloud constellations in the Mayu, or celestial river in the sky, the Milky Way.

The Urubamba River in Peru is like a reflection of the Milky way on earth. In fact, the Milky Way was thought to run with earthly water from the Urubamba. As the earthly river reaches the ends of the earth, it flows into the sky and enters the "celestial river". As the Milky Way moves through the sky over the course of the rainy and dry seasons, it deposits the water back to the earth in the form of rain.

Because the movement of the constellations across the skies relate to the changing of the seasons, they also relate to the birthing cycles of earthly animals. Therefore the appearance of an animal constellation at it's zenith might indicate the height of it's terrestrial counterparts birthing season, leading to the Inca belief that the celestial animals are responsible for the health and proliferation of earthly animals.

Mach'acuay, the Serpent Constellation & Amaru, the rainbow

  The inhabitants of the Inca empire who lived in the jungles surrounding Cuzco brought giant snakes (probably boa constrictors or anacondas) known as Amaru to the Inca capital as tribute.

The name Amaru also refers to rainbows, which are thought to be giant serpents. "The body of the Rainbow Serpent rises up out of one spring, arches through the sky, and buries it's opposite end in another spring." The serpent appears in the day in the form of a rainbow, and at night in the form of a dark cloud constellation.

The dark cloud Serpent constellation stands at it's zenith at the beginning of the rainy season. At this time the "large aquatic boas" (anacondas) of the earth have just given birth. "In effect, the celestial Serpent, like the rainbow serpents, emerges from the earth with the warm/rainy season, and reenters the earth at the beginning of the dry/cold season."

  Hanp'atu, the Toad Constellation

  "The earth is alive during the month of August, being intensely animated by the toad or pachukuti which emerges from the interior of the earth in great numbers."

The mating season of the toad in this region takes place in the following months of September and October. During this time the Toad constellation will rise just before the sun, progressively earlier and earlier, just as the terrestrial toads have just risen from the ground.

The Inca believed that if the noise from the mating toads in September and October was overwhelming, the year's crop would be abundant.

  Yutu, the Tinamou Bird Constellation

  The Tinamou bird is known to swallow small animals from time to time, along with its diet of seeds and fruit, and therefore the Tinamou constellation pursues the Toad across the sky. As one Quechua informant describes, in the nightly race between the Toad and the Tinamou, the Toad always wins. "Therefore, her husband likes to characterize himself as a Toad in opposition to others, who are Tinamous."

This goes along with the characterization of tinamous as slow and obtuse.They are disinclined to flight, and when they do manage to get into the air, they often land with a crash. They also reverse male/female roles in egg incubation and the rearing of offspring, which the Inca found to be extremely an undesirable mating habit.

Despite the negative projections of the Inca, the tinamou do have a beautiful story. Their eggs may be "green, turquoise-blue, purple, wine-red, slate-grey, or a chocolate color, often with a purple or violet luster." The tinamou eggs look like segments of a rainbow, and according to myth, they are.

"Tinamous are believed to have been the sole survivors of a world fire, and were responsible for preserving, through their eggs, all the colors of the rainbow."

  Rain, and therefore, rainbows, occur in the Southern Andes primarily from September through April. This is consequently the time that the Inca were able to see the celestial Tinamou in the sky. Also, the entire span of the celestial Tinamou, from September through late April, also characterizes the season in which terrestrial tinamous represented the greatest threat to crops.

  Llama

  In Quechua astronomy, the α and β Centaurii stars of Western astronomy are called llamacñawin, or "the eyes of the llama" and they are the first part of the body of the llama to rise over the horizon.

These two stars emerging over the horizon was a common sight for the Andean pastoralist, who would rise early in the morning in the months of Novemeber and December to assist in the birthing of their llama calves, and to ward off predators with a taste for newborn llama, like foxes.

According to myth, the celestial Llama descends to the earth at midnight to drink water from the swollen rivers at the beginning of the rainy season. It is said that if the Llama did not drink this excess water, the whole world would be drowned.

Finally, the Inca were known to tie black llamas to a post, and starve them to death as a sacrifice to induce rain. Perhaps this is related to the presence of the dark cloud Llama constellation's appearance during the rainy season.

  Atoq, the Fox

  The celestial Fox's position in relation to the Llama and Baby Llama constellations is very telling of the relationship that terrestrial foxes and llamas were recorded to have. Foxes are predators of baby llama, and the herd's only defense against the death of their calves is trampling. The whole herd will rush the fox, and hopefully injure or kill it with their hooves.

The celestial Fox appears to be in a position of approaching the baby Llama, yet it is underneath the hind legs of the mother Llama, as if she were trampling him to prevent him from eating her baby.

According to myth, foxes are born principally on December 25th, four days after the solstice, on the side of a mountain called Wañumarka, "the storehouse of the dead". As the sun travels on its elliptical path, it enters the constellation of the Fox at the time of the December solstice.