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Stellar Connections: Explorations in Cultural Astronomy
Saturday, October 20, 2012
2:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
National Museum of the American Indian, Rasmuson Theater
4th Street and Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC
In Indigenous worldviews where humanity, nature, and the spiritual realm are closely connected, the night sky provides spiritual and navigational guidance, timekeeping, weather prediction, and stories and legends that tell us how to live a proper life. Cultural astronomy—also referred to as archaeoastronomy or ethnoastronomy—explores the distinctive ways that astronomy is culturally embedded in the practices and traditions of various peoples. Join cultural astronomy experts as they present and compare Native traditions from different areas of the world. Gary Urton will speak on “Cosmologies of the Milky Way: South American Views on the Unity of Earth and Sky,” while Michael Wassegijig Price will address “Underwater Panthers, Thunderbirds, and Anishinaabe Star Knowledge.” John MacDonald will focus on “The Arctic Sky: Inuit Astronomy, Star Lore, and Legend,” and Babatunde Lawal will share African traditions in “A Big Calabash with Two Halves: The Yoruba Vision of the Cosmos.”
This symposium, a partnership between the National Museum of the American Indian and National Museum of African Art in furtherance of Indigenous cultural astronomy, is presented in conjunction with the exhibition, African Cosmos: Stellar Arts, now on view at the National Museum of African Art.
Live webcast at: http://nmai.si.edu/multimedia/webcasts/.
Free and open to the public.
Metro: L’Enfant Plaza, Maryland Avenue/Smithsonian Museums exit
For further information, please contact NMAI-SSP@si.edu
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