Earth, Skies, and Fossil Fuels

Earth, skies, and fossil fuels

The Inca are known to be some of the best early star watchers. The reason for their avid interest in the heavens is because their whole life centered around the movement of the stars. Unlike many ancient civilizations, the Inca did not have a calendar; they relied on the positions of the stars to tell them when certain events were supposed to take place.

But the Inca did not only use the stars as a timekeeper, they also structured their whole social system off of the stars. They believed that they were born of the stars and have an elaborate legend explaining how the universe was created and in the end the Morning Star, Mars (Male), and the Evening Star, Venus (Female), had a daughter and from her the human race was born. This story was more than a legend to the Inca who believed that the stars were gods that "interacted with humans." The most important star gods are "The Red Morning Star Warrior" which is believed to be Mars, and the "White Star Woman" which is believed to be Venus. The second highest star gods supported the heavens and were located at Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast. The third most important of the star gods were the sun, moon, and the gods of the four directions (North, South, East, West). The Inca had shrines and sacrificial rituals in honor of the Gods of the sky.

Another way the Inca incorporated the stars in to their life could be observed just by looking at the structure of their villages. Villages were laid out in the pattern of the most important stars, and house's doors all faced east to the rising sun, and each house had four posts representing the four important directions. In each of these households a sacred bundle could be found, these bundles were believed to be gifts from the star gods and contained star charts. These star charts were made of leather with one side of the chart a reddish-brown and the other side a brownish-yellow and the stars were represented in four-pointed figures. The Milky Way was found in the center of the chart symbolizing the division between summer and winter.

Works Cited

Antequino, J.J. and Felix Rivera. "Astronomy and Cosmology of the Plains Indians" http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/plains/plains.html (3/3/04). "Space

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