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| ISBN-13: | 9781742194622 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Spinifex Press |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2005 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
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The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades
Stories from around the world
By Munya Andrews, Averil Lewis
Spinifex Press Pty Ltd
Copyright © 2004 Munya AndrewsAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-74219-462-2
CHAPTER 1
The Sweet Influence of the Pleiades
Unravelling the Mystery
Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion, sloping slowly to the west. Many a night I saw the Pleiads. Rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid. Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time; When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed: When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; Saw the Vision of the World, and all the wonder that would be.
— from Locksley Hall by Lord Alfred Tennyson
No other stars in the passage of time seem to have captivated and enthralled our imaginations quite like those of the Pleiades. Revered and worshipped by many diverse peoples, cultures and civilisations, this small cluster of stars has had an enormous influence on the human psyche and on our collective unconscious, where they continue to charm and fascinate. Throughout millennia their gentle glow in the night skies has inspired and guided sailors over the seven seas and other explorers on land in search of their hopes and dreams during the endless migrations of humanity across the globe. People looked to the Pleiades to tell them when to sow and harvest their produce, when the important rains would come and when to keep their sacred ceremonies. Poets, priests, prophets, shamans, storytellers, singers and historians have all sung their praises down through the ages from Homer to Hesiod, Mohammed to Milton, Plato to Edgar Allen Poe. Other acclaimed writers moved and mused by their presence include the Romantic poets Byron, Keats, and Tennyson. Artists have depicted these famous stars on bark paintings, in caves, on petroglyphs, in sculptures, on canvas and, in modern times, in cyberspace. Many important buildings, temples and other ancient monuments were aligned to the Pleiades including the Temple of the Sun in Mexico, the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the Parthenon in Greece, the 'Golden Enclosure' of the ancient Mayan capital in Peru and the pyramid of Chichén Itzá in the Yucatan, to name just a few. These faint, gentle stars have touched all our lives on a multitude of levels. Their celestial influence in all spheres of life is prolific while their esoteric, spiritual nature in world mythology is profound. Beyond their symbolic meaning, the practical application of the Pleiades in the sciences — especially in measurements, geodesics, geometry, architecture and navigation — is considerable.
Their association with timekeeping in particular is multitudinous and legendary. In the fifth century the Greek dramatist Euripides referred to them as 'nocturnal timekeepers', and a century before the poet Sappho noted the passage of time during the night while observing the Pleiades, which she recollects in a melancholic poem. Such was their reputation that the 26,000-year cycle of precession was named in their honour, where it was once known as the 'Great Year of the Pleiades' in the ancient world. Elsewhere their rise and setting marked the seasons of the calendar year, including the end of the old and commencement of the New Year. Many well known festivals owe their origins to the observation and worship of the Pleiades, including Halloween and other feasts of the dead. Even Japanese and Indian lantern festivals can be traced back to earlier celebrations involving these stars. Their influence on the development of world calendars, especially the acclaimed Mayan Calendar, is only just beginning to be realised largely through the writings of Mayan scholar John Major Jenkins who has identified the key role that the stars of the Pleiades played in Mesoamerica. Exactly thirty-four years earlier, Gertrude and James Jobes went so far as to suggest that a Pleiades Calendar 'may have preceded the lunar and solar calendars.' If proven to be true then it would establish the Pleiades Calendar as one of the world's oldest calendars. This connection with time meant that in some cultures the Pleiades took on a prophetic aspect, as in ancient Egypt where they were regarded as the Seven Fates who foretold the destiny of every newborn child, or in India where they govern the world ages or yugas embodied in the game of dice. These connections with fate, time and destiny are explored in more detail in the Egyptian and Hindu chapters. The last chapter examines the role the Pleiades played in many world calendars and prophecies.
More popularly known as the 'Seven Sisters' in world mythology, their official name in astronomy comes from Greek legends where they were known as the Seven Daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Atlas, one of Seven Titans who plotted and fought against Zeus the king of the Greek gods and his Olympian associates, was severely punished and made to bear the burden of the world upon his shoulders for eternity. The underlying symbolism of this heroic act is looked at in more detail in that chapter. In the meantime the Sisters, who were in train to the goddess Artemis as young nymphs, each went on to influence the course of human history by marrying kings and giving birth to gods and heroes who laid the foundation of many civilisations, including the ancient city-state of Troy.
The world's leading theosophist of the nineteenth century, Helena Blavatsky or Madame Blavatsky as she is more popularly known, has much to say about the role of the Pleiades in history and cosmology in her celebrated treatise The Secret Doctrine. Often referring to the Pleiades as the Atlantides (after their father Atlas and because of their connections with Atlantis), she maintains that the Seven Sisters play a vital role in the unfolding of human destiny and in the karma of nations and individuals. Just what this outcome entails is considered throughout the book, although given the sometimes encryptic disposition of her writings much of it remains conjecture and therefore subject to different interpretations. Whatever the true nature of her claims there can be no denying the prophetic roles ascribed to the stars of the Pleiades throughout history by a diverse range of peoples and cultures.
In honour of their special role in navigation, the ancient Greeks referred to the Pleiades as the 'sailing stars' and designated their Oceanid mother Pleione the 'sailing queen.'This naval tradition continues to be observed in Germany, where they are still called by their maritime nickname Schiffahrts Gestirn (sailor's stars) even though their official name is Plejaden. At other times they are simply referred to as Das Siebengestirn or 'seven stars'.
Of all the sailing nations, however, including the Phoenicians who were famed for their seafaring prowess, none could match the extraordinary maritime achievements of the Polynesians who turned sailing by the stars into an exact science. Although they relied on several individual bright stars and constellations besides the Pleiades to guide them across the vast Pacific, their love of these illustrious stars is reflected in their cultures, languages and especially in their chants and songs. The valuable role which the Pleiades played in Polynesian navigation is looked at in more detail in the chapter on Matariki, as they are known in Aotearoa (New Zealand). In Bandaiyan (Australia) they are known by many different names to reflect the prolific number of Aboriginal languages (fully fledged and complete languages in themselves, not 'dialects' as often mistakenly thought).
Navigation aside, the Greek legends of the Pleiades have given us words like electron, electrum, electricity and atlas. Not only is their father commemorated in the collection of maps that bears his name but his memory is evoked whenever we speak of the Atlas Mountains in northern Africa, the Atlantic Ocean or even the lost continent of Atlantis. The cultural affiliations of these stars in fashion and the media are present in ancient and contemporary times. In England the only street in London that turns itself into a 'lane' solely on weekends, known for its wares and collectibles — Petticoat Lane — actually derives its name from the Pleiades because the Romans named the garment hanging outside brokers' shops for this star cluster. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, in the popular cinematic love story Titanic, sailed as fictitious young lovers Rose and Jack on the ill-fated ship. The great vessel, which received its unfortunate epithet 'unsinkable,' derived its name from the very race of giants from whom the Pleiades are descended. Even our name for the month of May comes from these stars after Maia, the eldest and most beautiful of the Seven Sisters in the Greek legend. In one way or another, either directly or indirectly, and irrespective of our ethnic origins, the stars of the Pleiades have had an enormous influence on human cultures and languages. An examination and analysis of world mythology surrounding them reveals many universal themes, which suggest a very likely common human origin. At the very least, we are more alike than some of us care to admit and perhaps our so-called cultural differences may largely be of our own making.
Many great works of literature including the various mystical traditions, philosophies, codices and other religious writings such as the Kabbalah, Koran, Hermetica, Rig Veda and the Zohar all contain references to these stars. They are mentioned several times throughout the Bible, especially in the Book of Revelations, where they are implicated through their special relationship with the magical number seven. The Book of Job, in particular, asks the rhetorical question 'Canst thou bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades or loosen the bands of Orion? Intrigued by the riddle of this biblical phrase, many academics, writers and theologians have sought to understand its hidden meaning. Academy-award winning actress and New Age author Shirley MacLaine seizes upon this passage to pose the question, 'Why is the influence of the Pleiades denoted as sweet when Orion's depiction is constricting?' Although the biblical phrase does not refer to the Pleiades as female and Orion as male, their representation in world mythology suggests there is a sexual division based on gender to which these characteristics may be perceived in traditional terms. Thus Orion is often portrayed as a man or more importantly as a warrior or hunter and the Pleiades as a group of young maidens.
According to Lloyd Motz and Carol Nathanson there may be an astronomical explanation for the phrase 'loosening' the bands of Orion. This is because one of the Belt Stars, Alnitak (Zeta Orionis) 'is moving away from both Alnilam and Mintaka,' (Epsilon and Delta Orionis) along with other stars in the Orion system. What this means effectively is that 'the entire constellation will alter its shape, owing to the stars' changing positions; and an equal factor in Orion's altered appearance will be the evolutionary development of those stars.' Therefore, say the authors, 'the Lord will indeed, one day hundreds of thousands of years hence,' loosen the bands of Orion. The stars of the Pleiades, on the other hand, are all relatively speaking the same astronomic age and were born from the same starry womb. And while their individual stars will one day grow apart from one another and disperse themselves across the night skies, they are at the very least all travelling through space in the same direction. So far as the alleged sweet nature of the Pleiades is concerned, an essential clue is what I have identified as the 'honey theme' in all these stories.
Taurean star clusters
In astronomy, as in mythology, the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades continue to impress and mystify. One of the most celebrated star clusters in the sky and designated on star maps as M 45, they can be seen in the constellation of Taurus the Bull. Their alphabetic and numeric designation refers to their astronomic classification in the Messier Catalogue, named for the eighteenth-century French astronomer whose inventory of 110 celestial objects largely includes star clusters, nebulae and distant galaxies. As their name suggests, star clusters are a group of stars bunched together in a relatively small area of the sky. Basically there are two kinds of star clusters — open and closed (or globular). Taurus contains two sets of open clusters, the Pleiades and their lesser known celestial neighbours and siblings, the Hyades. The identification of this particular region of the night sky with a bull or cow is widespread throughout Europe, including India and the earlier civilisations of Mesopotamia.
Just how far back in time this association goes is not entirely certain, but some writers like cosmologist Frank Edge and Michael Rappenglueck suggest a far more remote period stretching back thousands of years before the appearance of the early Mesopotamian civilisations of ancient Sumer, Akkadia and Babylon. In his research paper Aurochs in the Sky, Edge examines the prehistoric cave paintings of aurochs (a prehistoric animal related to our modern bull) in Lascaux in southern France, and argues that the cluster of six dots above an auroch's back may in fact represent the Pleiades. He points out that not only are they the same number of visible stars (as seen from that location) but their configuration closely resembles the same 'spatial relationships' of individual stars within the cluster. As well, 'they have approximately the same relationship as the Pleiades to the head and face of the related bull.' The Lascaux caves house one of the oldest prehistoric cave paintings in Europe that is estimated to have been painted more than 17,000 years ago.
What this effectively means, says Graham Hancock in Heaven's Mirror, is that the cave dwellers would have painted the aurochs 'more than 14,000 years before the supposed first invention and naming of the twelve constellations of the zodiac by the ancient Babylonians and Greeks.' If correct, this would make the cave paintings one of the oldest representations of Taurus and the Pleiades in Europe and possibly one of the earliest star maps of that region from which other European traditions, including ancient Greece, followed. In early Northern Hemisphere European drawings and in modern star charts, the Pleiades represent the Bull's shoulder. The Hyades, on the other hand, are the set of stars that form the distinctive V-shaped pattern of Taurus that depicts the bull's head with the beautiful orange star, Aldebaran, marking the eye of the bull. The symbolism behind this asterism will become much clearer when we consider some of the universal themes found in an assortment of different cultural stories of the Pleiades.
Universal Pleiadian themes
Despite the existence of a number of common Pleiadian themes among world mythologies, only a select handful of writers have attempted to draw parallels between the various Pleiadian legends and fewer still have made any kind of intertribal comparison of the Aboriginal legends. The late nineteenth century Australian author, Katherine Langloh Parker, who published a general collection of Aboriginal Dreamtime stories in Australian Legendary Tales (1896) and More Australian Legendary Tales (1898), paved the way for such a comparison. Her views on Aboriginal people and their cultures were unusually enlightened for the times. For one, she regarded Aboriginal myths to be on an equal par with ancient Greece and believed they were just as complex and sophisticated in their storytelling as other ancient civilisations. As a consequence, she was one of the first white Australian authors to recognise and comment on the similarities between Aboriginal Dreamtime stories and ancient Greek mythology.
In Wise Women of the Dreamtime, Johanna Lambert draws upon the well of Aboriginal stories collected by Langloh Parker and analyses them from an intercultural, anthropological and spiritual perspective. Her intention, she states, was to follow Langloh Parker's 'insight and interpret her translations comparatively with other world mythologies.' This she does most eloquently throughout her book, and especially in the chapter 'Where the Frost Comes From', where she examines one particular Aboriginal legend of the Pleiades — that of the Bundjalung peoples of northern New South Wales on the east coast of Australia. This is the story of the Maimai women of the Pleiades and the Berai-Berai men of Orion who fell in love with them. In this chapter, Lambert makes several connections between ancient Greek, Indian and Egyptian legends and those of the Bundjalung stories of the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades.
Twelve years prior to Lambert, Jennifer Isaacs, the editor of Australian Dreaming, included a general, brief discussion on the Pleiades with reference to three different Aboriginal legends. Although her comparative analysis is limited, she makes some interesting observations from a broader, bigger-picture perspective. She notes, for instance, that the majority of the stories are essentially about young women, seven in number, with one sister who is either missing or lost, and that they are pursued either by an older man or else a group of men. Lambert, on the other hand, identifies specific mythic aspects including the Sisters' relationship with honey in the Australian Aboriginal and Greek legends, and their description as female judges in ancient Hindu, Egyptian and Greek mythologies. Noting similar attributes among the Maimai, she focuses on their portrayal as strong warrior women in Aboriginal mythology who act as role models for young Aboriginal girls approaching womanhood.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades by Munya Andrews, Averil Lewis. Copyright © 2004 Munya Andrews. Excerpted by permission of Spinifex Press Pty Ltd.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Dedication,Acknowledgements,
Prologue A GRANDMOTHER'S TALE: Seven Stars for Seven Sisters,
1. THE SWEET INFLUENCE OF THE PLEIADES: Unravelling the Mystery,
2. PLEIADES: Seven Daughters of Atlas and Pleione,
3. MAIMAI: Seven Sisters of the Dreamtime,
4. MATEO TIPI: Seven Star Girls of Devils Tower,
5. KRITTIKA: Seven Wives of the Seven Rishis,
6. ATHURAI: Seven Cows of Ancient Egypt,
7. MATARIKI: Seven Little Eyes of Heaven,
8. SUBARU: The Story of the Lost Sister,
9. THE PLEIADES CALENDAR: Keeping Time with the Seven Sisters,
References,