[meteorite-list] Meteors and the Native Americans

From: E.L.Jones <jonee_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:41:10 2004
Message-ID: <3A893E27.7134643B_at_epix.net>

Link
<http://www.maa.mhn.de/Comet/metlegends.html>
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Meteors and the Native Americans

By Gary W. Kronk

              For decades astronomers have reaped the values of written
records kept for over 2500 years in China and
Europe. Eclipses, planets, and comets are mentioned and have brought
about refinements to our current
understanding of the long-term motion of these bodies?especially for
comets such as Halley and Swift-Tuttle.
Several meteor showers have also been identified which brought about a
better understanding of their evolution as
well.
              No other culture can provide comparable information as
that gathered from the Chinese and European
records, but this need not be a deterrent from learning about how other
cultures felt about these moving bodies in
the sky and one of the richest regions of meteor and comet lore in the
world is North America.
              During the last 15 to 20 years, archeoastronomy has
uncovered much concerning the astronomical beliefs
of native Americans. Unfortunately, the methods of keeping records of
astronomical events were not as straight
forward as those of the Chinese and Europeans, as there are no books
lying around. Instead, the methods of
record keeping included rock and cave drawings, stick notching,
beadwork, pictures on animal skins and jars, and
story telling?most of which are not dateable.
One of the few dateable events among the various records of native
Americans was the 1833 appearance of the
Leonid meteor shower. Historically recognized as one of the greatest
meteor storms on record, it made a lasting
impression among the peoples of North America.
              The most obvious accounts of the Leonid storm appear among
the various bands of the Sioux of the
North American plains. The Sioux kept records called "winter counts,"
which were a chronological, pictographic
account of each year painted on animal skin. In 1984, Von Del
Chamberlain (Smithsonian Institution) listed the
astronomical references for 50 Sioux winter counts, of which 45 plainly
referred to an intense meteor shower
during 1833/1834. In addition, he listed 19 winter counts kept by other
plains Indian tribes, of which 14
obviously referred to the Leonid storm.
              The Leonids also appear among the Maricopa, who used
calendar sticks with notches to represent the
passage of a year, with the owner remembering the events. The owner of
one stick claimed records had been kept
that way "since the stars fell." The first notch on his stick
represented 1833.
              Story telling was a very important method of record
keeping among most native Americans and several
seem to have been influenced by the Leonids of 1833. A member of the
Papago, named Kutox, was born around
1847 or 1848. He claimed that 14 years prior to his birth "the stars
rained all over the sky."
              A less obvious Leonid reference may exist in the journal
kept by Alexander M. Stephen, which detailed
his visit with the Hopi Indians and mentions a talk he had with Old
Djasjini on December 11, 1892. That Hopi
Indian said "How old am I? Fifty, maybe a hundred years, I can not tell.
When I was a boy of so big (eight or ten
years) there was a great comet in the sky and at night all the above was
full of shooting stars?ah! that was a very
long time ago, maybe a hundred years, maybe more." During the probable
lifetime of Old Djasjini there was never
a "great comet" and a sky full of meteors in the same year, but he might
be referring to two separate events such as
the sungrazing comet 1843 I and the great Leonid storm of 1833, both of
which occurred early in his life.
              The Pawnee have a story about a person known as
Pahokatawa, who was supposedly killed by an enemy
and eaten by animals, but then brought back to life by the gods. He was
said to have come to Earth as a meteor
and told the people that when meteors were seen falling in great numbers
it was not a sign that the world would
end. When the Pawnee tribe witnessed the time "the stars fell upon the
earth," which was in 1833, there was a
panic, but the leader of the tribe spoke up and said, "Remember the
words of Pahokatawa" and the people were no
longer afraid.
              Although the Pawnee learned not to be afraid, there were
native Americans who feared meteors. Why
such beliefs came about is almost impossible to guess, but some of the
best examples are as follows:

              The Blackfeet of Montana believed a meteor was a sign that
sickness would come to the tribe in the
              coming winter, or that a great chief had just died.
              The Kawaiisu (California) thought a meteor that started
high and fell to the horizon was an omen of
              sickness and death.
              The Cahuilla thought a meteor was the spirit of their
first shaman, Takwich, who was disliked by his
              people. Takwich was said to wander the skies at night
looking for people far from their tribe. When
              someone was found, he stole their spirit, and sometimes
even the person, took them back to his home and
              ate them.
              The Shawnee believed meteors were beings "fleeing from the
wrath of some adversary, or from some
              anticipated danger."


              There were other beliefs which generally did not strike
fear into the hearts of native Americans. Some of
these are as follows:

              The Wintu (northern California) explained meteors as the
spirits of shamans traveling to the afterlife.
              The Chumash (California) referred to meteors as
Alakiwohoch, which simply meant "shooting star."
              They believed a meteor was a person's soul on its way to
the afterlife.
              The Luiseņo (California) believed they were merely stars
which suddenly moved.
              The Eastern Pomo (North Central California) thought
meteors were fire dropping from heaven.


              Interestingly, one of the most widely accepted beliefs was
that meteors were the feces of stars. Such lore
existed in the stories of the Nunamiut Eskimos, the Koasati of Louisiana
(formerly located in Tennessee), and
numerous southern California tribes. A slight variation of this came
from the Kiliwa (Baja California) who believe
meteors were the fiery urine of the constellation Xsmii [Xsmii has not
been defined?GWK].
              Many of the beliefs mentioned above are also attributed to
comets, and most story telling seems to rarely
provide conclusive evidence that the object being discussed is indeed a
meteor. Because of this a very interesting
story is being included which originates from the Great Lakes region.
              The Ojibwa of the upper Great Lakes region had a story
about Genondahwayanung, which meant "Long
Tailed Heavenly Climbing Star." During the 1980's, Thor Conway visited
the Ojibwa and talked to Fred Pine, an
Ojibwa shaman. Pine's story about the creation notes that
Genondahwayanung was a star with a long, wide tail
which would return and destroy the world someday. He said, "It came down
here once, thousands of years ago.
Just like a sun. It had radiation and burning heat in its tail." The
comet was said to have scorched the earth so that
nothing was left, except the native americans, who were warned ahead of
time by Chimanitou, a Holy Spirit, and
had gone to a bog and rolled themselves up in the mud to protect
themselves from the heat. Pine continued, "It
was just so hot that everything, even the stones, were cooked. The giant
animals were killed off. You can find
their bones today in the earth. It is said that the comet came down and
spread his tail for miles and miles."
Thereafter, all comet and meteors were treated as serious omens which
required the interpretation of the Ojibwa
shamans.
              There are other stories of a great fire coming from the
sky and destroying everything except for certain
native american tribes. In some cases the tribes claimed they were
warned, while others claimed they just ran for
the nearest bodies of water.
              Another form of record keeping were rock petroglyphs, or
pictures carved into rock. The western United
States abounds with these pictures, but any dating is virtually
impossible. Once again it is frequently difficult to
determine whether the object carefully carved into rock is a meteor or a
comet.
              One rock drawing frequently debated as to its exact
depiction was produced by the Ventureņo tribelet of
the Chumash at Burro Flats. A pair of disks with long tails are located
on the wall of a cave and have been
interpreted by Travis Hudson and Ernest Underhay (1978) as portraits of
a comet "seen over an interval of a few
days or weeks." On the other hand, E. C. Krupp (1983) has pointed out
that "the images have a dynamic
appearance that suggests rapid movement and change. If they are
celestial at all, I would associate them with
meteors, and, in particular, with the especially bright and dramatic
type known as fireballs."
              The most common petroglyphs depict a circle with a wiggly
line emanating from it. Various archealogists
have interpreted these as meteors, comets, and even snakes.
              Another form of record keeping appears in the form of
pottery art. Although there are not many examples
of this, the Field Museum in Chicago contains Hopi jar (designated
number 66760) with a very striking scene
depicted. Brought to the museum during the 1890s, the jar depicts
mountains, above which are stars and three
objects falling towards the ground. Although the scene seems to imply
meteors, it is not certain whether it is a
shower or a spectacular meteor that broke up as it fell. According to
William Grewe-Mullins at the Field Museum,
the notes on this jar indicate it was found near Oraibi, Arizona, and
was of recent origin. He ventured to guess that
the jar might have been made sometime during the 1850s to 1890s. It
might be possible that this jar depicts the
Leonid storm of 1833, although it seems difficult to imagine the Hopi
would have still been impressed so much by
the storm 2 to 5 decades after the event. On the other hand, it could be
a painting of one of two other storms which
were observed in various parts of the world in 1872 and 1884, although
none of the winter counts mentioned
earlier seem to have noted these.
              Some native Americans seem to have realized that some
meteors can reach the ground. Among the
Menomini of the Great Lakes region is the following legend:

                           When a star falls from the sky
                           It leaves a fiery trail. It does not die.
                           Its shade goes back to its own place to shine
again.
                           The Indians sometimes find the small stars
                           where they have fallen in the grass.

The Nunamiut Eskimos also found meteorites, but believed they came from
thunderstorms.

Sources:

              Dorsey, George A., The Pawnee Mythology. Washington, D.C.:
Carnegie Institute (1906), pp. 61-62;
              Hooper, Lucile, The Cahuilla Indians. Berkeley: University
of California Press (1920), pp. 364-365;
              McClintock, Walter, Old Indian Trails. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company (1923), p. 239;
              Loeb, Edwin M., Pomo Folkways. Berkeley: University of
California Press (1926), p. 229;
              Spier, Leslie, Yuman Tribes of the Gila River. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press (1933), pp.
              138-139;
              Gayton, A. H., Yokuts and Western Mono Ethnography.
Berkeley: University of California Press
              (1948), pp. 162 &
              229; Gubser, Nicholas J., The Nunamiut Eskimos: Hunters of
Caribou. New Haven: Yale University
              Press (1965), p. 196;
              Stephen, Alexander M., Hopi Journal. New York: AMS Press,
Inc. (1969), pp. 1016-1017;
              Hudson, Travis, and Underhay, Ernest, Crystals in the Sky:
An Intellectual Odyssey Involving Chumash
              Astronomy, Cosmology, and Rock Art. New Mexico: Ballena
Press (1978), pp. 96-97;
              Krupp, E. C., In Search of Ancient Astronomies. New York:
Doubleday & Company, Inc. (1978), p.
              141;
              Howard, James H., Shawnee!. Ohio: Ohio University Press
(1981), pp. 178-179;
              Krupp, E. C., "Emblems in the Sky," Ancient Images on
Stone. Compiled and Edited by Jo Anne Van
              Tilburg, Los Angeles: University of California (1983), pp.
38-43;
              Chamberlain, Von Del, "Astronomical Context of North
American Plains Indian Calendars," Journal for
              the History of Astronomy, 15 (1984), pp. S1-S54;
              Hudson, Travis, "California's First Astronomers,"
Archaeoastronomy and the Roots of Science. Edited
              by E. C. Krupp, Colorado: Westview Press, Inc. (1984), pp.
39-41;
              Trenary, Carlos, "Universal Meteor Metaphors and Their
Occurrence in Mesoamerican Astronomy,"
              Archaeoastronomy, 10 (1987-1988), pp. 99-116;
              Conway, Thor, "The Conjurer's Lodge: Celestial Narratives
from Algonkian Shamans," edited by Ray
              A. Williamson and Claire R. Farrer, Earth & Sky.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press
              (1992), pp. 240-248;
              Grewe-Mullins, William, Personal Communication (August 31,
1993).
Received on Tue 13 Feb 2001 09:02:00 AM PST