The amazing thing about Ptolemy’s chart is that it does not pivot around the North Star at all! The NCP being somewhere else in the past means it has moved from its position in Ptolemy’s time to now point at the Polaris. More accurately, the sky pivots around the North Celestial Pole (NCP), but the North Star is very close to it (less than a degree away). In a time-lapse photo of the night sky, what star does not move? Rather, what point does the sky pivot around? If you answered Polaris (the North Star), you are mostly correct. Mapping them would have given him a large circle of stars centered at some pivot point. Throughout a year, he would have seen all visible stars-winter constellations, summer constellations, and everything in between. It begs the question: Did this constellation name and idea originate at the same place and from the same people before being scattered throughout the earth? Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD meticulously mapped coordinates in ecliptic latitude and longitude for over one thousand stars known to him via legends and his own eyes. “Thus, circling the globe from the valley of the Ganges to the great lakes of the New World, we find ourselves confronted with the same sign in the northern skies, the relic of some primeval association of ideas, long since extinct.“ 4 Did this constellation name and idea originate at the same place and from the same people before being scattered throughout the earth? Oceans separate cultures and people, yet so many see the bears in the sky, just as if you and your buddy were looking at clouds and found the same shape. The hunters killed the bear each autumn, but each spring a new bear came to life to run. The bear rose up, and the chase began again. After the hunters spent a winter in the sky, a spirit reentered the bear. As the crimson flow from the wound dripped down onto earth, it turned the colors of the trees red, the mark of autumn. The bear, in his magic, ran off the earth, straight into the heavens, and took the hunters into the stars with him. Mile after mile the bear grew tired the hunters drew closer until one was able to fatally wound the bear. In order to protect themselves, villagers sent their best hunters to track and kill the bear. Multiple tribes of the New World, including the Iroquois and Algonquin, have a legend something like this: a giant, magical bear was threatening a village of people and their food. 2 Some say this could be cultural crossover throughout the years, but then why would North American natives see the same picture of a long-tailed bear in the sky, as reported by four early-comers in the late 1600s early 1700s? 3 The Finns, Arabians, Phoenicians, Persians, and inhabitants of northern Asia also call this constellation a long-tailed bear. Juno, though, found one last way to curse them when she convinced the god of the sea to forbid them to enter the water to rest, so evermore they are forced to wander around the North Pole. The weight of the bears as he hurled them into the sky by their tails was enough to stretch the tails into the long ones they have today. To further protect them from Juno’s wrath, he decided to cast them into the sky out of her reach. Not knowing the bear’s identity, Arcas pulled back an arrow (or a spear in some versions) but Jupiter, to protect Kallisto, intervened and turned Arcas into a bear. Years later the son, Arcas, was hunting and came face to face with his mother. Jupiter’s wife, Juno, was jealous and cursed Kallisto by turning her into a bear. In Roman legend, Jupiter had a lover, Kallisto (or Callisto), who conceived and birthed a son. Even though these bears have long tails unlike any bear we know today, they caught the attention of the Ancient World as well. Similarly, how likely is it for cultures scattered across the globe to see the same shapes in the stars? Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Big and Little Bears with distorted tails, are well-known constellations in today’s world because they are easy to spot, hold the asterisms we know as the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, and are important for finding the North Star. Do you remember as a child looking into the sky to find shapes in cotton-ball clouds? How often did you see the same shape as someone else? For my family, we saw very different animals or objects, and it was only when we specifically pointed out distinct features that we could agree on a shape.
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