Indigenous stories about the night sky can help us learn lessons, build community, and better understand who we are

Indigenous stories about the night sky reveal more than just its beauty—they can help us learn lessons, build community, and better understand who we are

BY DAVID A. ROBERTSON

FEW THINGS ARE more beautiful than the night sky. It’s why I prefer the country; there’s no street lights that rise into the air like fog. The pervasive darkness on the land reveals the stars and the moon so profoundly it’s as if somebody turned Mother Nature’s dimmer switch to full power. But what do we see when we look up? I ask that when I speak to students about The Misewa Saga, my six-part, middle-grade fantasy series. I often ask what the first constellation they think of is, and I will ask you the same thing. There is a high probability that you thought of the Big Dipper, or more accurately, Ursa Major, which the International Astronomical Union (IAU) acknowledges as a construct of a eurocentric system. It may strike…

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Cottage Life (Digital) - 1 Issue, August 2024

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