Astronomy in Hawai'i Without Abstract

Helaine Selin Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures 10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8433 © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York 2008 Astronomy in Hawai'i Rubellite K. Johnson Without Abstract There were two important tasks that drew on ancient Hawaiians’ understanding of space and time. One was constructing a ritual calendar for determining the length of the day, week, month, and year; the other was navigating on the seas between island destinations. The first, calendrics, was the responsibility of the priests, among whom were stargazers called kilo hoku, from kilo (to observe or to watch), and hoku (star). The same stargazers, however, observed more than stars. They knew the sun's motions and those of the moon and the planets, but the stars were the most challenging. Let us look at this from the standpoint of the student who starts out in “class,” which was a place set aside for men and boys to worship the gods. In a place where men only spoke with one another in the men's eating house, the hale mua, the “front” (mua) house in the compound of the household (kulana kauhale), a young boy began his training in these subjects. Since they were part of required religious training, he found himself within rock‐walled enclosures, or temple (heiau) grounds set aside for men's worship, the tabu pule scheduled through seven nights, na la kapu kauila, totalling 56 nights in an eight‐month period. The 240‐day tabu period was followed by 120 days of the makahiki season during which taxes (auhau) were collected. No one knows how astronomical subjects were taught, although some information has survived through stories and chants from the migration period of discovery and exploration, with wayfinding practice associated mainly with places visited in ancestral lands to the south. The sun's motion between the north and south and across the equator may have been the first fundamental horizon system to be learned, combined with the observations of stars nearest the rising and setting points of the sun in the morning and evening. The sun's rising (hiki) gives the cardinal direction east its name: hikina. When above the horizon, it is kau, to be placed or to be hung, but it also means to set, as of the sun afloat westward, kau lana ka la. When the sun sets, it “enters” (komo) into the world below, so that cardinal direction west is called komohana, the “entering” place of the setting sun. When the sun has stopped on its northern journey, that point is called the sun “afloat,” kau lana ka la. Its daily motion as it arches upward from its eastern azimuth or “pit” (lua) to local zenith (nu'u) and after noon “declines” (‘aui) is called ka'a, ka'a ka la ma lalo, the sun moves down. When it crossed the equator, the sun was said to “trample” (ke'ehi) the “diaphragm” (houpo) of the god Kane (ke'ehi i ka houpo o Kane), the sun being the “eyeball” of Kane (Kane ‘onohi o ka la). This is the basic compass, adding north for the right (‘akau) and south for the left (hema) sides of the body. The days were counted as nights of the moon, and there were two revolutions tracked, one synodic, and the other sidereal. Each “night” was clocked into quarters. The clock began at midnight, called Kau, or Aumoe, the latter meaning “time of sleep.” Kau situates the clock on meridian, as at midnight and so also at noon, so the midday was also called Kau. When the sun was in the zenith (nu'u, lolo) it was called kau ka la i ka lolo, the “sun was over the brain (lolo).” This position of the sun, not only on meridian but in the zenith as well, took place twice in the year – once when the sun was going north, between May and June, and again when the sun was going south, between June and July. People today may call this “Lahaina noon,” but generally the zenith sun appears at the southernmost part of the island of Hawai'i, about 19° north about May 15th (although the date is variable). All other “noons” when the sun is on meridian are called awakea after Sky Father, Wakea, whose name is synonymous with noon and the center of the celestial equator, called Ka Piko o Wakea, the “Navel of Wakea” (Sky Father). Piko means “center of the body,” which has three such piko: one at the top of the skull in the soft spot, the fontanel; one at the navel, and one at the midpoint of the genital area in line with the piko in the middle of the skull. When one lies down, then the piko at the center of the horizontal body, called the ‘opu, is in contact with navel center of Mother Earth, Ka Piko o ka Honua. “The Navel of the Earth,” or terrestrial equator, which extended beyond earth into the sky is Ke Ala i Ka Piko o Wakea (Path to the Navel of the Sky); Ka Piko o Wakea is the celestial equator. The clock having thus two Kau, midnight and midday, is an indigenous concept of the “mean day,” by which day and night are divided into equal parts. There were no hours, except the quartering for the night, commencing about sunset (i.e., 6:00 p.m.), called a “corner” (kihi), and the next “corner” at sunrise, Kihi puka; puka means “to emerge,” as a celestial body, whether sun, moon, stars, or planets. Between the kihi corners were the pili quarters, meaning “close to,” as in pili ‘aumoe, about 9:00 o'clock at night, and pili puka, about 3:00 a.m., meaning “close to sunrise.” From these data it is appears that the shape of the Hawaiian clock between the two Kihi is angular rather than circular, perhaps a rectangular shape. The day clock is spread out on both sides of noon (Kau, Awakea) by morning (kakahiaka), afternoon (‘auinala, from ‘aui, “to decline,” as of the sun), and evening (ahiahi). Day and night are ao (daylight) and po (night). The moon was regarded as feminine, as passive light or a reflection of the goddess Hina, perceived as ruling the tides, as well as growing sea life on and around the living reef. Each night of the moon had a separate name through one synodic revolution of the moon, or that passage from the first crescent perceived in the west until it returned to that point again in 29.5–30 nights. The new moon, or dark phase, was Muku (cut off or severed). Hina, the moon goddess, was thought to have gone into and through the Milky Way (Ka Wai Ola a Kane, “Living Waters of Kane”), in which her dying soul (Mauli) revived in the life‐giving semen of the creator god. Her spirit was the last crescent waning moon (Mauli). On the night of Muku, Hina's spirit was in the Milky Way. After Hina comes through the Wai Ola a Kane, the first braid of her gray hair is seen at Hilo after sunset, low on the horizon, alive again. The waxing (ho'onui) moon begins at Hilo, moving south until first quarter at ‘Ole, thus: These ten “nights,” or 10 days, were the first anahulu decan week of the month and year. In this circuit of 10 days the lighted part of the moon's crescent increased as the moon continued southward. This was followed by two more anahulu decan weeks of rounding (poepoe) of the moon when the lit portion lost its “cusps” (Ole, milk teeth) until the fully lit circle, after which it began to wane or “shrink” (‘emi) back to the dark phase of new moon (Muku). The ritual period of tabu days during eight months of the year was coordinated between synodic and sidereal lunations, zenith stars, and azimuths of sun and stars in the ecliptic. [The following is excerpted (and readjusted) from Johnson 2000.] The first ritual tabu period of the month, called a pule period, was imposed on the night of Hilo and raised on the morning of Kulua… This period of the Ku pule tabu amounted to 2 and 1/2 days, between Hilo, Hoaka, Kukahi, Kulua… During the poepoe rounding decan of the waxing moon, the tabu pule period was called the tabu of Hua, imposed on the night of Mohalu (12th night) and raised on the morning of Akua (14th night), i.e., from Mohalu, to Hua, and Akua. This added 1 and 1/2 more days to the 2 and 1/2 day Ku tabu before first‐quarter moon… A tabu pule period was assigned to the god Ka(na)loa. Imposed for 1 and 1/2 days, it began on the night of ‘Olepau and ended on the morning of Ka(na)loa‐ku‐lua, i.e., from ‘Olepau to Kaloakukahi and Kaloakulua… After Kaloa‐pau came the 27th night of Kane when began the tabu pule for this god on 1 and 1/2 days, from the night of Kane to the morning of Mauli, i.e., Kane, to Lono, and Mauli. While including the 28th night of god Lono, no tabu pule was set aside for the god Lono during the month. The tabu period was in force for 240 days and relaxed for 120 days, beginning in the month of October, or the last month of the summer (Kau) season. This anticipated the shift of prevailing winds from the southwest (Kona) and the beginning of the agricultural year, makahiki, in November when the Pleiades star cluster (Makali'i) was expected to rise above the eastern horizon in the evening, opposite the sun and after the new moon in November.

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