Searching the heavens for meaning and to determine one’s place in the universe is as old as humanity itself. Every civilisation has its creation stories, legends and mythologies that explain how a people came to be where they are and why they are there.
Often the explanations are found in whole or in part in the heavens above and in the movement of the stars. The sky is never still, explained astronomer and star enthusiast John Field, whose passion is the sky but has a daytime job in IT security.
John started his professional life as a geologist, but quickly moved to the sky which he saw as a story book. “The sky is the why of what’s happening.”
He told the club about the movement of planets across the sky, of how Jupiter, Jove, and Tane Mahuta were all just different names for the big star which Greeks, Romans and Maori respectively had seen as the chief of the gods. Astronomical explanations are irreducibly pagan in origin.
The rise of Sirius, the winter star, marked the start of the calendar year for the ancient Egyptians, while the stones of Stonehenge are arranged to match the rise and setting of the sun in the various solstices.
The stars were widely used in navigation John said. Polynesian peoples who came out of Asia about six thousand years ago moved around the islands of the Pacific using tides and trade winds. Those tides and trade winds brought them to New Zealand about 1250 BC but kept them away from Australia.
Using other signs like bird migration and ocean swells were also helpful to the ancient navigators.
The twelve months of the Polynesian lunar calendar were each marked for different activities, which might well vary according to location and occur in different form. John cited two harvests of kumara being possible in the north island, but only one in the south. Likewise, storage above ground was preferred in wet climates, but burying vegetables was possible in drier conditions. The position of the stars gave our ancestors the celestial clues they needed.
John Bishop
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