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Indigenous Use of Space.pptx
1.
2.
3. Give examples of what you believe the indigenous
people used the night sky for?
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are thought to be the oldest
continuous culture on Earth; making them the first astronomers in the
world. This means they are one of the first groups of humans to
continually examine and use the night sky to help them live their lives and
enhance their culture and practices.
The sky is significant as it provides:
a calendar
- a clock
- a compass
- stories of people, traditions, culture and history
4. Astronomy Calendar
• The number of seasons differs among Aboriginal groups according to
location e.g. those in SA typically had four seasons, while those living in NT
tended to have five or six, sometimes even as many as thirteen.
• One way indigenous people defined seasonal changes was through a
particular star’s heliacal rising. Heliacal rising refers to the annual rising of a
star just before the Sun, making it visible just before sunrise. Click on the clip
link here to find out what the Indigenous people found out when
Lyra disappears in October.
The timing of the moves was critical, otherwise animals would eat the crop before the
humans arrived and so most Aboriginal cultures had well-defined seasons (Ray Norris
CSIRO astrophysicist, 2017).
5. Focus Questions:
Astronomy Calendar (refer to slide 4):
• How many seasons exists for the Indigenous people?
• How did the Indigenous people discover seasons?
• What did you learn about the malleefowl constellation [Lyra]?
6. Astronomy and the Dreamtime
• Different groups have different stories for the same constellation, although there
are often common threads.
• Communicates Aboriginal lore to their children e.g.
Origin of constellations:
-Story about the Southern Cross https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHCJuGlN91s
-James Miller’s story of the Southern Cross
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScthJuMZrQM
Stars and their stories with morals:
https://www.sbs.com.au/programs/first-contact/article/2014/11/14/stories-sky-
indigenous-astronomy
The sky is an integral part of the environment, and so many dreaming stories involve
the sky as well as the land. In particular creator spirits often move between the Earth
and sky, and so stories about them often have a sky component (Ray Norris CSIRO
astrophysicist, 2017).
7. Focus Questions:
Dreamtime Stories (refer to slide 6):
Watch the videos and read the article provide to answer-
• What did you discover about the following celestial bodies:
- Southern Cross (how is this constellation seen and read by different
Indigenous groups)
- Pleiades, or Seven Sisters
- Sun and moon
8. Astronomy Compass
• Recognised patterns in the sky were aligned with a range of fixed
landmarks; landscape features.
• These patterns (including stars, constellations and celestial bodies)
are used for guidance when navigating to specific geographical
locations across land and sea.
• Used to assist with remembering cardinal directions. The Warlpiri
people in central Australia respond closely to the four cardinal points
(North, South, East, West) of modern Western culture. In the Warlpiri
culture, north corresponds to “law”, south to “ceremony”, west to
“language”, and east to “skin”. “Country” lies at the intersection of
these directions, at the centre of the compass – i.e. “here”. Many
Aboriginal Peoples have terminology that describes the directions of
east and west that are based on the observations of the rising and
setting sun.
• The Torres Strait Islanders use stars to navigate, particularly the great
shark (Baidam) and the left hand of Tagai, Crux (the Southern Cross).
The gills of the shark point to North while the stars of Crux point to
the South.
Star map route to the Carnarvon Gorge.
Carnarvon Gorge and Bunya Mts star
maps overlaid on road map.
9. Astronomy Compass continued…
• A route from Goodooga to the Bunya
Mountains northwest of Brisbane, where an Aboriginal
Bunya nut festival was held every three years until
disrupted by European invasion. It turned out
the pattern of stars showed the “waypoints” on the
route. These waypoints were usually waterholes or
turning places on the landscape. These waypoints
were used in a very similar way to navigating with a
GPS, where waypoints are also used as stopping or
turning points.
• The pattern of stars (the “star map”) was used as a
memory aid in teaching the route and the waypoints
to the destination.
• A person who had travelled the intended route was
tasked with teaching others, who had not made this
journey, how to navigate to the intended destination.
Star map route to the Bunya Mountains.
10. Astronomy Compass continued…
• A route resulted in what is known as
a songline. A songline is a story that travels
over the landscape.
• There were many routes/songlines from
Goodooga to destinations as far as 700km
away, which might end up in a ceremonial
place, or possibly a trade “fair”.
• One such route to Quilpie, in Queensland, led
to a ceremonial place where Arrernte people
from north of Alice Springs met the Euahlayi
for joint ceremonies. Their route of travel was
more than 1,500km, crossing the Simpson
Desert in summer.
Star map route to the Carnarvon Gorge.
11. Astronomy Compass continued…
• The star map routes from Goodooga to the Bunya Mountains and Carnarvon
Gorge in Queensland. When the star map routes were overlaid over the
modern road map, there was a significant overlap with major roads in use
today.
• The first explorers in this region, such as Thomas Mitchell, who explored here
in 1845-1846, used Aboriginal guides and interpreters, who were likely given
directions by local Aboriginal people.
• These directions would no doubt reflect the easiest routes to traverse, and
these were probably routes already established as songlines. Drovers and
settlers coming into the region would have used the same routes, and
eventually these became tracks and finally highways. In a sense, the
Aboriginal people of Australia had a big part in the layout of the modern
Australian road network. And in some cases, such as the Kamilaroi Highway
running from the Hunter Valley to Bourke in NSW, this has been recognised in
the name.
12. Focus Questions:
Astronomy Compass (refer to slides 8-12):
• What is the connections between astronomy and land?
• Draw a compass which includes N, E, S, W. Then get a different coloured pen
and label the names of these point given by the indigenous group, the Warlpiri
people.
• What is a waypoint?
• What do you know about songlines?
• What is the importance of star maps? How would this be helpful to travellers?
13. Communicate
Stories
Share information of these patterns or star maps with the wider community by
creating a multimodal by sharing information on Canvas. Only write a post for
your assigned pattern.
Groups:
1. Southern Cross- elements of story and moral.
2. Emu- consider month, location of emu and what this tells us.
3. Baidam shark – compass directions and purpose of correlation to
constellation.
4. Scorpius- story of the constellation and what landmark features does it
match.
5. Orion- how is it connected to Baiame? and a story about a saucepan and
rain?
6. Pleiades, or Seven Sisters- elements of story and its significance.
These stories explain an understanding of how astronomy can assist them to live in harmony with the land by indicating the change of seasons, food availability, explaining tides, eclipses, and the rising and setting of the Sun and the Moon.
http://www.aboriginalastronomy.com.au/content/topics/starmaps/
Elaboration on the last point: On the Island of Mabuaig in the Torres Strait, gathering information about the appearance of stars has long been the responsibility of expert astronomers in the community. When the appearance of a star was expected the astronomers would rise early and watch the sky until daybreak, observing patterns in the appearance of the stars and constellations. The setting of stars was observed in the same way. Such observations and the information gathered over long periods of time led to detailed knowledge of these star patterns informing navigation among the Islands of the Torres Strait. European surveyors considered the Torres Strait to be a dangerous area to navigate and it was recorded that errors in navigation by the compass would result in wreckage. However, Torres Strait Islander Peoples used the patterns in the night sky to develop routes of safe passage through the Strait. For example, the warrior constellation of Tagai is important for navigation between the Islands. The Erubam Le People of Erub Island sail to Mer Island steering the vessel towards the left hand of Tagai. The constellation of Baidam (the Shark) and Tagai are used by Torres Strait Islander Peoples to orientate navigation to the north or south. The stars in these constellations provide a reference point on the horizon to orient navigation. The Peoples of the Torres Strait Islands have recorded information about phenomena in the night sky for millennia and continue to observe the sky to gather information today. The unbroken collection of observations of Torres Strait Islander Peoples has resulted in accumulated evidence that recognises the patterns in the night sky and how they can be used as positional markers to accurately navigate across land and water, including predicting weather conditions.
Elaboration on the first point: One example is a star map that provides a navigation route from parts of New South Wales to the Sunshine Coast region in Queensland. This map has long been used to navigate to the Bunya Gathering. North-west of Brisbane, the Bunya Mountains are of immense significance to the Traditional Owners of the lands, the Waka Waka, Barrungam, Jarowair and Djaku-nde Peoples. The Bunya pine of this region produces large pine cones containing highly nutritious seeds in a triennial seasonal pattern. For millennia, thousands of Aboriginal Peoples travelled great distances to attend the Bunya Gathering. Traditional Owners sent messengers to invite selected groups to attend this important seasonal ceremonial gathering when the nuts ripened and were ready for harvesting. Invited guests, using a star map to guide their route, travelled distances in excess of 700 kilometres, from areas as far as Muruwari and Kamilaroi Nations in New South Wales. The star map indicated turning points so that travellers could navigate to the gathering place in the Bunya Mountains. The star map is committed to memory and may be preserved in a songline. Wardaman Elder Bill Harney and astronomer Ray Norris describe songlines as “effectively oral maps of the landscape, enabling the transmission of oral navigational skills in cultures that do not have a written language”.
Elaboration on last dotpoint: Another example of a star map is one that has long been used by the Euahlayi Peoples in New South Wales that provides the navigation to a waterhole on the lands of the Maranganji Peoples near Quilpie in Queensland. This is another significant site for gatherings of Aboriginal Peoples from a wide area, including the Arrernte Peoples of the Central Desert region, who travel vast distances to this site. The star map of the Euahlayi Peoples provides several waypoints connected to the position of the stars that facilitated navigation to the meeting place. The presence of many Aboriginal groups at such a meeting place suggests that Aboriginal groups had their own star maps that provided ways of navigating to the location. A complex network of trade routes transverses Australia over long distances and has long been used to exchange resources of significance or those that may have been unavailable in particular geographical regions. Some trade routes were memorised and incorporated into songlines aligned with patterns in the night sky.
Other parallels: e.g. the star map from Goodooga in Kamilaroi Country in New South Wales to the Bunya Mountains in Waka Waka Country in Queensland overlaps with today’s Carnarvon and Warrego Highways. Euahlayi Elder Ghillar Michael Anderson continues to educate people about pathways, such as the Warrego, that connected communities prior to colonisation, and that these pathways are founded on navigational star maps.
