Native Skies
Eight Kiowa children — seven sisters and one brother — were playing in the forests and grasslands at the edge of the Black Hills, when the boy was struck by powerful magic. He was transformed into a bear and began to chase his frightened sisters. A tree called to them, and when they climbed in its branches, it grew to an enormous size. The angry bear scratched and clawed at the tree, gouging deep grooves in its bark. But the sisters were borne into safety in the sky, where they became the stars of the Big Dipper. Each night, they look down upon the petrified remnant of the tree that saved them — the Bear’s Lodge, a massive stone tower at the edge of the Black Hills in Wyoming.
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| The Bear's Lodge, a tower of volcanic rock also known as Devil's Tower, glows in the last rays of the setting sun. |
Long before Europeans landed on American shores, people native to North America were watching the heavens. They tracked the motions of the Sun to help them decide when to plant crops, move their camps, or stage sacred rituals. They drew constellations among the patterns of bright stars. They crafted explanations for meteor showers and the northern lights, and saw a pathway to the afterlife in the Milky Way.
Some tribes built great circles of stones to help them predict the changing seasons. Others built great ceremonial centers in alignment with the Sun and stars. And still others built great mounds of earth to reflect the patterns they saw in the heavens.
All of these activities were attempts to build order into the heavens as well as their daily lives. They reflected a close bond between the people and their environment — in the sky and on the ground. And they reflected an even closer bond between the secular and the sacred: The Sun, Moon, and stars were not just physical objects following well-defined paths across the sky, they were gifts from the gods. They told the people where they came from, where they were going, and how to live their lives.
Yet much American Indian astronomy has been lost. Stories of creation and cosmic order were passed along through oral traditions that stretched across centuries. But during much of the 19th and 20th centuries, native religions and storytelling were discouraged or even banned. As a result, some tribes lost their traditions completely. Others maintained their rituals and sky knowledge in secret, and are beginning to reclaim them.
The Lakota of the Great Plains, for example, have reestablished a tradition they say may have started 2,000 years ago — a journey of renewal that takes them across the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. The journey begins at the spring equinox in March — the beginning of the Lakota year — and ends at the summer solstice in June. It passes several sacred sites in the Black Hills, all of which are mirrored in the stars.
“What is happening in the universe is happening here on earth,” explains Dwayne Hollow Horn Bear, a Lakota Studies instructor at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Reservation in Mission, South Dakota. “These constellations, they mirror and they line up with pinpoints, places on earth, so when the Sun goes into that constellation, our people know when, where, and what particular ceremony we are to be doing in the Black Hills, when the Sun comes into that constellation. So following the equinoxes and the solstices and the constellations, it helped to govern our lives, and this is how we existed.”
The Black Hills are represented in the stars as the constellation Ki Inyanka Ocanku, The Race Track, an oval of stars that mirrors the geographic outline of the Black Hills. The Race Track is similar to the Winter Circle, a large ring that incorporates some of the most prominent stars in the sky, including Sirius, the night sky’s brightest star, and the Pleiades star cluster. According to Lakota tradition, two-legged and four-legged creatures raced around this track to decide the fate of humankind. The two-leggeds won, assuring humans of a place on Earth. The spring journey corresponded with the Sun’s “entry” into the constellations representing specific sites in the Black Hills.
It began when the Sun entered the Lakota constellation Cansasa Ipusye, the Dried Willow, which includes stars of modern-day Aries and Triangulum. The journey continued past Harney Peak, the tallest point in the Black Hills, which was represented in the stars as the Seven Little Girls — today’s Pleiades star cluster. The journey culminated at Mato Tipi La Paha, the Bear’s Lodge, which is represented by the stars of Gemini. Sun Dance ceremonies there affirmed the connection between the people and the sky and celebrated the completion of one full circle of life and the beginning of another.
Today, the Sun doesn’t quite match up with these constellations. It doesn’t enter Dried Willow until April, several weeks after the spring equinox. The difference is caused by an effect known as precession, which causes Earth to wobble on its axis like a spinning top. It completes one full wobble every 26,000 years. During that time our perspective on the Sun and planets changes, so from year to year the Sun moves eastward against the constellations of the zodiac.
Lakota scholars have traced the Sun’s path backwards until it matched the timing of the spring journey. Although the Lakota entered the Plains from the east coast only a few hundred years ago, oral tradition says they had lived near the Black Hills centuries earlier. Lakota research shows that the first spring journey took place at least 2,000 years ago and perhaps much earlier. So modern astronomy, through its understanding of the Sun’s motion across the sky, may help affirm Lakota oral traditions and an ancient connection to the stars.
