Many Ways of Knowing the Sky

A question to start

Long before telescopes, people all over the world watched the sky closely enough to know when to plant, when to hunt, when to travel, and when ceremonies should happen. How did they learn so much without instruments? And what can that knowledge teach us today? In this lesson you will look at the sky through more than one way of knowing.

Sky knowledge around the world

Careful sky-watching is part of many cultures' history:

• In ancient Egypt, the yearly first appearance of the bright star Sirius before sunrise was linked to the flooding of the Nile, which was key to farming.
• Maya astronomers in Mesoamerica tracked the cycle of the planet Venus with great accuracy and recorded it in written tables.
• Many star names used today, such as Aldebaran, Altair and Betelgeuse, come from Arabic, because astronomers in the Islamic world preserved and improved astronomy for centuries.
• Polynesian wayfinders crossed thousands of kilometres of the Pacific Ocean by reading the rising and setting points of stars, ocean swells and birds. In 1976, the voyaging canoe Hōkūle'a sailed from Hawai'i to Tahiti using traditional navigation, without modern instruments.

These are not 'early guesses' that science replaced. They are careful systems of observation that worked for their purposes, and some of their knowledge is still used today.

First Nations, Métis and Inuit sky knowledge

First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities across what is now Canada have their own sky knowledge, which is different from nation to nation. It is built from observation over many generations and passed on through language, oral teachings, stories and ceremony. It often connects the sky to the land, the seasons, animals and people's responsibilities to one another.

A few examples that knowledge keepers and educators have shared publicly:

• Mi'kmaw (Mi'kmaq) communities in Atlantic Canada and the Gaspé region of Quebec share a story of Muin, the bear, and the seven bird hunters. Here is a short retelling based on versions that have been shared publicly (for example, in the picture book Muin and the Seven Bird Hunters, Cape Breton University Press, 2010); tellings can differ between communities and storytellers. The four stars of the Big Dipper's bowl are the bear, and the stars of the handle and beyond are the hunters, birds such as Robin, Chickadee (carrying a cooking pot, the small star Alcor) and Moose Bird (the Gray Jay). As the stars move around the sky through the year, the story follows the seasons: the bear leaves her den in spring and is followed through the summer; in autumn, when these stars swing low, the hunters catch up with her, and the story explains why the leaves turn red. In winter a new bear sleeps in the den, and the cycle begins again.
• Ojibwe star knowledge, shared in the Ojibwe Sky Star Map by astronomer Annette S. Lee with artists William Wilson and Carl Gawboy, sees the same Big Dipper stars as Ojiig, the Fisher, and connects other constellations, like Biboonkeonini, the Wintermaker, to the seasons.
• Inuit elders in Igloolik, Nunavut, shared star knowledge for the book The Arctic Sky by John MacDonald. It explains that Aagjuuk (the stars Altair and Tarazed) is one of the most important constellations in Inuit star knowledge, and that its rising and setting were used to tell time.
• Wilfred Buck, from Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Manitoba, shares Cree star knowledge in his book Tipiskawi Kisik: Night Sky Star Stories.

Notice that both the Mi'kmaw and Ojibwe knowledge (and the Greek name Ursa Major, 'Great Bear') use the same group of stars and connect it to animals and seasons. Different cultures observed the same sky carefully and built different but meaningful knowledge from it.

The evidence in the sky: why the Big Dipper circles Polaris

These seasonal stories match something any careful observer can see. From most of Canada, the Big Dipper is circumpolar: it never sets, but circles Polaris, the North Star.

• During one night, the Big Dipper turns counterclockwise around Polaris (about 15° per hour). This happens because Earth rotates on its axis, and Polaris lies almost directly above Earth's North Pole.
• Through the year, if you look at the same time each evening, the Big Dipper is in a different position: high above Polaris on spring evenings, low on autumn evenings. This happens because Earth revolves around the Sun, so the night side of Earth faces a slightly different direction each day.

So the movement that Mi'kmaw and Ojibwe knowledge connect to the seasons is the same movement that Western science uses as observational evidence for Earth's rotation and revolution.

Comparing ways of knowing

Things they share: both Indigenous knowledge systems and Western science are based on careful, repeated observation; both are tested over time against what happens in the world; both are passed on and refined by communities of knowers.

Some differences:

• Western science often separates a problem into parts, controls variables, uses instruments and mathematics, and publishes results for others to test.
• Indigenous knowledges are often holistic (seeing how everything is connected), place-based (rooted in a particular land and community), carried in language and story, and connected to relationships and responsibilities, not only facts.

Two-Eyed Seeing (Etuaptmumk), a principle shared by Mi'kmaw Elder Albert Marshall, encourages learning to see with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges through one eye and the strengths of Western knowledges through the other, using both together. In Canada, this idea is used in science education and research, for example in projects that combine Inuit knowledge of sea ice with satellite and sensor data.

Canadian contributions: Mi'kmaw astrophysicist Hilding Neilson studies stars and also works to include Indigenous knowledge in astronomy and astronomy education.