Gisela Ermel
extraterrestrial visitors and their star map
In: Legendary Times, No. 5, Beatenberg 2001
The Skidi are one of the many Pawnee tribes in historical times, the grass prairies and plains of Kansas and Nebraska inhabited. Amidst the surrounding Sioux, Oto, Omaha, Cheyenne and Arapaho were the Pawnee is the only known as the Caddo peoples, but it is not what it so unique makes.
religion of the stars
The Indian people were obsessed with the stars, especially the group of Skidi that are used by the anthropologists now often referred to as the astronomers among the Pawnee. These Indians practiced a pronounced Stellarreligion, star cult, the kind you find in any other tribe in North America. Not only their religion, even their social and political life revolved around a number of specific stars and constellations. The fact that the position of the stars in the recent past into the tribal life exercised a controlling influence, suggests that we are dealing with to do the traces of an ancient cult and have rooted. For many meanings of the individual stars and the exact positions in the sky have already been lost when the Europeans began to penetrate into the Pawnee tribal area, and long before anthropologists began to be interested in these stellar religion.
to fully understand the religion of the star Skidi it is essential to have a look in their mythology:
were once high god Tirawa prepare the contract to different star system, Earth and Sun for colonization by organisms. Morning and evening star played leading roles in these tasks, at the conclusion of a human girl in a "cloud" is set and the Earth has been sent. The girl was given corn seeds from the heavenly garden in the west of the universe, they should be planted on the ground. Later
was a boy - a son of the sun and moon - also sent to Earth. Of these two, of which the Pawnee believe originate from the earth people.
The basic idea of Skidi-idea that the first humans herstammten from the sky, is also many other nations around the globe known.
The first people began to multiply. One day they discovered that besides them was still another previously unknown group of people who also claimed to owe their existence star beings.
learned in a dream vision of the first man who was the son of the sun and moon have been sent to earth: These are the creatures of other star gods, from whom he also entrusted to different seeds. Both groups were to gather now, all residents should be invited to their star gods, they had already been informed about it, and then will be a large and comprehensive ceremony held, which will last for many days, and during the Tirawas creation of heaven and earth, people and animals should be replayed. Again, this ceremony serves to teach people the individual positions of stars and star gods in heaven to show them how their settlements after the positions of specific stars in the sky would be created.
This ceremony took place in the ancient time, when there was a direct connection between heaven and earth, the Pawnee.
Until the time into it than we deported the Pawnee to Oklahoma (1886), all Skidi villages were at positions that correspond to specific stars in the sky. Each village had its own star, a star belonging this "sacred bundles" and their own rituals that they do receive from their star God. There were four settlements Leitdörfer that the stars of the four Weltallquadranten represented. In the West, was the evening star village and other settlements, with a membership of stars whose Identification to date is unclear, because many of the old place names were lost forever.
for a historic North American Indian people, it is absolutely unique that the locality was given all the settlements of astronomical rules: on the position of certain stars. A Pawnee myth says that once nature of these stars came down to earth. They put their whereabouts due to the arrangement of "their" star in the sky, and in the recent past has been imitated into this order by the Skidi meticulously. Archaeological research has shown that it was probably 18 settlements, of which at a later date, the four Leitdörfer merged to a settlement: Old Village.
input into the dugout Skidi Indians
was the star of the cult Skidi also in the construction of their dugouts. No part of these buildings had no astronomical terms. The entrance into the dwelling imitating the rising of the sun - on a strictly east-west orientation of the cabin. The round dome represented the starry sky, and each post represented a particular star, etc.
dugout on the Skidi Lower Loup, photo from 1871
prehistoric astronomers
The Skidi-earth house provided it were a universe is in the universe, as it were a miniature of the great world. At the same time each of these huts served as a simple observatory. Sky observations could be made both through the entrance and through the smoke hole in the center of the dome.
Skidi priest at the Star Gazing through the smoke hole of a dug-a Skidi placed at various locations within the house, so he could observe certain astronomical objects. The main task of the priests was to determine the position of certain stars and to observe its first rising after sunset or before dawn. This served not only to determine the times for religious ceremonies, but also mundane things such as planting, hunting and harvesting times.
The star gazing was in the Skidi cabins for daily routine. Each day began and ended with the sky observation. Early descriptions of settlements show that the huts were grouped so that they may be the observation of various celestial objects were previous. There was "holy bundle" special stars, and it may be assumed that preference was observed in these huts the associated stars.
Not only oral tradition and archaeological evidence, as presented by Waldo Wedel confirm Point by point the astronomical world view of the Indians. Mud huts from the time when settled on the Lower Loup Skidi (1550), the star symbols show much clearer than mud huts from the 19th Century. During excavations funded the archaeological team revealed Weltallquadrant four-post and set properly the onetime orientation of these huts with the opening set to the east.
The anthropologist Melvin Gilmore wrote in 1930 that the Arikara very similar huts and villages would have had the same symbolism. It may be concluded with great certainty that these cosmic order of settlements and individual houses is very old, for the Arikara - also known as Missouri-Pawnee - Split very early from the Pawnee to continue to move to the north.
mystery surrounding a star map
received 1906 the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, a strange and mysterious artifact: an oval piece of deerskin, painted with numerous four-rayed stars and dots in various sizes. This is now a unique sky map identified object was owned by James R. Murie, a Skidi half-blood with a Scottish father and Skidi-mother (1862 - 1923) who, though grown up among the whites, then worked in a bank, but later working for the Bureau of American Ethnology was.
The star map of the Skidi Indians Murie, who had begun to care for his American Indian heritage, religion and mythology, especially the Skidi visited again these Indians could be present at ceremonies and then learned of the Skidi Lone Chief, that give it a star-painted animal skin. Murie was able to win the confidence of the Skidi, and she willingly showed the "sacred bundle" has been kept in the Others, those star map. For the love of his great interest in their culture and with the ulterior motive of this to preserve important cult object for future generations, is selling Skidi the entire "Big Black Meteoric Star Bundle at Murie along with star chart, and Murie were all on to the Field Museum.
What we know about this star map? First, it is a piece of elk-deer-skin, about 56 x 38 cm. Painted on the former hair side, there are stars and star clusters of different sizes. The age of the star map is unclear, but it was probably in the 16th Century marked and stored in a "sacred bundle" together with a supposed meteorite and other items.
The Skidi Running Scout told Murie on the origin of the star card is a very interesting myth:
Once Big Black Meteoric went to star a young Pawnee on the ground and took him up into the sky to a place where a "star" hovering. After returning to Earth, the young Indians dreamed one night that the star beings gave him an object on a particular hill and woman gave knowledge to seek this and to get. The next day the young Pawnee went to the hill and found a bundle, which contained a brass disc and the star map.
over the ownership of this sacred artifact Murie learned: Every year we have held in the spring and fall, a race from a dug-out to the River. The fastest racer got the card, and the whole event was a "big washing ceremony."
The state of the star map on arrival at the Field Museum did in fact close to erstwhile good use. Christine Danziger, curator in the department of anthropology of the museum left, tiny samples collected from the surface to be analyzed, the color pigments. The result: all three colors - red, black and yellow - were mineral origin. The animal skin was found to be tanned on Indian fashion. Which - though still not perfectly certain - advanced age of the map showed that it was made without any influence from Europeans.
shows what this card? You can see pictures of her eleven stars, two double stars, star clusters and the Milky Way, which stretches like a ribbon through the center of the map. There have been several attempts to identify stars and constellations. Some of the star groups roughly correspond with reality, others are obviously the wrong way back to the Milky Way. Some constellations contain more stars than you can see with the naked eye! To date, the identification of these constellations and individual stars is still controversial. The four-stars Weltallquadranten - White Star, Yellow Star, Red Star and Black Star - you tap on stars like Sirius, Capella, Antares, Deneb, but also Spika, Aldebaran oderRegulus. Their identity is lost apparently. Consensus among astronomers that dealt with the card, just across the North star, which they unanimously identified as the North Star. But even with the south, there is no agreement. Under discussion are Deneb and Sirius.
excerpts from the sky map of the Skidi Indians is completely confusing it with the morning star and the evening star, the two main stars of the Skidi religion. You should know that the term evening - or morning star probably only arose when the Pawnee increasingly influenced by the whites (and overwhelmed) were. The Skidi-term is bright star and Big Star. Have the astronomers, and anthropologists at the Evening Star agreed provisionally to the planet Venus, so did the identification of the Morning Star unexpected difficulties. Time was taken Mars, Venus once on the short list, even Jupiter did not seem outlandish. The data could bring the information documented in writing Morgenstern victims?
bloody rituals
The Morning Star (Skidi: Grosser Stern, u-pirikucu) required now and then a human sacrifice in return for the first girl he had sent to Earth. The victim did not take place at regular intervals, but whenever a warrior was the morning star appeared in a dream and this ceremony "commissioned" had. From that point on, took the event to be required since ancient times over: View of the priest, first little rites, preparing the costumes, the opening of the morning star bundle, incense, training of volunteers by the priest, the train of some warrior in enemy territory, a to rape victims as suitable girl, the return and surrender the girl to a particular Warriors.
Now came the time to wait - days, weeks or months - until the priest noted that the morning star had appeared in the sky and then ask his victim. The infallible sign of the priest, that the "real" star appeared in the morning sky: a kind of red ring around it and a strikingly red radiation, a property that has prepared for today's astronomers big headache.
now follows the four days of the real victims ceremony: the visionary disguised himself as a morning star, he and the girl got her hair red color, symbolic of the red color of the star, was a wooden structure built and set up, kindled at some distance in a trough the fire and dug a small pit next to the skeleton, which was to be the beautiful garden in the western sky of origin of all our grain.
On the last morning the girl was asked to ascend the cross bars of wood Equipped, thereby simulating the passage through the different regions of the sky, to the morning star.
Morgenstern Skidi victims of the Indians. Diorama in Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago The whole crowd was always aware that the Star Beings benevolently from above looked down and registered what was happening down here on our planet. As soon as the morning star was rising, performed an arrow shot at the girl the deadly act, and the Morning Star ritual was over.
Since several of these human sacrifices could be reconstructed exactly on the year were, for the identification of the Morning Star some dates available:
- In 1816 there was a girl was captured by the spring of 1817 after well prepared to sacrifice ceremony. As the girl had already climbed the wooden frame, stormed the Pawnee Pi-tari-su-ru approach, it saved at the last minute before the deadly arrow shot, and disappeared with him high on a horse's back. This good - or inexcusable - indeed, depending on your view, made the Indians famous. but not so quickly gave Skidi. Man caught a English boy who prepared him for the sacrifice - but in vain, he could escape. In June 1818 he reached his countrymen and made headlines in the press.
Pi-tari-sa-ru - 1827: This time was a young Cheyenne girl had been captured and was to be sacrificed. On 11 April, just the "right time", appeared happens to be the Indian agent John Dougherty and his companions in the village - the four-day event was already in full swing - and he managed to persuade the chief and other influential personalities of the village to free the girl. But when it was led from the village, the Arrow is one of the ceremony participants met fatal, the Morning Star sacrifice was completed, albeit at irregular manner.
- On 22 April of 1838 was offered an Oglala Sioux girls the morning star.
- Several other witnesses may have taken place without the knowledge of them were whites. After 1838 were then probably only bloodless Morgenstern victims take place, in the years 1902, 1905 and 1915. In the year 1905 by a group of Pawnee Indians built a dugout one last time for old rules to hold ceremonies. In the ensuing ceremony, after the rising of the morning star, the others were told in a song, that now he could bring no human victims.
Great was the surprise of astronomers, and anthropologists, as it turned out that among the known times times Venus, Mars once had stood as a morning star in the sky.
It's hard to believe that the Pawnee-priests, to continuously watch the bright celestial objects, knew nothing about it to have that time as the morning star Venus, now stands as an evening star in the sky. The same appearance, the change from morning to evening sky and the fact that this star has never been seen together in both places, should have suggested at least that her evening star part of his life spent in the morning sky. Conversations with an ethnologist Skidi Indians in 1906 showed that this like this but had no idea.
The astronomer from Del Chamberlain suggested that the priest after the in-order-type of the victim by the dream apparition of a star system are so long watched the sky until a suitable morning star in the sky, and could then either Venus or be Mars. Once he appeared, he played his role as the morning star for the ceremony. In some cases - back-calculated astronomical - even Jupiter appeared to have played this role. Which star or celestial object which was the original Morgenstern of the ceremony, can not be determined today.
What if the original celestial object was not a star? Remember the myth, the reports that once a Pawnee Indians was taken to a floating in the sky "star" and then back to Earth. Other myths tell of this particular "star" and mention a red ring - which does not seem to match the stars we know and identify for today's astronomers as hard power.
Further exploration of the Skidi-sky map - until now at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago found - in connection with the Pawnee traditions about the stars and star clusters may have some surprises ready. It is a pity that so much information, so much knowledge, so many star names were lost, but the data that have been preserved to this day have still plenty of material for further speculation and evidence.
The victims of the morning star Skidi is unique among North American Indian peoples. Some anthropologists see this as a parallel to the Aztecs, who also an arrow victim to a wooden scaffold was communicated prior to a temple with a "holy bundle. Where did the Pawnee and the Caddo peoples originated, is still unknown, but some anthropologists and archaeologists suspect that they came from the south, perhaps from Mexico and Texas and Louisiana to Nebraska and Kansas walked out the Pawnee in 15. Century were representative of the Plains Indians.
Unknown is also the answer to the interesting, especially for the Paleo-SETI-research question about the reason for the strictly astronomical alignment of their settlements. Should be here for the generations passed and get some knowledge? Knowledge of a specific location at the "sky" or in space? Was also the star chart with her still-unexplained deviations from today's stars?
was able even Ralph Buckstaff, who tried in 1927 as the first, to identify the stars of the card, not explain why some stars were in correct positions but not others. His conjecture about "artistic problems of the artist" does not have to agree. Who knows what kind of message in the card can be found if an unprejudiced astronomer who also takes the Skidi myths seriously, would deal with it. is
In the Paleo-SETI-long research known to have been transmitted in other countries and cultures astronomical data in buildings or ceremonies. The Skidi had a good reason to concentrate their settlements astronomical and knew that they were to the earth by the visiting star beings have been guided. Let us hope that the archaeologists can reconstruct the onetime location of the Skidi settlements, which until now could only partially, and that they will give us information about some of our questions.
Literature:
Buckstaff, R.: Stars and Constellations of a Pawnee Sky Map. In. Amerian Anthropologist, 19, Washington 1927
Chamberlain, Von Del: When Stars Came to Earth. Los Altos 1982
Dorsey, G.A.: Traditions of the Skidi Pawnee. Boston, New York 1904
Dorsey, G.A.: The Pawnee: Mythology. Washington, D.C., 1906
Gilmore, M.R.: The Arikara Tribal Temple. Papers of the Michigan Adacemy of Science, Arts and Letters, 14, Ann Arbor 1930
Fletcher, A.C.: Starcult among the Pawnee. In. American Anthropologist, 4, Washington 1981
Fletcher, A.C.: Pawnee Star Lore. In: Journal of American Folk Lore. 16, 1903
Murie, J.R.: The Ceremonies of the Pawnee. Washington, D.C., 1981
Schoolcraft, HR: Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol 5, 1855 Philadelphia
Schroeter, W.: Religion and mythology of the Pawnee. Wyk 1994
Wedel, W.: An Introduction to Pawnee Archaeology. Washington, DC, 1936
Well Fish, Gene: The Lost Universe. 1977 Lincoln
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