Related papers: Eclipses in Australian Aboriginal Astronomy
The traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant astronomical component, which is usually reported in terms of songs or stories associated with stars and constellations. Here we argue that the astronomical components…
We present 25 accounts of comets from 40 Australian Aboriginal communities, citing both supernatural perceptions of comets and historical accounts of bright comets. Historical and ethnographic descriptions include the Great Comets of 1843,…
Studies in Australian Indigenous astronomical knowledge reveal few accounts of the visible planets in the sky. However, what information we do have tells us that Aboriginal people were close observers of planets and their motions, noting…
The traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant astronomical component, perpetuated through oral tradition, ceremony, and art. This astronomical component includes a deep understanding of the motion of objects in…
Of the hundreds of distinct Aboriginal cultures of Australia, many have oral traditions rich in descriptions and explanations of comets, meteors, meteorites, airbursts, impact events, and impact craters. These views generally attribute…
Transient celestial phenomena feature prominently in the astronomical knowledge and traditions of Aboriginal Australians. In this paper, I collect accounts of the Aurora Australis from the literature regarding Aboriginal culture. Using…
The traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant astronomical component, perpetuated through oral tradition, ceremony, and art. This astronomical knowledge includes a deep understanding of the motion of objects in…
The oral traditions of Aboriginal cultures across Australia contain references to the presence of multiple Suns in the sky at the same time. Explanations of this have been largely regarded as symbolic or mythological, rather than…
Just one generation ago, schoolkids were taught that Aboriginal people couldn't count beyond five, wandered the desert scavenging for food, had no civilization or religion, had no agriculture, couldn't navigate, didn't build houses, and…
Parts of Australia have been privileged to see dazzling lights in the night sky as the Aurora Australis (known as the southern lights) puts on a show this year. Aurorae are significant in Australian Indigenous astronomical traditions.…
For more than 50,000 years, Indigenous Australians have incorporated celestial events into their oral traditions and used the motions of celestial bodies for navigation, time-keeping, food economics, and social structure. In this paper, we…
The search of a rational explanation of eclipses pervades the beginnings of philosophical and scientific thought. Within this intellectual frame, the knowledge of the "saros cycle" (a cycle of 18 years, 10 or 11 days and 1/3 of a day that…
A long-lasting belief is that the gravitational stress by the moon would be responsible for earthquakes because of causing a tidal deformation of Earth's crust. Even worse, earthquakes are sometimes said to be correlated with eclipses. We…
Traditional Aboriginal Australian cultures include a significant astronomical component, perpetuated through oral tradition and ceremony. This knowledge has practical navigational and calendrical functions, and sometimes extends to a deep…
The canopy of stars is a central presence in the daily and spiritual lives of Aboriginal Tasmanians. With the arrival of European colonists, Tasmanian astronomical knowledge and traditions were interrupted and dispersed. Fragments can be…
Descriptions of cosmic impacts and meteorite falls are found throughout Australian Aboriginal oral traditions. In some cases, these texts describe the impact event in detail, sometimes citing the location, suggesting that the events were…
We review the literature for perceptions of meteors in the Maori cultures of New Zealand. We examine representations of meteors in religion, story, and ceremony. We find that meteors are sometimes personified as gods or children, or are…
A major focus of the archaeoastronomical research conducted around the world focuses on understanding how ancient cultures observed sunrise and sunset points along the horizon, particularly at the solstices and equinoxes. Scholars argue…
A dozen of high-magnitude solar eclipses accumulated near New Zealand in the 15th century AD when the Maori inhabited the two main islands. Taking today's capital Wellington as the point of reference, we counted ten events with magnitude…
A model based on celestial geometry and atmospheric physics predicts the dimming and the color of lunar eclipses. Corresponding visual magnitudes and color indices for eclipses from year 2000 through 2050 are listed. The enlargement of the…