Updated
Photo:
The smallest star of the Southern Cross will be known as Ginan. (Geoff Wyatt: Sydney Observatory)
For thousands of years, the Wardaman people of
northern Australia have had a name for the smallest of the five stars
that make up the Southern Cross.
Key points
- The smallest star of the Southern Cross is known as Ginan
- That name has been recognised by the International Astronomical Union
- It's one of four new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander names recognised
They call it Ginan — a name that's now been officially recognised by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
"It was very exciting to give an Aboriginal name to the fifth star of the Southern Cross," said Dr Duane Hamacher, a senior research fellow at Monash University's Indigenous Study Centre.
"It was seen by the Wardaman people as a small dilly bag full of knowledge, songs of knowledge that were passed on."
Ginan is one of four Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander names that were officially recognised last month by the IAU, which represents a network of 12,000 professional astronomers.
Stars used to only be referred to by their 'Bayer designation'
Until recently, the IAU only referred to stars by their Bayer designation, which is a combination of a Greek letter and the Latin name of the constellation."All cultures around the world have their own names for the stars," Dr Hamacher said.
"There are literally thousands and thousands of names for each potential star in the sky."What we've done is we've gone through and we've officially assigned one name to each of the stars."
Naming 'a great step'
Of the four new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander names that have been recognised, three of them come from the Wardaman people, who come from a region south-west of Katherine in the Northern Territory.The names — Ginan, Wurrun and Larawag — have been passed on by Wardaman elder Bill Yidumduma Harney, who has published two books on his people's astronomical knowledge.
Photo:
The Milky Way star map by Bill Yidumduma Harney, a senior Wardaman elder. (Supplied: Bill Yidumduma Harney, CC)
The fourth Aboriginal star name is Unurgunite, which comes from the Boorong people of the Wergaia language group in north-western Victoria.
"It's very important that modern astronomy and modern science in general works on decolonising this space and really acknowledging and learning from traditional, Indigenous and Aboriginal knowledge systems and languages," Dr Hamacher said.
"So this is a great step in that direction."
Dr Hamacher said Indigenous knowledge about celestial bodies is highly complex and has been formed over tens of thousands of years.
"Everything that is on the land is reflected in the sky," he said.
"So the behaviour of the plants and the animals and the seasons and the weather and how to navigate — that is reflected in the sky.
"So all the traditions have a scientific component and they have a social component.
"You can learn about that if you just sit and talk with the elders."
No comments:
Post a Comment