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Little dipper constellation8/3/2023 ![]() To the Celts of England and Wales, it was King Arthur's chariot. Some cultures imagine this not as an animal but as a plow, a wagon or a chariot. I suppose when he's high in the sky, as during this month, he must crawl on his back. In the east, Tezcatlipoca must bounce on his one leg and when he is near the western horizon, he must walk on his two hands. The jaguar is forced to perpetually dance around the pole of the sky (marked by the North Star, Polaris). ![]() At one point, the miseries he caused angered Quetzalcoatl so much that he turned his brother into a three-legged jaguar and placed him in the night sky. Tezcatlipoca lost a leg and thigh when a door was slammed on it. That is Mizar, but right next to it is the much fainter Alcor, representing the frightened young sister of the angry bear.Īccording to Aztec mythology, this group of stars does not represent a bear but Tezcatlipoca, the sorcerer and trouble-making brother of the great god Quetzalcoatl. Look carefully at the middle star in the Big Dipper's handle. The youngest girl was frightened and hid beside her older brother. All eight children followed it and became the stars we call the Big Dipper. The eldest son, seeing the helplessness of their plight, shot an arrow into the night sky. She went on a rampage, killing her mother and father and threatening to kill all eight of her siblings. As the bear died, magic flowed from him to the girl, turning her into a bear. Her father was outraged with this and ordered his sons to slay the bear. The eldest daughter of a large family fell in love with a grizzly bear. His tail froze and fell off since then, all earthly bears possess only a stub for a tail.Ī Blackfoot Indian legend tells of a different bear connection. One such bear, attempting to show off to others, used his long tail to fish through a hole cut in the ice of a frozen lake. According to an Iroquois story, all earthly bears once had long tails. Most see the "handle” stars as hunters pursuing the bears. They now represent the constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (Little Bear), what we commonly call the Big Dipper and Little Dipper.Īlthough many North American Indian tribes imagined these two star patterns as bears, they typically didn't imagine them with long tails. He did so by grabbing them by their stubby tails, twirling them around and flinging them into the sky, stretching out the tails. Zeus honored both of them by placing them among the stars. Just in the nick of time, Zeus turned Arcas into a bear who then recognized his mother. ![]() Fully grown, Arcas was an accomplished hunter and, not recognizing his mother, raised his spear to slay the bear. One day while in the woods, Callisto spotted her son, Arcas. She was forced to roam the woods, but Hera let her keep her human memories, making her one sad bear. In a fit of jealousy, Zeus' wife Hera turned Callisto into a bear. Some stories about this celestial bear explain that long tail.Īccording to the ancient Greek myth, Zeus, the king of the gods, fell in love with a mortal woman named Callisto. Real bears, at least terrestrial ones, don't have such long tails they have tiny tail stubs. As we represent the bear on our star chart, it has a long tail: the handle of the Big Dipper. Now you're looking at the chart as you would see the stars in the northern part of the sky. Rotate the star chart so that the northern horizon is at the bottom. The constellation name is Ursa Major, or Big Bear. Its feet stick up from its body with the head to the left and the tail on the right. Like our pan, the bear is upside down this time of year. But most cultures imagine these stars as part of a bear, usually encompassing many more stars than those that comprise our Big Dipper. The Big Dipper name comes from the fact that this pattern of stars resembles a pan or measuring cup with a bent handle.
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