Plains Indians

If there were geese anywhere in the universe besides earth, we should probably expect to find them in the constellation Vulpecula. Vulpecula the Fox was contrived by Johannes Hevelius, the famous Polish astronomer who was based in Gdansk in the seventeenth century. Hevelius originally named this constellation Vulpecula & Anser, or the Fox & Goose. It’s no longer possible, however, to take a gander at the Goose. The Goose is long gone, ingested by the Fox in whose jaws Hevelius mapped its neck. Vulpecula is located right next to Cygnus the Swan, and for this 2005 Boeing Science Writing Contest article, Bernie Taylor has allowed those extraterrestrial geese to migrate to an imagined planet in the Swan, Cygnus 3. Bernie Taylor is a quantitatively-minded naturalist living in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. His 2004 book, Biological Time, examines the rhythms that regulate the lives of animals and plants and documents as well as ancient and indigenous knowledge of these natural cycles.
Some of these biological rhythms are modulated by celestial phenomena, and so Mr. Taylor asks whether different astronomical circumstances would alter the behavior of geese on another world or even eliminate the possibility of their existence. His imaginary planet in some ways parallels the earth. It is the third planet from its sun, a solar-like star in Cygnus. Notwithstanding the similarity of Cygnus 3 to earth, looking for geese on that planet could be a wild-goose chase.
The ancients imagined the constellation Cygnus as a swan in flight, headed south. They linked its seasonal departure from the night sky to the autumn migration of water fowl. Our failure to find any geese on Cygnus 3 wouldn't necessarily mean they don’t exist. They could, after all, have just gone south on us. What’s good for the Goose is sauce for the Swan. —E.C. Krupp, Director of the Griffith Observatory

In the following paper, an attempt is made to form a model to explain the location of late prehistoric sites in the Flint Hills area of the Central Plains. To achieve this, early journals and historic records describing the Native American groups known to have inhabited the area were examined. These were then used to reconstruct known travel routes and occupation sites used by these groups, and to describe the annual seasonal round they followed to gather resources. Archeological reports from the area were then reviewed to find any sites or data that might shed additional light on this pattern. Source areas of raw materials, known to have been important to native peoples, were also located, using ecological references. Finally, cultural factors such as tradition or religious beliefs, which can also significantly affect site location, were examined. These factors vary in importance and are often interdependent. By comparing the geographic locations of occupation sites, travel routes, and raw material source areas to cultural biases, and the seasonal round of native peoples, a model to explain the location of many late prehistoric archeological sites in the area was obtained.

For the American Indian people who lived in the upper Midwest and western Great Lakes area extending to the northern Plains of North America (fig. 1), two numbers prevailed as part of their cosmological base; the numbers four and seven. Both numbers occurred as a part of nature, cultural phenomena or were seen to come from the sky and, therefore, considered sacred (Powers, 1977: 4 & 47). The belief in numerical superiority permeated their lives and could even extend to song. As T. E. Mails (1972: 66) noted, “In rituals, the stanzas [of songs] were usually repeated in sets of fours and sevens, both of which were considered to be sacred.”  In most cases, though, the sacred numbers were defined by natural cycles observed in nature and the patterns of the stars above. Because the same stars are visible from similar latitudes, the ancient traditions that were developed incorporating their numerical, numinous qualities, sanctity and stellar locations in the night sky did not change when they migrated west from the eastern Woodland area.

The Okipa ceremony of the Mandan Indians has numerous characteristics that differentiate it from the general model of the Sun Dance. This paper analyzes its founding myths and rituals and shows how the theme of the relationship with the buffaloes constitutes the nucleus at the base of various symbolic economic, anthropological, and
cosmic codes. With the celebration of the Okipa it was possible to open the hunting season and refound and restore the values connected with this activity; the human group was renewed through initiatory elements and its identity was reshaped; the boundaries of the cosmos were redefined, evoking and overcoming potential catastrophes. In this way the ritual acted on the mutable, producing the stability of the cosmos for a whole year and annually rebuilt the presence of the Mandan in the world.