Among the Lakota, there are many interesting myths and legends which are used to explicate their ideas about the cosmos, as is the case among many cultures. According to mythographer James LaPointe, "the ancient Lakota wise men said that all heavenly bodies exert influences upon life on Earth, and the destinies of individual life are at all times under the spell of the sun, moon, and stars." LaPointe also suggests, "... they imparted their knowledge to posterity through oral narratives and object lessons. One star cluster was called Pa yamini pa, 'a monster with three heads.' "
The Lakota have one fascinating myth which tells a great deal about their astronomical beliefs. According to this legend, Fallen Star, a supernatural hero, was the son of the North Star and a Lakota woman. (Interestingly, in Western mythography, the morning star or "Lucifer" is known as the "fallen star" or "the bright star cast out of heaven.") Fallen Star was said to be a member of the Maghpia Oyate or Cloud People and to be a special protector of the Lakota. His mother had lived with North Star in the clouds, but fell to Earth when she made the mistake of trying to dig up a plant growing in the cloud world - something she had been warned against. The North Star now broods in immobile solitude over the loss of his beloved Lakota maiden.
Tupun Shawin (the red-cheeked maid) was found by a group of boy hunters while she was lying unconscious after she had fallen from the cloud world. Her child was nursing from her "vigorously." The boys did not know if she was a cloud or spirit woman and so left her alone. But they did not want to abandon the helpless infant, so they brought it back to the village. The mysterious baby was named Fallen Star and given to a lonely, barren woman in the village. He matured very quickly, and became aware of a special destiny. He told others in the village that he was the child of a bright star in the heavens, and then told his adopted mother that he had to return to his father's place in the sky. He is said to be there now, watching over the Lakotas, his adoptive people.
Lakota people call the Milky Way Wanaghi Tachanku or "trail of the spirits." It was "the trail all Lakota people must take when fate overtakes them." (This is another interesting cross-cultural 'coincidence,' because among the Indians of South America, the Milky Way was also thought to be a "road of the dead" or "way of souls.") They claimed that at the point where the Milky Way splits, a divine Arbiter stood ... people who lived an immoral life were forced to head down the part of the Milky Way that ends in a nebula, tumbling through space forever. Those who lived a proper life took the other road to Wanaghiyata, the promised home of departed souls.
What is fascinating about this myth is that it ends this way, at least according to the translator: "Today, somewhere near the Trail of Spirits, known to others as the Milky Way, Fallen Star sends rays of hope for his earth people." (LaPointe, 1976.) This suggests Fallen Star might be one of the stars found near the Milky Way. Which one can't be determined from the story, but it could be the one of the ones in the Big Dipper. Based on the legend, it would have some special relationship to the Pole Star. This would be an interesting topic for further investigations.
Sinte Gleiska University scholar Ronald Goodman spent ten years studying the astronomical folklore of Lakota people, and the result of this work was Lakota Star Knowledge: Studies in Lakota Stellar Theology, a book which detailed the literally "cosmic" importance of the Black Hills for Lakota people. It discusses the spring constellations which the Lakota people observed while moving in a cyclical round from site to site in the Black Hills. The Black Hills were thought to be a terrestrial mirror of the cosmos, so the Lakota were simply "mirroring" the motions of the heavens. As the sun moved counterclockwise through the ecliptic, the Lakota were moving clockwise through the terrestrial analogues of their constellations. (Goodman, 1990.)
These constellations were: Canshasha Ipusye (Dried Willow), which was watched from the winter camps during the spring equinox; Wincinchala Sakowin (the Seven Little Girls = the Pleiades), which were watched from Harney Peak during "thunder's welcoming"; Tayamni (the Buffalo), which were watched from a central cairn during "life's welcoming in peace"; Ki Inyanka Ocanku (the center of the "Race Track"), which were watched from Pe Sla (a bare hill); and Mato Tipila (the Bear's Lodge), which were watched from Devil's Tower, during the summer solstice, prior to the Sun Dance. The 'race track' was subdivided into Cangleshka Wakan (sacred hoop) and Tayamni Cankahu (the Animal's Backbone.) The idea of the Black Hills as a 'terrestrial zodiac' is interesting; such an idea was proposed by Katharine Maltwood for some of the formations around Glastonbury.
The key sacred sites within the Black Hills, which are themselves thought to be enclosed by a terrestrial 'race track,' are Bear Lodge Butte, Old Baldy, Ghost Butte, and Thunder Butte. Devil's Tower is actually outside the Black Hills, but it forms the symbolic "Buffalo's Head" of the Lakota with two other hills inside the area -- Bear Butte as the "Buffalo's Nose," and Inyan Kaga as the "Black Buffalo Horn." Goodman notes that the tipi's shape also mirrors the heavens: 3 poles for the North Star, 7 poles for the cardinal directions, 2 poles for "ears", equaling the 12 months and the 12 stars (morning, evening, 7 in the dipper, 3 in Orion's belt.)
Goodman also discusses Fallen Star and the afterlife beliefs of the Lakota. This ties into the Lakota constellation known as nape, "the Hand," which consists of Orion's belt and sword, and the stars of Rigel and Eridanus Beta. He suggests "the Hand" can be correlated with the "Chief who Lost his Arm." In this legend, the chief has his arm torn from his shoulder by Thunderbirds as a result of his selfishness. His daughter offers to marry Fallen Star if he can recover the hand for her. Fallen Star succeeds in this quest, defeats the Thunderbirds and Inktomi, and marries her. As Goodman points out, Fallen Star represents the new chief and the new year, and their son the renewed earth of spring.
In the legend, it is said that while searching for the arm, "Fallen Star... seems to be in the Black Hills area, but at the same time he also appears to be moving through the star world. He travels through three villages or 'star peoples,' and it is said his son will have to visit the other four." Something of astronomical significance is being described here... but I am not sure what. What's most fascinating is how similar this is to the "wounded king" myth of European Grail legends - the wound leads to a loss of fertility, and only healing this wound restores the land. The Grail legends are said to have a zodiacal basis too...
Besides the "Race Track," the Lakota watch another important group of stars around the winter solstice. Although they didn't observe the winter solstice itself (it was usually way too cold on the Plains to be out at night star-watching all the time), these stars were noted around this time. Parts of this group of winter stars are parts of the earlier "race track," shifted in the sky; others are not.
Some of these stars/asterisms include Wichapi Owanjila (Polaris), Wakinyan (the Thunderbird = gamma Draconis + 2 stars from "Ursa's bowl"), Wichakihuyapa (the Big Dipper), Mato Tipila (the Bear's Lodge, which includes Castor and Pollux), Tayamni (the Buffalo, which includes Sirius, Rigel, and Aldeberan), Capella, the "Fireplace" (which includes parts of Leo and Gemini), Canshasha Inpusye (the Dried Willow = Triangulum plus Aries), Hehaka (the Elk, which has part of Pisces plus other stars), Keya (the Turtle), Zuzuecha (the Snake = stars in Canis Major + Columba), and Wanagi Ta Chanku (the Spirit's Road = the Milky Way.)
Paula Giese, a Lakota student at Sinte Gleiska, discusses these constellations because she feels that Lakota Star Knowledge only deals with the spring stars. She mentions a few others of importance: Arcturus is said to be variously either Iktobu (going toward), or Wichapi Sunkaku (Morning Star's younger brother), or Oglechkutepi (Arrow game), or Ihuku Kigle (it went under). It has a special relationship to Anpao Wichahapi (dawn star, Venus.) The Agleshka, or Salamander, corresponds to no known Western constellations. The Crab Nebula, which has no Lakota name, apparently occupies a special position among these stars. (Giese, 1995.)
Giese also mentions some interesting things about the Big Dipper. Its seven stars are said to correspond to the seven stages of a woman's maturation and to the seven Lakota council fires. Towin, the Blue Woman Spirit who assists midwives with births, lives in the center of the dipper -- the place where one can find the hole from which Fallen Star's mother fell. The Dipper is said to carry the water for celestial sweat lodge ceremonies, and to ferry the spiritual essence of deceased people to the Milky Way.
Basically, she suggests that there may have been some limited star-watching "from some sheltered location" around the end of the year, close to the winter solstice. Young people were taught about these constellations because the "life-paths" for girls and boys were marked out by the Dipper and so it was important for them to know about it. They were taught that the Sun would eventually return from its southerly drift, and that these stars were a reassurance of that fact. All in all, these are interesting additions to the insights in Goodman's book.
Why, until the publication of Lakota Star Knowledge, did many anthropologists think that the Lakota had no ethnoastronomy? Mostly, this is due to misinterpretations of the stories from Walker's informants, who claimed that the Lakota had no interest in the stars. It was partly due to a misunderstanding of the term wakan. Although they regarded the stars as mysterious and incomprehensible, they still observed them - as part of their religion. Astronomers studying Lakota culture after they had lost control of the Black Hills would not have known how vital star-watching was to their religious ceremonies.
Most ethnographers assumed that only the Caddoan (such as the Skidi Pawnee) groups on the Plains had any meaningful astronomy because only settled horticulturalists would have the time to make observations and only they would have the need to use the heavens as timing mechanisms for agriculture. (Ruggles and Saunders, 1993.) It was assumed by people like Del Chamberlain that, although star knowledge might have been used by the Lakota in the past, the introduction of the horse and the transition to a nomadic buffalo-hunting lifestyle caused this knowledge to disappear. (Chamberlain, 1982.) The Lakota also had an extensively oral tradition, and did not make the complicated sky maps and star charts of the Pawnee, or make other kinds of astronomical notation.
The problem was that Western astronomers simply didn't look closely enough at the Lakota religion. Other societies use star-watching as a form of utilitarian time-keeping ... a purely "secular" (literally) pursuit. The problem was that ceremonies like the Sun Dance, Sweat Lodge, and Sacred Pipe contained cosmological knowledge; but ethnoastronomers left study of those rituals to scholars of religion. They didn't realize that the Lakota were the descendants of the "vanished" cultures that created the Plains Medicine Wheels. They spent too much time hunting for alignments and not enough time collecting legends. They didn't understand that some of the adornments on Lakota costumes and artefacts were astronomical, because they didn't look "like stars," and they never really asked anyone about their museum collections.
Unlike some of the other cultures of Mesoamerica and South America, the Lakota did not have an astronomical calendar. They didn't build large, fixed, monumental structures with celestial alignments. They were not interested in fixing the length of the year, or of establishing precise planting and harvesting times, or calculating the beginning of climactic seasons. All that mattered to them was the size of their precious buffalo herd, and they could always determine its peaking point through simple observation. The only part of the year they counted were winters, because on the Plains surviving winters was something worth remembering, and it was the time that hunting ceased.
But research with the Lakota should teach us that nomadic hunting societies do not ignore the heavens, either. Like many other societies on the move, the Lakota used the stars as a guidepost for when to move on from place to place in the Black Hills. Ethnoastronomers seem to have a biased belief that only people who stay in one place bother to stretch their heads out and look up at the sky. But for wandering peoples, the heavens literally may have laid out a "map" of their migrations. Other forms of religious pilgrimage should be studied in this light. The Lakota were probably not the only race who chose to mimic the movements of the stars above by their migrations below.