Children of the Sky is a fictional story based on what is known to have governed the lives of the ancient Skidi Band of Pawnee Indians. Their traditions, emerging from remote times, were nurtured and maintained, yet ever evolved due to circumstances and natural phenomena. The story spans the life of a religious leader from birth (1602) through violent death (1680). Born during the night of a dramatic meteor blizzard, the man who became known by his people as Flying Stars, along with other leaders, guides the Skidi people through droughts, conflicts with others as well as strife from within and awareness of ever growing pressures from white invaders onto the American landscape. This is a story of exploration and discovery through learning from others, believing that “everything is connected” and increasing knowledge by “looking closely at everything”. It is, as well, the story of the land itself, stretching from the magnificent Plains to the eastern front of the towering Rocky Mountains, where the Skidi continually gained a greater understanding of themselves amid physical realities of seasons, landscapes, weather, water, rocks, and plants. Living along rambling rivers and sparkling streams flowing through grasslands dancing to rhythms of singing winds adorned here and there with forested prairie lands, hunting herds of bellowing buffalo and other game, finding tasty wild fruits, berries, and roots, while planting and harvesting crops of corn, beans, and squash, these people carefully watched the Sun, Moon, planets and stars. The continual astronomical displays, simple and complex, observable upon the great vault of heaven above, were interpreted by intelligent minds of people surrounded by the exquisite beauty of Mother Earth watched over by the grandeur of star-studded Father Sky. Children of the Sky uniquely exemplifies the age-old struggle of people everywhere to survive, discover and pass on knowledge. That theme is enhanced in Von Del Chamberlain’s story with descriptions of law, social order, religion, and dramatic ceremonial traditions. The importance of unity within families and cultures grows as the story unfolds to the concluding hope for eventual unification throughout the region and ultimately beyond. Thus, we discover that principles so highly valued in America today resided here long before the arrival of European stock.

Children of the Sky

History

Chamberlain, Von Del

Americas

When Stars Came Down to Earth: Cosmology of the Skidi Pawnee Indians of North America (Ballena Press Anthropological Papers)

Science & Math

Astronomy & Space Science

Ballena Pr

This substantial collection of papers on indigenous astronomical knowledge is quite unequalled in its scope and extent. The authors are drawn from a variety of academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, engineering, art history, history of science, history of religion, folklore, and mythology, and bring a variety of academic perspectives to bear upon aspects of celestial knowledge and perception in diverse social contexts from many different parts of the globe. The Americas provide the main geographical focus, with twenty of the 32 papers concerning indigenous north American groups such as the Navajo, Lakota, Zuni and Blackfoot, the Mixe and Tzotzil Maya of southern Mexico, the Andean highlands and the Amazonian region of Peru, and southern coastal Brazil. The remaining twelve articles extend to the Arab world, sub-Saharan Africa, southern India, Java, Melanesia, Australia and Polynesia, with a few addressing broader synthetic themes. For a number of the culture areas dealt with in some detail here, other published information about sky knowledge is extremely scant. Table of Contents Preface (Clive Ruggles); Foreword (John B Carlson); Introduction (Von del Chamberlain and M Jane Young); Part 1: Ethnoastronomy Perspectives: The sky is an ethnographic treasure trove (Von Del Chamberlain); The Colour of cosmic order (Edwin C Krupp); Ethnoastronomy and the problem of interpretation: A Zuni example (M Jane Young). Part 2: Western Astronomical Traditions: Ethnoastronomy and the Arab agricultural almanac (Daniel Martin Varisco). Part 3: Native Astronomical Traditions of the Americas: The seven sisters (N Scott Momaday); Raven's universe (David Vogt); Astronomy in Pueblo and Navajo world views (M Jane Young); Using a planetarium to study Navajo star lore (Mark Bunker Peterson); Black god: God of fire, God of starlight (Trudy Griffin-Pierce); Origin and meaning of Navajo star ceilings (Von Del Chamberlain and Polly Schaafsma); Transformations of the Mesoamerican Venus Turtle Carapice war shield: A study in ethnoastronomy (John B Carlson); When is a month? The moon and Mescaleros (Claire R Farrer); Ethnoastronomy of the North American plains (Alice B Kehoe); Lakota star knowledge (Ronald Goodman); Sky tales from the Anishinaubaeg (Basil H Johnston); Venus in the east and west (Stanislaw Iwaniszewski); Tzotzil Maya cosmology (Weldon Lamb); Mixe calendrics, ritual and astronomy (Frank J Lipp); Constructions of the ritual-agricultural calendar in Pacariqtambo, Peru (Gary Urton); Mythic substitution and the stars: Aspects of Shipibo and Quechua ethnoastronomy compared (Peter G Roe); Amahuaca astronomy and star lore (Joseph Holt Woodside); Búzios Island: Knowledge and belief among a fishing and agricultural community at the coast of the state of São Paulo (Edmundo Magaña); Arawak constellations: A bibliographic survey (Fabiola Jara). Part 4: Astronomical Traditions of the Non-Western World: Monotomy and surprise in Tabwa cosmology (Allen F Roberts); The moon besmirched (Dominique Zahan); The haphazard astronomy of the Mursi (Clive Ruggles and David Turton); Surya Puja temples of South India (J McKim Malville and R N Swaminathan); The planetarium and the plough: Interpreting star calendars of rural Java (Gene Ammarell); Applied ethnoastronomy: Navigating by the stars across the Pacific (Ben Finney); The Woodlark Island calendar: Contexts for interpretation (Frederick H Damon); Celestial lore of some Australian tribes (Norman B Tindale).

Songs from the Sky: Indigenous Astronomical and Cosmological Traditions of the World (Archaeoastronomy)

Politics & Social Sciences

Young, M. Jane

Carlson, J. B.

Archaeology

Ocarina Books

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