Hans Egede

The Greenlanders’ Astronomy, or their Thoughts concerning the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Planets.

THE notions the Greenlanders have of the origin of heavenly lights, as Sun, Moon, and Stars, are very nonsensical; in that they pretend that they have formerly been so many of their ancestors, who on different accounts were lifted up to Heaven and became such glorious celestial bodies.

Their silly stories concerning this matter have been related in the continuation to the Greenland Memoirs, or relations, but as this book very likely may not come to the hands of every body, I shall shortly remember some of them here. The Moon, as they will have it, has been a young man, called Anningait, or Anningasina; whose sister was the Sun, named Malina, or Ajut (by which latter name they call any handsome woman, for whom they have a value, Ajuna.) The reason (why these two were taken up into Heaven) they give, is this: there were once a number of young men and women assembled to play together in a house made of snow (according to their custom in the winter season), when the Moon or Anningait, who was deeply in love with his sister, who assisted at this assembly, was used every night to put out the light, that he might caress her undiscovered; but she not liking these stolen caresses, once blackened her hands with soot, that she might mark the hands, face, and clothes of her unknown lover, who in the dark made addresses to her, and by that discover who he was: hence, they say, come the spots that are observed in the moon; for as he wore a coat of a fine white rein deer skin, it was all over besmeared with soot; hereupon Malina, or the Sun, went out to light a bit of moss; Anningait, or the Moon, did the same, but the flame of his moss was extinguished; this makes the Moon look like a fiery coal, and not shine so bright as the Sun. The Moon then run after the Sun round about the house to catch her; but she, to get rid of him, flew up into the air, and the Moon pursuing her, did likewise; and thus they still continue to pursue one another, though the Sun’s career is much above that of the Moon[42].

They also tell us, that the Moon is yet obliged to seek for his livelihood upon the earth and sea, in catching of seals, as a food he formerly was used to; which they pretend he is doing, when he appears not in the air: nay, they do not stick to say, that she now and then comes down to give their wives a visit, and caress them; for which reason no woman dare sleep lying upon her back, without she first spits upon her fingers and rubs her belly with it.

For the same reason the young maids are afraid to stare long at the moon, imagining they may get a child by the bargain. During the eclipse of the sun no man dare stir out of the house; and likewise when the moon is eclipsed, no woman goes abroad, because they fancy that both hate the sex of the other. The sun for joy puts on her pendants, or ear-bobs; the reason of which they take to be the hatred she bears against her brother, which also reaches to his sex. As on the contrary, the Greenland women wear their pendants at the birth of a boy, because so useful a creature is come into the world. Their notion about the stars is, that some of them have been men, and other different sorts of animals and fishes. The faint light of some stars they attribute to their eating the kidney; and brightness of others to their feeding upon liver. They give also names to many stars and constellations, viz. the three stars in the belt of Orion, they name Siektut, that is separated; because these three, they say, before their metempsychosis, or rather metamorphosis, were three honest Greenlanders, who being out at sea, a seal catching, were bewildered, and not being able to find the shore again, were taken up into Heaven.

Ursa Major, the great bear star, is styled by those that dwell in 64°, Tugto, or rein deer; while they that live in the bay of Disco at 69°, call it Asselluit, the name of a tree, to which they tie their line when they shoot seals. Taurus, the second sign in the Zodiac, is named Kellukturset, or kennel of hounds, who seem to have a bear among them; by this constellation they reckon their hours by night. Iversuk, that is, two persons that contend with songs or verses in taunting one another, as is customary among the Greenlanders. These two stars are in the constellation Taurus, of which heretofore, Aldebaran or Nennerroak, that is, a light which lights the two singers. Canis Major is called Nelleraglek, which is the name of a man amongst them; this they say has got on a coat of rein deer’s skin. Gemini, Auriga, and Capella, are named Killaub Kuttuk, that is, the breast bone of Heaven.

When two stars seem to meet together, they say, that they are visiting one another; others will have it to be two women, who being rivals, take one another by the hair.

Concerning thunder and lightning, they say that two old women live together in one house in the air, who now and then fall out and quarrel about a thick and stiff outstretched seal skin (because such a skin, if beaten as a drum, has some likeness to the noise of thunder); while they are thus by the ears together, down comes the house with great bouncing and cracking, and the lamps are broken, the fires and broken pieces fly about in the air, and this, in their philosophy, is thunder and lightning.

In their astronomical system, the heaven turn about upon the point of a huge rock. The snow, according to their fancy, is the blood of the dead, on account that it turns reddish if you keep it in the mouth. The rain comes from a ditch or wear above in Heaven; when it overflows there, it rains here below.

They have no calendar or almanacks, nor do they compute or measure the time by weeks or years, but only by months; beginning their computation from the Sun’s first rising above their horizon in the winter; from whence they tell the month, to know exactly the season, in which every sort of fishes, sea animals, or birds seek the land; according to which they order their business.

As nonsensical now as these notions of the Greenlanders are (as they in reality are), yet they come short of the Egyptian King Ptolemy’s infatuation, who by the loathsome flattery of his astronomers was persuaded that his Queen Berenice’s head of hair was translated into Heaven and astrified, if I may say so; which constellation to this day goes by the name of Coma Berenices, or Berenice’s hair; and what travellers relate of China and the East Indies, where some are of opinion, that the Sun’s eclipse is nothing but that a certain devil or sprite sometimes swallows up the Sun, and then again spews it out.