#Euahlayi people

[katescomsformakers]

Week Five: Article Reflections

Article One; https://theconversation.com/the-memory-code-how-oral-cultures-memorise-so-much-information-65649?utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3QCLAmBpW4EP5jCj6apQ2Wf9sLwTv1yxW4wT7QEBL1SUObjCybVRRo_Kw

This article explores how Aboriginal Australians stored knowledge thousands of years ago and how it was passed down from generation to generation. The researcher Lynne Kelly discovered that this knowledge was passed down through song, dance, story and place. The Aboriginal people would hold ceremonies in sacred places in which important things were discussed. I found it interesting how they used star patterns and songs to navigate while travelling long distances for these ceremonies. The Euahlayi people memorised star maps and created songs for each part of the land they walked across - each star being associated with a certain landmark of their place. I find it so inspiring that these people used purely oral communication rather than drawings or marks to store such large quantities of rich information over such a long period of time. This way of remembering information can be used today as well - associating some words or a story with objects to create a memory space is such an effective way to store knowledge without the use of technology.

Article Two; "Richard Sennett on Making"

Key Ideas:

How our focus shifts from when we are making something vs when around other people. The change from being self absorbed and only focusing on what we are doing to being aware of others presence and focusing on interacting with others. I relate this idea to when you're designing something for an intended purpose. Most of the time, when designing we are focused purely on how we'll make it, what it will look like etc. However, we should also think about what the implications are and consequences of our design are. Integrating that idea of "how will this been seen by others" is an important question to ask while designing. "Who is the target audience?" "Is it accessible" etc. Balancing both our own wishes for the design and also the needs of others is a key mindset to learn in this field.

My Own Experience;

"People who are competent in verbal symbols are thought to be more gifted than those whose development occurs through physical or manual experience. " This idea states that those who speak as a way of communicating are prioritised or "taken more seriously" than those who use art and non verbal forms of displaying ideas or knowledge. I agree with this idea as personally I am a hands on, visual learner, a lot of the time finding reading and listening as a less effective way of understanding a subject. Sennett then goes on to say that; "There is a terrible blindness in modern society to people who work with their hands, and this leads to class differentiation and even contempt for manual work." Which I relate to, as most schools from a primary to university use talking and note taking as their primary way of teaching, which provides little room for visual learners to flourish.

Another Idea:

The idea of having a sense of pride within yourself for your craftsmanship. In our society, craftsmanship is not seen as a "desirable" trade or career path, as a lot of the time it does not have great monetary rewards. Sennett discusses this idea; "The way the capitalist economy is designed sacrifices the logic of craft, which results in poorly made objects and a degraded physical environment." Many can become discouraged because of this system, resulting in lack of motivation and no advancement in skills. In some cases, the self fulfilment we gain when creating something we can be proud of is enough for us. When money is not available, we look for other available sources of self wealth. Today, a lot of young people seeking out a career in the creative arts or design space are told it's "useless", as "most people can't make a career out of it". However if we if we pursue what we love doing and apply all of our skills, learn, make connections and reach that self-fulfilment, I believe it is absolutely the career we should choose.

[takingbackourculture]

The bushfires have become a traumatic event for the entire country as the country’s iconic wildlife suffers and the landscape turns black. But for the Aboriginal peoples, the fire crisis is especially traumatizing. Fire, an element indigenous groups across the continent once lived in harmony with, is now putting their cultural and sacred sites are at risk.

“It’s kind of like this trauma from being ignored and then trauma from the environmental catastrophe, as well
,” Bhiamie Eckford-Williamson, a Euahlayi indigenous research associate at Australian National University’s Center for Aboriginal Policy Research, told Earther.

More information:

How Australia's Indigenous Experts Could Help Deal With Devastating Wildfires

Australia's indigenous people have a solution for the country's bushfires. And it's been around for 50,000 years

[astrolocherry]

~Mercury - The Wardaman people describe Mercury as a little girl named Gowaman that relates to the damaging actions of the Moon-man

~Venus - In Kamilaroi and Euahlayi traditions, Venus (particularly when it is low on the horizon) is seen as an old man who is laughing animatedly after telling a rude joke

The Aboriginal people of the Hamilton and Georgina Rivers in Queensland referred to Venus as Mumungooma, or “big-eye”. They perceive Venus as fertile grasslands with an abundance of seeds used to make flour. This land, they believed had no water, but if the Aboriginal people who inhabited this land grew thirsty, they could travel to Earth via ropes hanging from it.

~Mars - The Aboriginal people of Oyster Bay, Tasmania hold a tradition that two ancestral men stood on a mountaintop and “threw fire, like a star … The pair of men live in the clouds and can be seen as the Greek Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux. In August 1831, Tasmanian man Mannalargenna told Englishman George Augustus Robinson that the men (Pumpermehowlle and Pineterrinner) created fire and now live in the skyworld. As seen from Australia, the orientation of the Greek Gemini twins is upside down, yet this is the description given by the Tasmanian men: Pumpermehowlle and Pineterrinner appear to walk along the pathway of the Milky Way. As their foot, Mars would appear in the region between the two stars and the plane of the Milky Way.

~Jupiter - The wandering motion of Jupiter, like other planets, was noted by many Aboriginal groups. In northern NSW, the Euahlayi and Kamilaroi share a story about the planet, Jupiter is a young boy wandering about the heavens. He is much disliked by his mother, the Sun, so much so that she sends men to spear him at a time when he is moving low down in the western sky. In general the fear of people is that in dry years the grasses may not set seed, and if the Sun woman succeeds in injuring her son this will be sure to happen.

~Saturn - Saturn is associated with a small bird (wunygal) by the Kamilaroi and Wailwan people. In the Western Desert, the local people viewed Venus (Iruwanja) and Saturn (Irukulpinja) as brothers, with Jupiter as their dog

Omissions are likely the result of the ethnographers than a lack of Indigenous traditions about these celestial bodies.

The Planets in Indigenous Australian Traditions Duane W. Hamacher and Kirsten Banks

art: Alma Granites Seven Sisters Dreaming

[dreamtimeastrolocherry]

The Sun, Moon, and visible planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) were known to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The planets are often seen as prominent sky ancestors and direct relations to the Sun and Moon. These relationships vary from romantic to familial relationships – and even rival relationships. 

Mercury - The Wardaman people describe Mercury as a little girl named Gowaman that relates to the damaging actions of the Moon-man

Venus - In Kamilaroi and Euahlayi traditions, Venus (particularly when it is low on the horizon) is seen as an old man who is laughing animatedly after telling a rude joke  The Aboriginal people of the Hamilton and Georgina Rivers in Queensland referred to Venus as Mumungooma, or “big-eye”. They perceive Venus as fertile grasslands with an abundance of seeds used to make flour. This land, they believed had no water, but if the Aboriginal people who inhabited this land grew thirsty, they could travel to Earth via ropes hanging from it. 

Mars - The Aboriginal people of Oyster Bay, Tasmania hold a tradition that two ancestral men stood on a mountaintop and “threw fire, like a star …  The pair of men live in the clouds and can be seen as the Greek Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux. In August 1831, Tasmanian man Mannalargenna told Englishman George Augustus Robinson that the men (Pumpermehowlle and Pineterrinner) created fire and now live in the skyworld. As seen from Australia, the orientation of the Greek Gemini twins is upside down, yet this is the description given by the Tasmanian men: Pumpermehowlle and Pineterrinner appear to walk along the pathway of the Milky Way. As their foot, Mars would appear in the region between the two stars and the plane of the Milky Way. 

Jupiter - The wandering motion of Jupiter, like other planets, was noted by many Aboriginal groups. In northern NSW, the Euahlayi and Kamilaroi share a story about the planet, Jupiter is a young boy wandering about the heavens. He is much disliked by his mother, the Sun, so much so that she sends men to spear him at a time when he is moving low down in the western sky. In general the fear of people is that in dry years the grasses may not set seed, and if the Sun woman succeeds in injuring her son this will be sure to happen. 

Saturn - Saturn is associated with a small bird (wunygal) by the Kamilaroi and Wailwan people. In the Western Desert, the local people viewed Venus (Iruwanja) and Saturn (Irukulpinja) as brothers, with Jupiter as their dog

Omissions are likely the result of the ethnographers than a lack of Indigenous traditions about these celestial bodies. The Planets in Indigenous Australian Traditions Duane W. Hamacher and Kirsten Banks art: Alma Granites Seven Sisters Dreaming 

[miss-rosen]

A DESOLATE WARNING WRITTEN ACROSS THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT Miss Rosen for Feature Shoot

For 65,000 years, the Murray-Darling basin has been an oasis at the end of the earth — a self-contained world fed by the rivers from which it takes its name, creating a rich, fertile climate in which the Aboriginal people of North South Wales, Australia thrived. Until —

The imperialist forces of the UK settled the continent, destroying the natural ecosystem in more ways than one. Sixty-two species of mammal have gone extinct, while half the 34 native species of fish are threatened. The Aborginal people were either exiles, diseased or otherwise killed by settlers.

Today, the land is a symbol of late capitalism run amok, with climate change heralding the worst drought in 100 years, threatening the livelihood of inorganic businesses draining resources from the land including cotton, cattle and sheep farms.

Perceiving the scope of climate change is daunting to realize – like the rotation of the earth of its axis, the consistently incremental changes go largely unperceived, so that it is only after the damage is done and the time has passed that we begin to understand all the warning signs flashing before our very eyes.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Top: Euahlayi Country 1: Because of the natural abundance of vegetation and waterfowl, the ancient fecundity of the Narran Lakes wetlands has been reduced to almost nothing. Once a meeting place of First Nations for trade, festivals and intermarriage, now, with water taken by farming, there are only vestigial ponds that can no longer support the cultural significance they once did. © Paul Harmon 

Bottom: Wiradjuri Country 1: Griffith NSW is naturally arid country but has become an oasis of commercial cropping and cloven- hoofed animal farming through the use of irrigated water within the Murray-Darling basin. While this has benefited farmers and consumers, over-allocation of water is done at the expense of important wetland habitats and the associated cultural integrity of First Nations peoples. © Paul Harmon 

[vkexploresworldthroughart]

Lynne Kelly's research and book The Memory Code: how oral cultures memorise so much information

Ancient and traditional civilisations such as the Aboriginals, Celtic Bards and others were able to obtain and store large sums of information and tradition for ten thousands years. Compared to now, where we have all the information in the world from just the tip of our fingers, just by simply googling it.

Lynne Kelly discusses how these civilisations contain their cultural and general information. The human brain is trained to associate memory with a place or a location, just like how memories flood into us when we go back to places we did in the past and childhood. Knowledge is the power to people of different cultures, with some indigenous cultures passing certain knowledge to elders or people who have obtained a higher ranking.

The knowledge is passed down in sacred areas, which then become knowledge banks. Knowledge can also be stored through the stars; ‘The Euahlayi would memorise star maps at night and learn the songs that talk about their relationship to the land. Each star was associated with a landscape feature, such as a waterhole.’ (Hamacher para 24). Places such as the Stonehenge, Nazca lines are to be places where knowledge would be stored and passed down from the cultures at that time.

Bibliography

Hamacher, Duane W. “The Memory Code: how oral cultures memorise so much information”. The Conversation, 27 Sept. 2016, https://theconversation.com/the-memory-code-how-oral-cultures-memorise-so-much-information-65649?utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3QCLAmBpW4EP5jCj6apQ2Wf9sLwTv1yxW4wT7QEBL1SUObjCybVRRo_Kw. Accessed 16 March 2021.

[fughtopia]

Amy McQuire on January 22, 2017

You could get drunk this Australia Day, or try something different… learn about the real history of this nation. Amy McQuire helps you dip your toe in the water.

It’s one of the greatest myths about Aboriginal people: that before European invasion, Aboriginal people were simply living off the land, with no civilization and a culture that didn’t make it out of the ‘stone age’ despite tens of thousands of years of human habitation.

If you believe this trope, you would be one of those arguing that the invasion and the massacres and small pox and stolen children that came along with it, was all for the ‘greater good’.

You would be one of those on Twitter recently messaging me rubbish like “What have the Aboriginals invented? A throwing stick?” Or “Civilisation would have never progressed in this country”.

You would be one of those people who believes that Aboriginal people should be thankful and rather than whinge about ‘Australia Day’, instead start assimilating into society, and maybe bring along with you a side of lamb chops to throw on the barbie, mate.

But if you are one of those people, you really are regurgitating 19th century propaganda and after 200 years, I thought you might have advanced, just a little.

As you celebrate ‘Australia Day’ this year, maybe start to think not just of the massacres on the frontier, but also the strength of Aboriginal civilization, and how it has survived despite the repeated attempts to extinguish it.

Here is a handy guide to get you started:

Aboriginal people have architecture

If you have ever sweltered in the Queensland heat or shivered in the Canberra cold, you might have wondered what shelter Aboriginal people used over tens of thousands of years?

The myth that Aboriginal people didn’t have towns or villages was used by European colonists to paint blackfellas as primitive, a view that has still persisted to this day.

But different Aboriginal tribes had a diverse architecture that varied according to the climate and season. In some areas, campsites and villages were occupied all year round, while other camps were impermanent, and occupied depending seasonal patterns.

Professor Paul Memmott from the University of Queensland has documented the complexity of Aboriginal architecture extensively in his book ‘Gunyah, Goondie + Wurley: The Aboriginal Architecture of Australia’.

“The modest nature of ‘Aboriginal architecture’ poses numerous questions concerning the role of the built form in Australian Indigenous cultures… (it) was misconstrued by colonial immigrants as evidence of ‘primitive culture’, but on the contrary, there is now an abundance of documentation to indicate that Aboriginal vernacular architecture is an expression of the complex set of relationships between the physical environment and social environment.”

The fighting Gunditjmara in Lake Condah, down in Victoria, lived in large villages and fished for eel, setting up traps that still exist to this day, exporting their bounty across the country. And down in the small New South Wales town of Brewarrina, the fish traps on the Barwon River are said to be the oldest man made structures in the world.

Aboriginal people were the first bakers

The myth that Aboriginal people were ‘hunters and gatherers’ has also bled into this ‘primitive culture’ myth, and was used to justify the lie of ‘terra nullius’. As Prof Megan Davis has explained, settlement can occur when “when the land is desert and uncultivated and it is inhabited by backward people”.

So it suited the colonial project to paint Aboriginal peoples as ‘hunters and gatherers’ when the reality was far different – we had a sophisticated system of agriculture, and as Aboriginal author Bruce Pascoe outlines in ‘Dark Emu’, could have been the first people in the world to bake bread.

Aboriginal people were planting, irrigating and harvesting ancient grains and storing the surplus in houses and sheds.

As Pascoe writes in the Griffith Review: “We can accept that the world is round, that the globe is warming and smoking causes lung cancer but we cannot seem to accept as true or pertinent what the explorers witnessed of Aboriginal society and economy.

“European science has produced marvels and its foundation principle is curiosity. Why are we not curious that Aboriginal people could cultivate crops in the desert? Why do we pay no attention to the dams and irrigation techniques employed? When our farmers are so threatened by droughts, salinity, erosion and crop diseases, why do we not investigate the crops and farming techniques developed over thousands of years to accommodate the challenging characteristics of this continent?”

Aboriginal people were the first farmers

Tying into Bruce Pascoe’s work is Bill Gammage’s excellent ‘The Biggest Estate on Earth’ which outlines the complex system of land management that existed before invasion. Aboriginal people could have very well been the first farmers, but farmed their land without fences, using fire and other animals to manage country.

Rather than a view of untamed wilderness, Aboriginal people carefully managed every inch of the ‘great estate’, ensuring that it fit in with spirituality.

Gammage’s work has also been integral in overturning the myth of ‘hunters and gatherers’.

Aboriginal nations, he wrote “first managed country for plants. They knew which grew where, and which they must tend or transplant. Then they managed for animals. Knowing which plants animals prefer to let them burn to associate the sweetest feed, the best shelter, the safest scrub. They established a circuit of such places, activating the next as the last was exhausted or its animals fled. In this way they could predict where animals would be. They travelled to known resources, and made them not merely sustainable, but abundant, convenient and predictable”.

As we look at the catastrophic consequences on country of 200 years of European ‘settlement’, and consider the crisis we are facing as we warm the Earth, maybe we should start considering which ‘civilisation’ was superior?

Aboriginal people had the world’s oldest burial rituals

The ancient bones of Mungo Lady, found in the sixties in Lake Mungo down in western New South Wales, are evidence of the world’s oldest cremation. Last year, a new DNA study of Mungo Man’s 40,000-year-old remains confirmed links to modern-day Aboriginal people, finding that our mob were indeed the first peoples of this continent.

That would mean, that our people have had sophisticated burial rituals for tens of thousands of years, and could have been the first in the world to practice cremation, long before the ancestors of Europeans.

Aboriginal people were the first astronomers

There is a growing body of evidence that Aboriginal people could have been the first astronomers, gazing into the night sky and entwining their science with their daily lives. They used the night sky for navigation, and to chart the seasons, to determine when was best to plant and harvest.

This sophisticated science lives on today in the stories of the elders, and Aboriginal people had awe-inspiring knowledge of the universe before the heroes of western science.

For example, astrophysicist Ray Norris has said that the Yolngu people in north-eastern Arnhem Land knew “how the tides are linked to the phases of the moon”, long before Galileo incorrectly stated they weren’t.

“Some Aboriginal people had figured out how eclipses work, and knew how the planets moved differently from the stars. They used this knowledge to regulate the cycles of travel from one place to another, maximising the availability of seasonal foods,” Dr Norris wrote in the Conversation.

Euahlayi man Ghillar Michael Anderson has been heavily involved in documenting knowledge from his own people, who used the stars to navigate and travel outside country along trade routes, using the night sky as a ‘memory aid’.

Astronomer Bob Fuller has dubbed these like ‘star maps’, which the Euahlayi would use to travel, and it even extended from Goodooga up to the Bunya mountains for the famous Bunya Nut Festival.

Aboriginal people have sophisticated mathematics and physics

Aboriginal people had complicated number systems, that still exist to this day. Quandamooka mathematician Dr Chris Matthews has been documenting this as a way to make mathematics more culturally appropriate and accessible to Aboriginal children. He told me on 98.9 FM’s Let’s Talk programme last year: “I see mathematics as a different way of viewing the world. And it’s not divorced from any other culture around the world, the way I perceive it. Maths is still part of a process where we consider the world around us and go through an abstraction process to create these symbols to tell a story. They can be numbers, Greek letters, a whole range of symbols that we use.

“The important thing there is what we do, we attach meaning to those symbols by looking at the real world. They come from that. So when we observe that real world, we introduce our cultural bias every time we create something… in our communities we have a lot of structures that we represent with our own symbolism.”

An example is the Garma Maths in Yirrikala, in Arnhem Land.

“When you start delving into the kinship up there, it brings out all these structures of relationships,” Dr Matthews says.

“So from these ideas of connecting people to themselves, to other people, to country and so forth, you build up a structure. And those structures and things are mathematical ideas… that’s what maths does, maths looks at patterns and relationships and understands the structures that sits underneath that.”

So our kinship systems were a sophisticated form of mathematics, and the fact it governed the relationships between kin and country, and defined responsibility, leads to the idea that mathematics actually governed Aboriginal life in a way Europeans couldn’t grasp.

And if you are talking about physics, you can’t go further than the boomerang, which is a phenomenal example of aerodynamics which pre-dated Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine.

Aboriginal people had the world’s first art galleries

If you have ever visited the endangered rock art galleries on Western Australia’s Murujagayou, or Burrup Peninsula, you would understand how sophisticated Aboriginal art and story telling was and is.

It is the highest and oldest concentration of rock art anywhere in the world, but has been under constant threat of ‘development’. Although an age hasn’t been definitively worked out, it is estimated to be about 30,000 years old.

There are an estimated 1 million images on the rock faces, including possibly the oldest depiction of a human face.

Amy McQuire: A Darumbul woman from central Queensland, Amy McQuire is the former editor of the National Indigenous Times and Tracker magazine.

[natalia4582115-blog]

The Moon An Exactly How That Moves

There are actually a great deal of fallacies regarding the moon, like it's actually created off eco-friendly cheese. Unlike the Earth, the Moon possesses no wind or even storm to deteriorate them, nor waterways to flooding them, nor vegetation to cover them up. Scientists at the International Astronomical Union chose at some point to start naming these sinkholes after remarkable individuals, the majority of whom are actually fellow researchers as well as almost all of who are actually male, though there are actually exemptions. Although Moon themselves could not live to view the fulfillment from all his targets, observers which track his activity concede that the religio-political giant he has built is not probably to fall down whenever very soon. Jupiter's moon Io has actually presently been actually discussed on this webpage, about its own bizarrely brilliantly colored surface area - a surface pockmarked with manies energetic mountains which regularly surround that along with wonderful magma circulations as well as reddish as well as yellow-colored sulphurous substances. Moon informed the exploring assistant general from Japan's judgment Liberal Democratic Event that people from South Korea did decline a package hit through his conventional predecessor as well as Eastern Head of state Shinzo Abe in 2015 to address the concern. When Leo Moon is actually recognized to be dramatic, this part (alongside Moon-Mars) carries out ponder in intensifying it. This's such a chance that I have light instance of BD as well as have taken backing drug in regular basis to keep it in check (12H). Nearly a half-century later on, just a handful from individuals - all astronauts - have actually left their footprints on the lunar garden, however a ticket to the moon for ordinary citizens, or even a minimum of man in the streets along with a few million bucks to devote, might very soon ultimately be offered. Thus, if you utilize a film electronic camera in healthyform2000.info wide blazing sunshine - especially on a moon without environment to filter the sunlight and also a highly reflective surface area (which you may view on your own if you care to tip outside in the evening) - you cannot open up the shutter for lengthy. As the writer of over ONE HUNDRED documents on a variety of clinical subject matters including the dynamical interactions between moons and also earthly rings and the Saturnian moon Encladus, she is among the most respected female researchers doing work in the industry 1999, Porco was selected due to the London Sunday Moments being one from 18 clinical leaders of the 21st century. The Euahlayi (and probably the Kamilaroi) explanation for sunlight eclipses is shared through two other Indigenous language teams, the Wirangu and a group from north-west Arnhem Property; the illustration that the Sunlight is chasing after the Moon, and also eclipses it, is really near ethnoscientific in description as well as presents an understanding that the 2 physical bodies are in the heavens and also a photo voltaic eclipse is actually resulted in when the Moon comes on front of the Sun.

[lloydegallery-blog]

Acknowledgment of Country, Gadigal custodians, and Ancestors and Elders.

The dotted line that runs across this art-work can represent the travels of the ancestors and/or the interconnection between kinsfolk and the places they belong.  Circles in can represent campsites, water holes and/or places of ancestral or ceremonial relevance. In general, it can be read as a connection between places, between kinsfolk, and between now and ancestral dreaming (Morphy, 1998).

The white cockatoos probably signify traditional astronomy. A story from Kamilaroi Country (north-western NSW)  tells of a man who obeyed the Law when his companions broke it. The man later died, and a spirit placed his body in a hollow tree and lifted it to the stars, followed by two cockatoos who were disturbed from their roost.  The ‘tree constellation’ includes the Southern Cross, and the cockatoos are the two stars, Alpha and Beta Centauri (Fuller, Norris & Trudgett, 2014).

Fuller, R.S., Norris, R.P. & Trudgett, M. (2014). The astronomy of the Kamilaroi and Euahlayi peoples and their neighbours. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2014(2), pp.3-27.

Morphy, H. (1998). Aboriginal Art. London: Phaidon Press.

[viralhottopics]

How ‘Moana’ showcases the awesome power of Polynesian celestial navigation

Image: walt disney motion pictures

One of the greatest feats of human migration in history was the colonisation of the vast Pacific Ocean by Polynesian peoples. They achieved it thanks to their sophisticated knowledge of positional astronomy and celestial navigation.

The Disney film Moana has drawn attention to these accomplishments and helped inform a new generation about the complexity of Indigenous astronomy.

SEE ALSO: New Zealand sibling’s backyard ‘Moana’ mashup is beyond stunning

Polynesia forms a triangle across the Pacific, with Hawaii to the north, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to the southeast, and Aotearoa (New Zealand) to the southwest, with Tahiti in the centre. But Polynesian voyaging extends beyond this triangle; there is strong evidence they reached the coast of South America and sub-Antarctic islands.

The Polynesian triangle with the areas of Melanesia and Micronesia.

Image: Opinion Global

Moana touches on Polynesian voyaging, showing the eponymous main character using traditional celestial techniques to navigate across the sea.

During production, Disney created the Oceanic Story Trust a board of experts, including Polynesian locals and elders to advise on cultural accuracy. The film accomplished this reasonably well, especially in respect to celestial navigation, despite the producers facing criticism for cultural appropriation and commodification.

Navigating by hand

To navigate the wide expanse of the Pacific, voyagers need to map the stars to determine their position from our perspective here on Earth. Navigator and Polynesian Voyaging Society president Nainoa Thompson explains: “If you can identify the stars as they rise and set, and if you have memorised where they rise and set, you can find your direction.”

Since 1976, the famous Hokule’a voyages have demonstrated how Polynesians used traditional sea-craft and navigational techniques to cross the expanse of the Pacific, from Japan to Canada.

In 1976, the Hokelea sailed from Hawaii to Tahiti using traditional navigational methods

Image: Waa Kaulua Our Canoes

So what are some of these navigational techniques?

To calculate their position on Earth, voyagers memorised star maps and used the angle of stars above the horizon to determine latitude. For example, the top and bottom stars of the Southern Cross are separated by six degrees. When the distance between those stars is equal to the bottom star’s altitude above the horizon, your northerly latitude is 21 degrees: That of Honolulu.

When the bright stars Sirius and Pollux set at exactly the same time, your latitude is 18 degress south: The latitude of Tahiti.

Voyagers measure the angles between stars and the horizon using their hands. The width of your pinkie finger at arm’s length is roughly one degree, or double the angular diameter of the Sun or Moon.

Hold your hand with the palm facing outward and thumb fully extended, touching the horizon. Each part of your hand is used to measure a particular altitude.

The hand method used by Nainoa Thompson to find the altitude of the Polaris.

Image: Journal of the Polynesian Society

In Hawaii, the “North Star,” Polaris, is Hokupa’a meaning “fixed star.” It lies close to the north celestial pole. The altitude of Hokupa’a indicates your northerly latitude.

In the film, we see Moana Waialiki using this technique to measure the altitude of a group of stars. Look closely and you can see that she’s measuring the stars in Orions Belt.

The position of Moana’s hand indicates the star above her index finger has an altitude of 21 degrees. Given that the movie takes place about 2,000 years ago near Samoa, the position of Orion indicates they are travelling exactly due East.

Moana measures altitude of Orions belt stars.

Later in the film, we see Moana navigating by following Maui’s fish hook. In the various Polynesian traditions, the hook was used to pull islands from the sea. It is represented by the constellation Scorpius, which rises at dusk in mid-May. This indicates southeasterly travel.

Looking at Scorpius Maui’s Hook in the same orientation as shown in the film.

Image: Stellarium

However, the positions of the stars are not fixed in time. Over the 3,500 years that Polynesians have been exploring the Pacific, the stars have gradually shifted due to precession of the equinoxes.

From the latitude of Samoa, the Southern Cross has lowered from 60 degrees altitude in 1500 BCE to 41 degrees today. Those navigating by the stars must gradually adjust their measurements as the positions of stars slowly shift over time.

In his book Hawaiki Rising, Sam Low tells how navigators would develop new techniques.

Aboriginal knowledge

In Australia, colonists knew little about Aboriginal celestial navigation, with some researchers claiming Aboriginal people did not use it at all. However, collaborations with elders shows that Aboriginal people use celestial navigation and developed star maps to link the sky with the land.

Euahlayi Aboriginal star map route from northern New South Wales to the Bunya Mountains in Queensland.

Image: Starry Night

Celestial navigation is an important component of Indigenous astronomy around the world. Try going out tonight and measuring the positions of the stars with your own hands. It’s quite fun!

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This article originally published at The Conversation here

Read more: http://ift.tt/2lJ3dHI

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