“The exchange of knowledge on stars and planets between elders and their youth is an example to us all”, writes archeoastronomer Duane Hamacher. This informative 250 page book could be a lesson to all of us. We might recognise Venus and The Southern Cross. We might even have been lucky enough to view the night sky far from city lights and see the Milky Way in its glorious splendour. But do we know that if you rise just before dawn and see a particular planet twinkling it means the weather is about to change? And, yes… some planets do scintillate, i.e. twinkle.
Associate Professor of Cultural Astronomy at the University of Melbourne, Dr. Duane Hamacher, has been working with Aboriginal elders to reconstruct their knowledge of the stars and planets. The important point of archeoastronomers’ work is that unlike Stonehenge and Giza, the local Aboriginal community remember something of the original stories connected with this and other sites. This is the real value of Hamacher’s work – his connection with the elders, particularly Ghillar Michael Anderson (Euahlayi Nation, NSW), Ron Day, Segar Passi, Alo Tapim, John Barsa and David Bosun (Torres Strait).
The book is full of interesting comparisons between the western way of seeing the world, and the indigenous way. For example, we look at the sky, pick out the stars that outline something, call it ‘Orion’ or ‘Sagittarius’. Some Aboriginal Australiansand other Indigenous cultures look at the night sky and see the empty spaces. A blank space, for example, takes the shape of an emu. When you look at the sky maps in this book, yes, there in the star-less space is an emu. What a sensible way of seeing the sky.
Archeoastromony as a discipline has been around for hundreds of years. Melbourne University has a degree course in this discipline which I helped establish. Most of us are fascinated about how Islanders used the sky to find tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific a thousand years ago and how Quyllurit’i of Peru knew when the Pleiades was about to arrive. The First Astronomers includes the stories and the science of many ancient cultures. The one confusing aspect of the book is that it tends to ramble between Australia, Peru, North America, Britain, and Asia indigenous sites. The attempt to logically link them together is a daunting task, sometimes successful, sometimes not.
To hear the author’s talk about The First Astronomers, listen to Susan Kanowski’s discussions with Duane on ABC’s The Conversation.
Published by Allen & Unwin 2022
ISBN: 978 1 76087 720 0
Paperback $35
eBook $21
Audiobook $28