The Milky Way Star Lore Part 2 - North America

The Milky Way is our home galaxy. Our sun is one of an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars in this galaxy. Before the invention of the telescope, the Milky Way was observed only as a hazy band of light in which no individual stars could be distinguished. This mythical band is the source of many myth around the world. In most Native North american cultures, is is seen as a path taken by the spirits.

Apache In Volume 1 of his epic 20-volume work The North American Indian, US-American ethnologist Edward S. Curtis describes the association of the Apache people with the Milky Way. The Milky Way symbolizes the road to the afterworld; a trail made by departing spirits. All souls have to path Yolkai Nalin, the most feared and venerated deity in Apache mythology. Then, the souls of the dead follow the path of the Milky Way for four days until they arrive in a land of peace and plenty, where there is no disease or death. Source: native-science.net

Native American and Milky Way © John R. Foster / Science Source

Cherokee The Cherokee have a story about How The Milky Way Came To Be. Here is the story, retold by Barbara Shining Woman Warren: Long ago when the world was young, there were not many stars in the sky. In those days the Cherokee People depended on corn for their food. After gathering the corn from the fields, some of that corn was dried. Dried corn could be made into corn meal by placing the corn inside a large hollowed stump and pounding it with a long wooden pestle. Then the cornmeal was stored in large baskets. During the cold winter, the ground meal would be made into bread and mush. One morning an elder man and his wife went to their storage basket for some cornmeal. They discovered that someone or something had gotten into the cornmeal during the night! This upset them very much for no one in a Cherokee village stole from someone else.

The Origin of the Milky Way Source: kobo.com

Then they noticed that the cornmeal was scattered over the ground. In the middle of the spilled meal were giant dog prints! These dog prints were so large that they knew this was no ordinary dog. The elderly couple immediately alerted the people of the village. The village held council. It was decided that this must be a spirit dog from another world! The people did not want the spirit dog coming to their village, so they decided to get rid of the dog by frightening it so bad it would never return. They gathered their drums and turtle shell rattles and later that night they hid around the area where the cornmeal was kept. Late into the night, they heard a whirring sound like many bird wings. They looked up to see the form of a giant dog swooping down from the sky. It landed near the basket and then began to eat great mouthfuls of cornmeal.

Suddenly the people jumped up beating and shaking their noise makers. The noise was so loud it sounded like thunder! The giant dog turned and began to run down the path. The people chased after him making the loudest noises they could. That dog ran to the top of a hill and leaped into the sky, the cornmeal spilling out the sides of its mouth. The giant dog ran across the black night sky until it disappeared from sight...but the cornmeal that had spilled from its mouth made a pathway across the sky. Each grain of cornmeal became a star. The Cherokees call that pattern of stars, gi li' ut sun stan un' yi, "the place where the dog ran." And that is how the Milky Way came to be. Source: powersource.com

Spirit Dog Source: amazon.com

Chumash For the Chumash at the southern California coast, the common name of the milky was was "Journey of the Piñon Gatheres." Both the Milky Way and the inside of the piñon nut are white. In late fall and early winter, the Milky Way symbolized the northward journey the Chumash made to gather ripe piñon nuts. Near the constellation Cygnus, the Milky Way seemingly splits and appears to follow two paths, which in winter are just visible on the western horizon after sunset. The Milky Way was also seen as the pathway of the spirits of the dead. The Chumash believed that at a cape at the coast of Southern California, now called Pt. Conception, people’s spirits would rise to the upper world after death to become part of the Suyapo’osh, the Pinon Gatherers who travel the road of the Milky Way to Similaqsa, the land of the Dead. Sources: Stewart, Williamson; They dance in the sky: Native American star myths, p. 52, San Francisco State University

Piñon Pine Nuts Source: gardeningknowhow.com Pt. Conception; edhat.com

Lakota In his book Sioux Life & Customs Of A Warrior Society, Royal B. Hassrick describes how the Lakota, a major subgroup of the Sioux, interpreted the Milky Way. Like many other Native American cultures, the Lakota pictured the Milky Way as a spirit trail. Once the spirit of a Lakota left the body, it would travel on the spirit trail to the Land of Many Lodges, where all the ancestors had pitched their tipis and where buffalo roamed in unending abundance. Along the trail, the spirits had to pass an old woman who each spirit for the proper tattoo marks on wrist, forehead or chin.

Lakota Tipi and Milky Way; imagefinder.co

William K. Powers, in his book Oglala Religion, adds a facette to the story, focussing on the Oglala, one of the seven sub-tribes of the Lakota. Powers describes that the Oglala spirits too had to pass the old woman, but adds, that the woman would judges the spirit's life on earth and would either sends it on or would send it back to earth where it had to exist as a shade. The Oglala called the Milky Way Wanagi Tacanku, the Spirit Road and believed that the light of the Milky Way originated from the campfires of the traveling spirits. Source: native-science.net

Navajo Yikáísdáhá, That Which Awaits the Dawn, is related to the annual Milky Way process. The emergence of pre-dawn is determined by the position of the Milky Way that changes with the nights, months and seasons. Yikáísdáhá can be experienced by the full cyclical emergence of the Milky Way in the early pre-dawn hours of mid January. It is during this time the full circle of the Milky Way aligns with the horizon. Thus, a person can observe the full Milky Way in every direction, as it lays on the horizon in a circle. The Milky Way is depicted in Navajo sandpaintings as a crosshatched line, indicating the changes of its position in the night sky, from one side to another. Yikáísdáhá is the last of the eight main constellations and signifies completeness and wholeness. Sources: Navajo Skies, grandcanyon.org

Yikáísdáhá © Melvin Bainbridge Milky Way in a Navajo Sandpainting © Joe Ben

Ojibwe The Ojibwe people called the MilkyWay Jiibay Ziibi, the River of Souls. Souls, it was said, would find a waiting canoe to paddle to the great beyond along the shining flow of the Milky Way. Source: Ojibwe Cosmos

River of Souls © Carl Gawboy

Pawnee The Skidi Pawnee saw the Milky Way as the path the spirits of the dead take as they are blown along from north to south by the north wind. Because most people linger in sickness before they die, their spirit path is long and corresponds to the long trail of the milky way. The spirits of people whose death came suddenly in battle travel a shorter path. Source: Stewart, Williamson; They dance in the sky: Native American star myths, p. 52, Seminole When a Seminole soul dies, the Milky Way shines brighter to give him a clear path to the spirit world. Source: Richard Hook

Seminole on the path to the spirit world © Richard Hook

Shoshone In Volume 15 of his 20-volume work The North American Indian, US-American ethnologist Edward S. Curtis describes the Shoshone, who live in what is now Wyoming, Idaho, Utah and Nevada. In Shoshone mythology, the spirits of the dead rise straight through the air to Kasipo, the Milky Way and travel southward to the end of the trail. In the south, at the end of the Milky Way there is a lake with a conical rock in the middle. When the spirits pass down through a hole in the rock, they are reborn and emerge as living bodies in Pugwainumu muguwa bitighan, the Place Where The Spirit Goes. Curtis also mentions the creators, Numu-naa, People-Father, and Numu-biya, People-Mother. After the creation of the people, they had to head southward and leave the earth. People-Mother didn't want to leave her children but People-Father consoled her. He said that the people were mortal and when their children had grown and multiplied the elders would die and their spirits would then come to live with them again. Numu-naa and Numu-biya walked to the ocean where the clouds rose up like a great door in the sky. This is where they now reside and the spirit of anybody who died goes the same way along the Milky Way, to this place. People-Father then places the spirit in a box and after a time it the spirit is reborn as a living person in the Place Where The Spirit Goes. Source: native-science.net

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