Meteors and the Native Americans
By Gary W. Kronk
For decades astronomers have reaped the values of written records kept
for over 2500 years in China and Europe. Eclipses, planets, and comets
are mentioned and have brought about refinements to our current
understanding of the long-term motion of these bodies=8Bespecially for
comets such as Halley and Swift-Tuttle. Several meteor showers have
also been identified which brought about a better understanding of
their evolution as well.
No other culture can provide comparable information as that gathered
from the Chinese and European records, but this need not be a deterrent
from learning about how other cultures felt about these moving bodies
in the sky and one of the richest regions of meteor and comet lore in
the world is North America.
During the last 15 to 20 years, archeoastronomy has uncovered much
concerning the astronomical beliefs of native Americans. Unfortunately,
the methods of keeping records of astronomical events were not as
straight forward as those of the Chinese and Europeans, as there are no
books lying around. Instead, the methods of record keeping included
rock and cave drawings, stick notching, beadwork, pictures on animal
skins and jars, and story telling=8Bmost of which are not dateable.
One of the few dateable events among the various records of native
Americans was the 1833 appearance of the Leonid meteor shower.
Historically recognized as one of the greatest meteor storms on record,
it made a lasting impression among the peoples of North America.
The most obvious accounts of the Leonid storm appear among the various
bands of the Sioux of the North American plains. The Sioux kept records
called "winter counts," which were a chronological, pictographic
account of each year painted on animal skin. In 1984, Von Del
Chamberlain (Smithsonian Institution) listed the astronomical
references for 50 Sioux winter counts, of which 45 plainly referred to
an intense meteor shower during 1833/1834. In addition, he listed 19
winter counts kept by other plains Indian tribes, of which 14 obviously
referred to the Leonid storm.
The Leonids also appear among the Maricopa, who used calendar sticks
with notches to represent the passage of a year, with the owner
remembering the events. The owner of one stick claimed records had been
kept that way "since the stars fell." The first notch on his stick
represented 1833.
Story telling was a very important method of record keeping among most
native Americans and several seem to have been influenced by the
Leonids of 1833. A member of the Papago, named Kutox, was born around
1847 or 1848. He claimed that 14 years prior to his birth "the stars
rained all over the sky."
A less obvious Leonid reference may exist in the journal kept by
Alexander M. Stephen, which detailed his visit with the Hopi Indians
and mentions a talk he had with Old Djasjini on December 11, 1892. That
Hopi Indian said "How old am I? Fifty, maybe a hundred years, I can not
tell. When I was a boy of so big (eight or ten years) there was a great
comet in the sky and at night all the above was full of shooting
stars=8Bah! that was a very long time ago, maybe a hundred years, maybe
more." During the probable lifetime of Old Djasjini there was never a
"great comet" and a sky full of meteors in the same year, but he might
be referring to two separate events such as the sungrazing comet 1843 I
and the great Leonid storm of 1833, both of which occurred early in his
life.
The Pawnee have a story about a person known as Pahokatawa, who was
supposedly killed by an enemy and eaten by animals, but then brought
back to life by the gods. He was said to have come to Earth as a meteor
and told the people that when meteors were seen falling in great
numbers it was not a sign that the world would end. When the Pawnee
tribe witnessed the time "the stars fell upon the earth," which was in
1833, there was a panic, but the leader of the tribe spoke up and said,
"Remember the words of Pahokatawa" and the people were no longer
afraid.
Although the Pawnee learned not to be afraid, there were native
Americans who feared meteors. Why such beliefs came about is almost
impossible to guess, but some of the best examples are as follows:
The Blackfeet of Montana believed a meteor was a sign that sickness
would come to the tribe in the coming winter, or that a great chief had
just died.
The Kawaiisu (California) thought a meteor that started high and fell
to the horizon was an omen of sickness and death.
The Cahuilla thought a meteor was the spirit of their first shaman,
Takwich, who was disliked by his people. Takwich was said to wander the
skies at night looking for people far from their tribe. When someone
was found, he stole their spirit, and sometimes even the person, took
them back to his home and ate them.
The Shawnee believed meteors were beings "fleeing from the wrath of
some adversary, or from some anticipated danger."
There were other beliefs which generally did not strike fear into the
hearts of native Americans. Some of these are as follows:
The Wintu (northern California) explained meteors as the spirits of
shamans traveling to the afterlife.
The Chumash (California) referred to meteors as Alakiwohoch, which
simply meant "shooting star." They believed a meteor was a person's
soul on its way to the afterlife.
The Luise=F1o (California) believed they were merely stars which
suddenly moved.
The Eastern Pomo (North Central California) thought meteors were fire
dropping from heaven.
Interestingly, one of the most widely accepted beliefs was that meteors
were the feces of stars. Such lore existed in the stories of the
Nunamiut Eskimos, the Koasati of Louisiana (formerly located in
Tennessee), and numerous southern California tribes. A slight variation
of this came from the Kiliwa (Baja California) who believe meteors were
the fiery urine of the constellation Xsmii [Xsmii has not been
defined--GWK].
Many of the beliefs mentioned above are also attributed to comets, and
most story telling seems to rarely provide conclusive evidence that the
object being discussed is indeed a meteor. Because of this a very
interesting story is being included which originates from the Great
Lakes region.
The Ojibwa of the upper Great Lakes region had a story about
Genondahwayanung, which meant "Long Tailed Heavenly Climbing Star."
During the 1980's, Thor Conway visited the Ojibwa and talked to Fred
Pine, an Ojibwa shaman. Pine's story about the creation notes that
Genondahwayanung was a star with a long, wide tail which would return
and destroy the world someday. He said, "It came down here once,
thousands of years ago. Just like a sun. It had radiation and burning
heat in its tail." The comet was said to have scorched the earth so
that nothing was left, except the native americans, who were warned
ahead of time by Chimanitou, a Holy Spirit, and had gone to a bog and
rolled themselves up in the mud to protect themselves from the heat.
Pine continued, "It was just so hot that everything, even the stones,
were cooked. The giant animals were killed off. You can find their
bones today in the earth. It is said that the comet came down and
spread his tail for miles and miles." Thereafter, all comets and
meteors were treated as serious omens which required the interpretation
of the Ojibwa shamans.
There are other stories of a great fire coming from the sky and
destroying everything except for certain native american tribes. In
some cases the tribes claimed they were warned, while others claimed
they just ran for the nearest bodies of water.
Another form of record keeping were rock petroglyphs, or pictures
carved into rock. The western United States abounds with these
pictures, but any dating is virtually impossible. Once again it is
frequently difficult to determine whether the object carefully carved
into rock is a meteor or a comet.
One rock drawing frequently debated as to its exact depiction was
produced by the Venture=F1o tribelet of the Chumash at Burro Flats. A
pair of disks with long tails are located on the wall of a cave and
have been interpreted by Travis Hudson and Ernest Underhay (1978) as
portraits of a comet "seen over an interval of a few days or weeks." On
the other hand, E. C. Krupp (1983) has pointed out that "the images
have a dynamic appearance that suggests rapid movement and change. If
they are celestial at all, I would associate them with meteors, and, in
particular, with the especially bright and dramatic type known as
fireballs."
The most common petroglyphs depict a circle with a wiggly line
emanating from it. Various archealogists have interpreted these as
meteors, comets, and even snakes.
Another form of record keeping appears in the form of pottery art.
Although there are not many examples of this, the Field Museum in
Chicago contains Hopi jar (designated number 66760) with a very
striking scene depicted. Brought to the museum during the 1890s, the
jar depicts mountains, above which are stars and three objects falling
towards the ground. Although the scene seems to imply meteors, it is
not certain whether it is a shower or a spectacular meteor that broke
up as it fell. According to William Grewe-Mullins at the Field Museum,
the notes on this jar indicate it was found near Oraibi, Arizona, and
was of recent origin. He ventured to guess that the jar might have been
made sometime during the 1850s to 1890s. It might be possible that this
jar depicts the Leonid storm of 1833, although it seems difficult to
imagine the Hopi would have still been impressed so much by the storm 2
to 5 decades after the event. On the other hand, it could be a painting
of one of two other storms which were observed in various parts of the
world in 1872 and 1884, although none of the winter counts mentioned
earlier seem to have noted these.
Some native Americans seem to have realized that some meteors can reach
the ground. Among the Menomini of the Great Lakes region is the
following legend:
When a star falls from the sky
It leaves a fiery trail.
It does not die.
Its shade goes back to its own place to shine again.
The Indians sometimes find the small stars
where they have fallen in the grass.
The Nunamiut Eskimos also found meteorites, but believed they came from
thunderstorms.
Sources: Dorsey, George A., The Pawnee Mythology. Washington, D.C.:
Carnegie Institute (1906), pp. 61-62; Hooper, Lucile, The Cahuilla
Indians. Berkeley: University of California Press (1920), pp. 364-365;
McClintock, Walter, Old Indian Trails. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company
(1923), p. 239; Loeb, Edwin M., Pomo Folkways. Berkeley: University of
California Press (1926), p. 229; Spier, Leslie, Yuman Tribes of the
Gila River. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1933), pp. 138-139;
Gayton, A. H., Yokuts and Western Mono Ethnography. Berkeley:
University of California Press (1948), pp. 162 & 229; Gubser, Nicholas
J=2E, The Nunamiut Eskimos: Hunters of Caribou. New Haven: Yale
University Press (1965), p. 196; Stephen, Alexander M., Hopi Journal.
New York: AMS Press, Inc. (1969), pp. 1016-1017; Hudson, Travis, and
Underhay, Ernest, Crystals in the Sky: An Intellectual Odyssey
Involving Chumash Astronomy, Cosmology, and Rock Art. New Mexico:
Ballena Press (1978), pp. 96-97; Krupp, E. C., In Search of Ancient
Astronomies. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. (1978), p. 141;
Howard, James H., Shawnee!. Ohio: Ohio University Press (1981), pp.
178-179; Krupp, E. C., "Emblems in the Sky," Ancient Images on Stone.
Compiled and Edited by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Los Angeles: University of
California (1983), pp. 38-43; Chamberlain, Von Del, "Astronomical
Context of North American Plains Indian Calendars," Journal for the
History of Astronomy, 15 (1984), pp. S1-S54; Hudson, Travis,
"California's First Astronomers," Archaeoastronomy and the Roots of
Science. Edited by E. C. Krupp, Colorado: Westview Press, Inc. (1984),
pp. 39-41; Trenary, Carlos, "Universal Meteor Metaphors and Their
Occurrence in Mesoamerican Astronomy," Archaeoastronomy, 10
(1987-1988), pp. 99-116; Conway, Thor, "The Conjurer's Lodge: Celestial
Narratives from Algonkian Shamans," edited by Ray A. Williamson and
Claire R. Farrer, Earth & Sky. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press (1992), pp. 240-248; Grewe-Mullins, William, Personal
Communication (August 31, 1993).
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