The Spirit and the Sky: Lakota Visions of the Cosmos


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Description

The interest of nineteenth-century Lakotas in the Sun, the Moon, and the stars was an essential part of their never-ending quest to understand their world. The Spirit and the Sky presents a survey of the ethnoastronomy of the nineteenth-century Lakotas and relates Lakota astronomy to their cultural practices and beliefs. The center of Lakota belief is the incomprehensible, extraordinary, and sacred nature of the world in which they live. The earth beneath and the stars above constitute their holistic world.

Mark Hollabaugh offers a detailed analysis of aspects of Lakota culture that have a bearing on Lakota astronomy, including telling time, their names for the stars and constellations as they appeared from the Great Plains, and the phenomena of meteor showers, eclipses, and the aurora borealis. Hollabaugh's explanation of the cause of the aurora that occurred at the death of Black Elk in 1950 is a new contribution to ethnoastronomy.


Author: Mark Hollabaugh
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 10/01/2018
Pages: 276
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.62d
ISBN13: 9781496208231
ISBN10: 1496208234
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Native American Studies
- Science | Space Science | Astronomy

About the Author
Mark Hollabaugh is an emeritus instructor of physics and astronomy at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota.