Explorations in Cultural Astronomy
When: Saturday, October 20, 2012, 2 – 4:30 PM
Categories : Lectures & Discussions, Webcasts & Webinars
Venue: Washington D.C. American Indian Museum
Event Location: Rasmuson Theater, 1st Level
Webcast: nmai.si.edu…
Cost: Free
Related Exhibition:
African Cosmos: Stellar Arts, on view at the National Museum of African Art
Details:
In Indigenous worldviews — where humanity, nature, and the spiritual realm are closely connected — the night sky provides spiritual and navigational guidance, timekeeping, weather prediction, and stories and legends that tell us how to live a proper life. Cultural astronomy, also referred to as archaeoastronomy or ethnoastronomy, explores the distinctive ways that astronomy is culturally embedded in the practices and traditions of various peoples. In this symposium, experts Michael Wassegijig Price, John MacDonald, Gary Urton, and Babatunde Lawal discuss the cultural astronomy traditions of four indigenous regions/cultures: Ojibwe, Inuit, Andean, and African.
For further information, please contact NMAI-SSP@si.edu.
Photo caption: Gavin Jantjes, b. 1948, South Africa, Untitled, 1989–90, Acrylic on canvas, Collection of the National Museum of African Art. Photo by Frank Khoury/Smithsonian Institution.