{"id":29758,"date":"2025-06-17T06:59:06","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T06:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=29758"},"modified":"2025-06-17T07:23:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T07:23:55","slug":"a-traveler-waits-in-the-stars-for-those-willing-to-learn-how-to-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=29758","title":{"rendered":"A Traveler Waits in the Stars for Those Willing to Learn How to Look"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Among the Northern Dene people in Alaska and Canada, tradition holds that pointing one\u2019s finger at animals, or the stars, is disrespectful. So is speaking carelessly about entities in the night sky. And so is peppering an Elder with probing questions.<\/p>\n

Chris Cannon, a red-haired astronomy educator, did not know any of this one overcast morning in 2011, when he ventured past a black bear\u2019s carcass and a faded sign reading \u201ctrespassers will be shot\u201d and knocked on Paul Herbert\u2019s door in Fort Yukon, Alaska.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cannon, at that time a number of years from earning his Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, tried to introduce himself in the Gwich\u2019in language, of which Mr. Herbert is among only a few hundred surviving native speakers. Then Dr. Cannon asked about the stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the hell you mean, stars?\u201d Mr. Herbert said. \u201cIt\u2019s cloudy out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over tea at Mr. Herbert\u2019s kitchen table, Dr. Cannon produced documents showing star names that Western ethnographers and anthropologists had recorded from Indigenous cultures across the region. Existing research suggested that Northern Dene societies like the Gwich\u2019in had only managed to map or study the Big Dipper and no other parts of the night sky. One 20th-century ethnographer had gone so far as to dismiss the region\u2019s Indigenous astronomical knowledge as \u201cextremely slight\u201d and \u201csmall.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But Mr. Herbert holds far more in his head alone than the sum total of all that published research.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018That stupid little map right there, throw that in the garbage,\u2019\u201d Mr. Herbert recalled in a recording of a launch event for Dr. Cannon\u2019s new book<\/a> on Northern Dene star knowledge that was hosted by the Tanana Chiefs Conference, a consortium of Alaska Native communities.<\/p>\n

The book, \u201cIn the Footsteps of the Traveller,\u201d grew from that first meeting with Mr. Herbert and replaces earlier scholarly condescension with a clearer picture of a huge, ancient and intricate astronomical system shared by Elders across more than 750 miles of subarctic landscape. Alongside Mr. Herbert, some 65 Indigenous knowledge holders contributed to the book. More than a third have passed away since Dr. Cannon began the research.<\/p>\n

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Among the Northern Dene people in Alaska and Canada, tradition holds that pointing one\u2019s finger at animals, or the stars, is disrespectful. So is speaking carelessly about entities in the night sky. And so is peppering an Elder with probing questions.Chris Cannon, a red-haired astronomy educator, did not know any of this one overcast morning in 2011, when he ventured past a black bear\u2019s carcass and a faded sign reading \u201ctrespassers will be shot\u201d and knocked on Paul Herbert\u2019s door in Fort Yukon, Alaska.Dr. Cannon, at that time a number of years from earning his Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, tried to introduce himself in the Gwich\u2019in language, of which Mr. Herbert is among only a few hundred surviving native speakers. Then Dr. Cannon asked about the stars.\u201cWhat the hell you mean, stars?\u201d Mr. Herbert said. \u201cIt\u2019s cloudy out there.\u201dOver tea at Mr. Herbert\u2019s kitchen table, Dr. Cannon produced documents showing star names that Western ethnographers and anthropologists had recorded from Indigenous cultures across the region. Existing research suggested that Northern Dene societies like the Gwich\u2019in had only managed to map or study the Big Dipper and no other parts of the night sky. One 20th-century ethnographer had gone so far as to dismiss the region\u2019s Indigenous astronomical knowledge as \u201cextremely slight\u201d and \u201csmall.\u201dBut Mr. Herbert holds far more in his head alone than the sum total of all that published research.\u201cI said, \u2018That stupid little map right there, throw that in the garbage,\u2019\u201d Mr. Herbert recalled in a recording of a launch event for Dr. Cannon\u2019s new book on Northern Dene star knowledge that was hosted by the Tanana Chiefs Conference, a consortium of Alaska Native communities.The book, \u201cIn the Footsteps of the Traveller,\u201d grew from that first meeting with Mr. Herbert and replaces earlier scholarly condescension with a clearer picture of a huge, ancient and intricate astronomical system shared by Elders across more than 750 miles of subarctic landscape. Alongside Mr. Herbert, some 65 Indigenous knowledge holders contributed to the book. More than a third have passed away since Dr. Cannon began the research.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29760,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29758"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29761,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29758\/revisions\/29761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}