The First Astronomers: How Indigenous Elders read the stars.
By Duane Hamacher with Elders and Knowledge Holders. Published by Allen & Unwin 2022
Review by Anne Dickson, NPA Environmental Book Club
Duane Hamacher, an Astrophysicist, embraced an opportunity to learn from and collaborate with First Nations Elders and Star Knowledge Holders Ghillar Michael Anderson, Ron Day, Segar Passi, Alo Tapim, David Bosun and the late John Barsa, and the result is The First Astronomers. This collaboration enlightens the reader through new knowledge, awakens new ways of knowing the familiar sky and for me, rekindled memories of past star gazing experiences.
For Indigenous people, star knowledge is embedded in culture – in story, song, dance and ceremony and is a fundamental guide to living. It informs weather forecasting; telling time; navigation by both sea and land; and regulating planting, harvesting, hunting and fishing. In the Torres Strait the stars can even protect you from sharks. The star group known by westerners as the ‘Big Dipper’ is seen in the Torres Straight as a shark and when its nose touches the horizon at sunset it indicates the time of year when sharks are breeding and swimming is dangerous.
Indigenous star knowledge is an observational and deductive science. Hamacher explains how careful long term observation by the people of the Torres Straight has identified links between the movement of planets and stars, changing seasons and the behaviour of plants and animals. This star knowledge is more than positional, with the way stars twinkle for example, also enabling weather forecasting.
Across the world stars guide travellers. For some of us this might be as rudimentary as using the Southern Cross to orient ourselves to the south, but as Hamacher points out, crossing large areas of land and sea requires far more skill and complex knowledge. Highly regarded Indigenous navigators memorise the names and positions of stars and have deep understanding of currents, winds and animal behaviour.
The book explains how different communities use star songlines to aid terrestrial navigation. One well known being The Seven Sisters Songline that guides long distance travel in central Australia. These songlines identify land features, waterholes and food sources with star maps that are memorised through dance and song. With Indigenous guidance, early colonists also used the star mapped pathways and many of the towns and highways of Australia are a reflection of these long-used star maps.
While Indigenous knowledge has anthropological interest, it is actively used today and can inform modern astrophysics. Oral history of the changing brightness of stars was initially dismissed by western science but found meaning when Betelgeuse changed brightness and proved the validity of these Indigenous observations. Oral stories can also act as a guide to where to search the sky for new stars or supernova remnants.
Hamacher structures the book as a mix of his own story of acquiring Indigenous sky knowledge; song line narratives that explain sky features and their uses; and technical astrological detail. While this style of writing may not appeal to everyone, it left me with a strong sense of missing something important in my own life. Living in a light filled city and relying on ‘google derived’ abstracted knowledge of the stars can mean losing touch with the felt understanding of the geological and biological reality of the interconnectedness of earth, sky and life. This understanding is embedded in Indigenous knowledge systems – an understanding that comes through direct observation and the daily application of culturally acquired star knowledge.
This is a book worth reading, and perhaps purchasing, as all royalties go to charities supporting First Nations projects and people on astronomy.