In Search of

AboriginalAstronomy

Were the Aboriginal Australians the world's

first astronomers? By Ray Norris

recognising a few stars. It implies a quest to understandthe patterns in the sky, the motion of the Sun and Moon,phenomena like eclipses, and whether events in the sky areconnected to those on Earth. Can we find evidence for such

a deep interest amongst traditional Aboriginal people?

Far Left: The Yolnguconstellation of Djulpan,known to Europeans as Orion.

Betelgeuse is the bow of acanoe, Rigel the stern, and thethree stars of Or ion's belt are

the brothers sitting in it. TheOrion Nebula is the fish still

trailing in the water on its line.Left: An engraving from Ku­ring-gai Chase National Park,showing a man and womanreaching up to a crescent.

Sun, Moon, and eclipses

The Yolngu people, in the far north of Australia, tell howWalu, the Sun-woman, lights a fire each morning, bring­ing us dawn. She decorates herself with red ochre, some ofwhich spills onto the clouds, colouring the sunrise. Thenshe carries her blazing torch across the sky from east towest, creating daylight. As she descends to the westernhorizon, spilling red ochre at sunset, she extinguishes hertorch, and starts the long journey underground back to themorning camp in the east.

The Moon, named Ngalindi in the Yolngu language, wasa fat lazy man (corresponding to the full Moon) with

two wives and two sons, whom he expected to feed

WHEN THE BRITISH First Fleet arrived in Austra­

lia in 1788, their navigators probably knew less about thesouthern sky than many of the Aboriginal people who theydrove from their land. Sadly, nobody thought to ask. TheBritish settlers and convicts weren't interested in the manyrich and vibrant Aboriginal cultures, each with its own cus­toms, folklore, and language. Only recently have most of usappreciated the deep vein of astronomy threading throughthe Aboriginal stories and ceremonies.

With hindsight, we shouldn't be surprised. To those livingin Australia thousands of years ago, under the magnificentriver of the Milky Way threading through a coal-black sky, theheavens were an integral part of their world. It would havebeen obvious that particular stars were visible only at certaintimes of the year and would help navigation through the coolof the night. Even more important would be the belief, sharedby most Aboriginal cultures, that the world was createdin the "Dreaming" by ancestral spirits who haveleft their mark all around us. Those who can

understand these symbols have a completeunderstanding of the world and the rulesby which one should live - a sort of usermanual for living. The night sky wouldbe an important chapter of this manual.

Since the 50,000 year-old Aboriginalcultures are far older than Stonehengeor the Pyramids, it is sometimes saidthat "the Australian Aborigines werethe world's first astronomers". Is this

statement correct? Quite apart fromthe assumption of a static culture, theword "astronomy" implies more than just

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AUSTRALIAN SI(Y & TELESCOPE March/April 2008 21

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and look after him. He became angry with his sons for notsharing their food, and killed them. When his wives foundout, they attacked him with their axes, chopping bits offhim, giving us the waning Moon. While trying to escapeby following the Sun, he climbed a tall tree, but was mor­tally wounded, and died (the new Moon). After remainingdead for 3 days, he rose again, growing fat and round (thewaxing Moon), until, after two weeks his wives attackedhim again. To this day, the cycle continues every month.

The Yolngu stories even explain why the Moon isassociated with tides. When the tides are high, the waterpours into the Moon as it rises, creating a full Moon. Asthe water runs out of the Moon, the tides fall. Then the

tide rises once more, refilling the Moon. So, although themechanics are a little different from our modern version,

this story shows that traditional Yolngu people fully under­stood the relationship of the Moon to the tides.

This depth of knowledge is reflected in stories abouteclipses. The Warlpiri people say a solar eclipse happenswhen the Sun-woman is hidden by the Moon-man as hemakes love to her. On the other hand, a lunar eclipse occurswhen the Moon-man is pursued and overtaken by theSun-woman. These two stories demonstrate that traditional

Aboriginal people had already figured out that eclipses werecaused by a conjunction between the Sun and Moon movingon different paths across the sky, occasionally intersecting.Nor is this understanding confined to the Warlpiri people.The eccentric Englishwoman Daisy Bates, living in thedesert in her starched blouse and lace-up boots, recountedprimly how, during the solar eclipse of 1922, the Wirangupeople told her that the eclipse was caused when the Sunand Moon became "guri-arra - husband and wife together."

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A morning star pole, created by Richard

Garrawurra. The tuft of Magpie-goosefeathers at the top represents Venus,and the other feathers represent nearbystars, and other clans.

Just a few kilometres from thecentre of Sydney lies Ku-ring-gaiChase National Park, once home

to the Guringai people, who haveleft behind thousands of beautiful

sacred rock engravings depict-ing the Dreaming ancestors, andimages of the animals and fish thatabound in and around the Park.

Some of these images show aman and woman reaching up toa boomerang in the sky. But is ita boomerang? Boomerangs rarelyhave pointed ends, and usuallyhave two straight lengths ratherthan a single curved crescent. Andhow often do a man and woman

reach up towards a boomerangsailing above their heads? It seemsto me that these shapes are muchmore likely to be the crescentMoon. Perhaps it may even depictan eclipse, which may then explainwhy the man is standing in frontof the woman, partly obscuringher - a feature unusual in these

rock carvings.

Stars and Calendars

Bill Yidumduma Harney of theWardaman people once told me

"the law is written in the stars." As an elder, he teaches

children how to read the sky, reminding them of the storiesand laws that govern Aboriginal life. For example, the starswe call Orion are seen by Yolngu people as a canoe bearingthree brothers who were banished to the sky for illegally eat­ing a forbidden fish.

Close by is the group of stars we call the Seven Sisters, orthe Pleiades. In the traditions of several Aboriginal groups,the Pleiades are a group of sisters chased by a young manin Orion. This similarity between Aboriginal and Greekmythology persuaded early anthropologists that there musthave been extensive prehistoric cultural contact betweenAboriginal and European people. Today, we are prettycertain that no such contact took place. Instead, Aboriginalpeople independently devised the stories - a sort of culturalconvergent evolution. Perhaps this isn't so surprising, whenyou see the group of pretty starlets pursued by the mightystars of Orion.

Aboriginal calendars tend to be more complex than Euro-

Yolngu tradition includes the knowledge that Venus nevermoves far from the Sun

pean ones, and are often based on six seasons, sometimesmarked by the heliacal rising of stars. For example, the Pit­jantjatjara people mark the start of Nyinnga (winter) by therising of the Pleiades in the dawn sky. Just as importantly,the appearance of a star or constellation can signal the timeto move to a new food source. The appearance of the Mal­lee-fowl constellation (Lyra) in March warns the Boorongpeople in Victoria that the Mallee-fowl are about to buildtheir nests, and her disappearance in October tells themthat the eggs are laid and are ready to be collected.

Some sky patterns are marked by dark clouds ratherthan stars. Next to the Southern Cross (a possum in atree, according to the Boorong people) is the dark cloud ofinterstellar dust that we call the Coalsack. To the Wardaman

people, it's the head of a lawman keeping an eye on us, butto many other groups right across Australia, it's one of thebest known Aboriginal constellations - the Emu in the Sky.The Coalsack is its head, and its neck, body, and legs stretchalong the Milky Way right through Scorpius. It's a spectacu­lar sight - far better than the contrived European constella­tions that most of us grew up with. Once you've seen it, theMilky Way will never look the same again.

In Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park is a rock engravingof an emu, which looks much more like the Emu in the Skythan a real emu. A few years ago, Sydney academic HughCairns pointed out that the engraving is oriented to line upwith the Emu in the Sky. Astonishingly, the Emu in the Skystands above her portrait, in the correctorientation, at just the time when thereal-life emus are laying their eggs.

The Planets

The silvery glow of Venus, the Morn­ing Star, must be one of the mostspectacular sights in the sky. Yolngupeople call her Banumbirr, and tellhow she came across the sea from the

east in the Dreaming, naming animalsand landscape. After crossing theshoreline, she continued westwards

across the land, creating one of the"songlines" which are still importantin Aboriginal cultures.

In an important and beautiful"Morning Star Ceremony", Banumbirrhelps earthly Yolngu people communi­cate with their ancestors with the aid

of a "Morning Star Pole". After start­ing at dusk, the ceremony continuesthrough the night, reaching a climaxas Banumbirr rises before dawn.

Below her, say Yolngu people, is a ropewhich carries the messages, and whichprevents her from ever rising high inthe sky. I suspect this faint line in the

sky is what astronomers would call zodiacal light, causedby dust in the plane of the solar system. In today's pollutedskies it's hidden from most of us, but is still easily visible inthe clear dark skies and low latitude of northern Australia.

We can learn two important things from the MorningStar ceremony. One is that Yolngu tradition includes theknowledge that Venus never moves far from the Sun, whichis explained by a rope binding the two bodies together - abond that Isaac Newton later called "gravity". The other isthat since the Morning-Star ceremony needs to be planned,and Venus rises before dawn only at certain times of theyear, Yolngu people also keep track of the path of Venuswell enough to predict when to hold the Morning StarCeremony.

Astronomical Measurements

Occasionally I am told something like: "Of course, theAborigines don't do astronomy - they can't even countbeyond five." This belief is even supported by one of myanthropology textbooks which confidently asserts that noAboriginal language has a word for a number greater thanfour. So I was fascinated to watch a group of Tiwi kids play­ing in a waterhole, competing to see who could hold theirbreath longest underwater. They started counting: "Natinga,Jirara, Jiraterima ..." What would happen when they reachedfive? Would they abandon the game? Switch to English? Ofcourse not. They kept counting all the way up to about 70,

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Ray Norris is an astrophysicist at the

Australia Telescope National Facility

in Sydney. When he's not exploring

Aboriginal astronomy, his areas of

research include the Australia Telescope

Large Area Survey (ATLAS).

exactly East-West. It was built by the Wathaurungpeople before European settlement, but all recordsof its use have now been lost. At its western end,

at the highest point of the ring, is an eye-catchinggroup of three waist-high stones. My colleagueJohn Morieson has pointed out that if you standat these three large stones, some small outlyingstones mark the position on the horizon where theSun sets on midwinter's day, on midsummer's day,and at the equinox.

A recent survey has confirmed these orienta­tions, but a sceptic might still raise some doubts.First, the outliers are only accurate to a few degrees

- could these alignments have occurred by chance? Second,although the stones of the circle are large and embedded inthe rock, the outliers are small and could have been moved.

Third, besides the outliers indicating the solstices andequinox, there is an additional outlier whose significanceis unknown. One piece of additional evidence to supportMorieson's suggestion was discovered while making thecomposite picture shown above: the solstices are not indi­cated solely by the outliers, but also by the fairly straightlines of the ring of stones itself.

The best way to confirm this astronomical hypothesiswould be to find another site with similar astronomical

alignments. We know of other stone arrangements inVictoria which point towards the cardinal points (north,south, east, and west) and so it's pretty certain that theAboriginal people hereabouts knew these directionsaccurately, presumably by observing celestial bodies, sincethey didn't have compasses. But are there other sites whichpoint to the position of the solstice, or equinox? We'reworking on it.

So back to the big question: were Aboriginal peopledoing astronomy hundreds or thousands of years ago? Thegrowing body of evidence is that traditional Aboriginalpeople were deeply fascinated by the sky and the motionof the bodies across it, and their astronomical knowledgewas far richer and deeper than is usually appreciated. So in

that sense, yes. However, the evidencefor actual measurements or records

remains unproven, although the cluesare sufficiently tantalising to fuel thehunt for more. The search continues.

1I'1I11<r>01,"« The view across the Wurdi Youang stone arrangement

showing the positions of the setting Sun at the solstices

and equinoxes. Composite image made from originals by

Ray Norris and John Morieson.

Acknowledgement

This project is dedicated to the hundreds of

thousands of Indigenous Australians who losttheir lives after the British arrival in Australia

in 1788. I am indebted to the Indigenous

groups who have welcomed us onto their land,

and I especially thank the elders and people of

the Yolngu community at Yirrkala, Northern

Territory. I also thank my collaborators Hugh

Cairns, Paul Curnow, lan Maclean, John Morie­

son, Barnaby Norris, and Cilia Norris.

Equinox

all in the Tiwi language.Sadly, this myth about innumeracy in Aboriginal

cultures persists even amongst people who should knowbetter, even though other anthropologists have carefullydocumented the various Aboriginal number systems. Such

ingrained attitudes state equally misleadingly that Aborigi­nal people "don't measure things" or "don't ask questions",and so would not be interested in careful astronomical

measurements. I prefer to stick to the evidence.Which brings me to the "Stonehenge Hypothesis". Can

we find any evidence amongst Aboriginal cultures thatcareful observations were made, records kept, or structures

set up to point to the rising and setting places of heavenlybodies?

Maybe. On the dreamy banks of the Murray River,north of Adelaide, is a site called "Ngaut Ngaut", wherethe Nganguraku people engraved images of the Sunand Moon. Next to these engravings are a series of dotsand lines carved in the rock. The traditional owners saythese depict the "cycles of the Moon". How do they know?Such knowledge is usually passed through generationsfrom father to son, and from elder to novice at initiationceremonies. However, these ceremonies were banned,

along with the Nganguraku language, by Christian mis­sionaries over a hundred years ago, so only this fragmentof culture has survived. The rich record engraved on thewalls of Ngaut Ngaut has so far defiedattempts at decoding. Perhaps one daywe'll succeed, but for the moment we

must label it as intriguing, but notconclusive, evidence of Aboriginalastronomy.

What about structures that mark

rising and setting positions? TheWurdi Youang stone arrangement inVictoria is an impressive egg-shapedring of stones, about 50 metres indiameter, with its major axis almost

Summer solstice

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