A Traveler Waits in the Stars for Those Willing to Learn How to Look

Interesting long read and a reminder that the constellations we know are not the only ones we see and recognize, in this case those of the Dene and Inuit:

…In the past, Dr. Cannon’s collaborators told him, only those curious enough to take their own participatory journeys, and have a personal relationship with the stars, were meant to find this out. Only then could people recognize that the Traveler they knew from childhood stories was in the stars overhead, an ancient cosmic guardian watching over the world to this day.

Among the culture bearers who contributed to the book, many agreed to help commit this intimate knowledge to paper because Dr. Cannon was approaching the subject in the traditional hands-on way. Others were motivated because they recognized that they were among the few remaining people in their subcultures or languages to hold this knowledge.

Then he found it, visible only on clearer nights, an obscure star Western astronomers call 27 Lyn.

It had taken him three and a half years.

But whose heart really was it? The more Dr. Cannon learned, the more he became convinced again that the Traveler and the man-animal constellation were the same across many Northern Dene cultures.

Eventually he posed the relationship again to Mr. Herbert, underlining his own deeper convictions and the work he had put in. This time, Mr. Herbert gave a yes: The Gwich’in Traveler figure and Yahdii were one and the same.

In the past, Dr. Cannon’s collaborators told him, only those curious enough to take their own participatory journeys, and have a personal relationship with the stars, were meant to find this out. Only then could people recognize that the Traveler they knew from childhood stories was in the stars overhead, an ancient cosmic guardian watching over the world to this day.

Among the culture bearers who contributed to the book, many agreed to help commit this intimate knowledge to paper because Dr. Cannon was approaching the subject in the traditional hands-on way. Others were motivated because they recognized that they were among the few remaining people in their subcultures or languages to hold this knowledge.

“I have not spoken about this in 20 years,” Mr. Engles told Dr. Cannon in an interview. “I’m just grateful for the opportunity to put back what my grandfather gave me.”

Dr. Cannon’s book aims to fill what he considers a yawning gap. Although every civilization experiences the night sky, thorough studies of how people conceptualize the cosmos have been attempted for fewer than 1 percent of human languages, Dr. Cannon estimates.

“I felt a sense that this is needed,” said John MacDonald, who conducted a survey of astronomy with Inuit Elders in the 1990s, and served as an academic reviewer for Dr. Cannon….

Source: A Traveler Waits in the Stars for Those Willing to Learn How to Look