ABSTRACT
The resonances Indigenous peoples developed with the cosmos – the constellations, the sun, the moon, and the planets in the night sky – reflect a relational philosophy and a belief that ‘the stars are our relatives’. In their cosmology – the creation of the earth and the evolution of human beings – Indigenous astronomies rely on myths about animals and human relationships with animals. The second largest group of Native myths are myths about the stars. They reflect the deeply felt sense that humans have both an ancient and a direct relationship with the stars. In a Pueblo myth related by the famed Santa Clara Pueblo artist Pabilita Velarde in Old Father, the Storyteller, Long Sash, the Pueblo cultural hero, leads his people on a journey to find the Pueblo homelands. Before the journey begins, Long Sash instructs his people in hunting, making clothes, and building shelters. The journey is arduous and the people must overcome many obstacles, the most difficult of which is their own intolerance. They stop in many places; in each they must overcome duress, doubt, and decide whether to go on. Finally, they complete the difficult journey and arrive at their present homelands. Their journey is written in the stars: Long Sash is Orion; the never-ending trail is the Milky Way; the stops on the journey are Castor and Pollux and the constellations of Cancer and Leo. In Indigenous traditions, stars visit the earth, too, and beings from the stars are incorporated in evolution myths (Miller 1997, pp. 176–177).
