Sky Cultures · 7 of 7

The Sisters and the Hunter

Could an old story record a star in Orion changing brightness?

The Western Desert, Greece and Arnhem Land all tell a story about the Pleiades and Orion — and some of those stories noticed that the stars change.

You’ll be able to tell three peoples’ stories of the Pleiades and Orion under the stars themselves.

10 steps · about 8 min

Before this: Orion: The Hunter (6 min), The Pleiades (8 min)

Where and which night

Working out when this is best placed from where you are…

Where

Which night

Date

Time

Kept for this guide only, until you change it here — your map settings, and every other guide, stay as they are.

Print, play outside or present

Present on a big screen

Sources

← GUIDES

Run the clock: the , Seven Sisters, and , chasing them.

Anangu Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra and Martu people sing it. Nyiru, a sorcerer, wants the eldest sister; he turns into a lizard, a fruiting tree, to trap them. They flee across three deserts — each waterhole a scene of the songline — and into the sky. He follows.

Many traditions see the same chase. In Greece the hunter Orion pursued the Pleiades until Zeus made them doves, then stars. The line is the gap he never closes: the sky turns them together, so he is always the same distance behind.

The Hunter, from Orion: The Hunter

Kokatha people at Ooldea told Daisy Bates (1930s) of — Nyiru by another name. He reaches for the sisters with fire magic in his hand, but the eldest, , stands in his way on the V that India calls Rohini, her foot holding fire too. His fire flares and dies; hers answers.

The V as Rohini, from The Moon's Houses

Both fire-stars really do vary, Aldebaran too little for the eye to be sure. The astronomer Duane Hamacher argues the story is an observation — and in 2019–20 Betelgeuse faded to about a third of its usual brightness, exactly the kind of change the story describes.

In Arnhem Land the see no hunter. Orion is , a canoe, with three brothers sitting in it and the Orion Nebula the fish they caught — a fish their law forbade, so the Sun-woman sent a waterspout to carry them into the sky. From Yirrkala the hull floats upright.

The sisters, whom you have met as Krittika and Matariki. Before the names go on: how many can you count? Most say seven.

Count them, from The Pleiades

Five sisters and their father, as the Pleiades guide counts them. Many stories explain the missing one: in Greece Merope hides, ashamed of marrying a mortal, or Electra grieves for Troy; in the desert, Nyiru catches the youngest.

Ray and Barnaby Norris offer a reason: Pleione, at the east end, is so close to Atlas that the eye merges them, and 100,000 years ago the two stood further apart. If the story is that old, it may have left Africa with the first modern humans — a bold claim, and contested.

In the Andes a dim June dawn still means a dry year. What they are reading is the thin high cloud El Niño brings.

One chase, in the desert and in Greece
Most eyes count six; stories say seven

The Sisters and the Hunter

Settings

Screen

Clock and voice

Change place