North America - Part 2 : The Pawnee
The
Pawnee people, especially the Skidi Band, were sophisticated skywatchers.
Cosmology was intertwined with their daily lives, and hierarchy within
the tribe, as well as the village layout was based on the ranking of star
gods. First in the ranking came the Red Morning Star Warriors (Mars),
followed by the 4 gods who supported the heavens located at directions
northwest, northeast, southwest and southeast. Third came the Sun, Moon
and the gods of the 4 cardinal directions. The supreme god was Tirawa,
the Sun. The north star represented the god Tirawahat, the 'Star That
Does Not Walk Around' and chief over the other stars. They drew star charts,
and star appearances seemed to serve as calendars for them.
According
to Pawnee oral tradition, they used to organize their 18 villages to be
aligned to stellar patterns and associated with 18 different stars. Morning
Star was the being from which humanity and all its rules for 
living
originated. Von Del Chamberlain, an astronomer who studied Pawnee mythology
and stellar legends, deduced that the Morning Star was Mars, and that
the Navajo paid great attention to observing the westward migration of
the planet. Mars was associated with the colour red, and the synodic period
of the planet would have been observed by the Pawnee as taking 2.14 years
to travel from the east to the west of the sky. The Pawnee had 4 sacred
bundles of sticks which represented the 4 semicardinal directions, and
4 different villages posessed the bundles for a span of 2 years, after
which they were passed to 4 other villages. This led Chamberlain to theorize
that the synodic period of Mars was the reason why the bundles were passed
every 2 years and not annually.
The traditional Pawnee earth lodge was built with 4 roof-supporting poles which symbolized the 4 stars that held up the sky. Each star was also associated with the following:
| location of star | associated colour | associated animal | associated season | associated corn |
| northwest | yellow | mountain lion | spring | yellow corn |
| northeast | black | bear | autumn | black corn |
| southwest | white | wildcat | winter | white corn |
| southeast | red | wolf | summer | red corn |
The exact
identity of the stars have not yet been matched to any of those we know
due to lack of information but Chamberlain has suggested the stars Capella
for the Yellow Star, Antares for the Red Star, Sirius for the White
Star and Vega as the Black Star.