We like to say we all look up at the same sky, but really, what we see can be vastly different.
Event Context
We don’t often think of lore around the Milky Way, perhaps because we so seldom see it in our urban skies, but this looming formation, understandably, inspired countless myths. To the Ancient Greeks, it was the spilled milk of the goddess Hera, which gave it the name we still use in English today.
Many indigenous cultures viewed it as a celestial river, a pathway for spirits, or a great road linking the worlds of the living and the dead. Others imagined it as smoke from an immense cosmic fire; or a giant seam where the heavens had once been stitched together.
So, we don’t all look up at the same sky… but what a marvellous thing that can be.
(Adam Jacot de Boinod is author of The Meaning of Tingo. The views expressed are personal)
Team Analysis
On the other side of the world, in China, it was harmony in focus. The five planets were named after the five phases or stages of elements in nature, a system of thought that seeks to encapsulate the cycles of life and matter thus: Water nourishes wood, wood feeds fire, fire creates earth (ash), earth bears metal, and metal collects water.
The red planet, Mars, was named Huoxing or fire star. The whitish Venus was jin xing or golden star (for metal). Saturn, which appeared ochre-yellow, was tu xing or earth star (for soil). Mercury, perhaps because of its dark appearance, was named water star or shui xing. And Jupiter was named wood star or mu xing. When these cycled through the skies in harmony, it was said, there would be similar order on Earth.
If the planets, so distant, got all that attention, it’s no surprise that the Moon sparked dramatic indigenous lore of its own.
Among the Inca of Peru, it was said that our silvery satellite once shone far more brilliantly than the Sun. So the Sun grew jealous of this rival in the skies, seized a handful of dust and hurled it at the Moon, where it remains to this day, settled in the swirls that dim its brightness.
Other cultures, of course, have seen a face in the moon; a rabbit, a frog, a crab, a turtle.
Certain Central Asian traditions tell much darker tales. Among the Altaic Tatars of Siberia, the figure seen in the moon is said to be an old cannibal whose appetite threatened humanity. So the gods removed him from the Earth and banished him to this cold, distant orb. His shadowy outline remains visible as a reminder of his punishment, and of the gods’ benevolence towards humankind.
