Milky Way Mythology: Often a Path to the Afterlife, Souls of the Dead on the Milky Way

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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The Milky Way, as the Path of the Souls

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1. “Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw/ Kwakiutl people speak Kwakiutl, a Wakashan language spoken by Kwakwakaʼwakw people around Queen Charlotte Strait in Western Canada. It has shared considerable influence with other languages of the Pacific Northwest, especially those of the unrelated Salishan family.” ref, ref 

2. “Oglala people (pronounced [oɡəˈlala], meaning “to scatter one’s own” in Lakota language) are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires).” ref

3. “Shoshone people speak the Shoshoni language, part of the Numic languages branch of the large Uto-Aztecan language family.” ref

4. “Lakota people speak Lakȟótiyapi—the Lakota language, the westernmost of three closely related languages that belong to the Siouan language family.” ref

5. “Cheyenne people speak Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family.” ref 

6. “Pawnee people speak Pawnee language belongs to the Caddoan language family.” ref 

7. “Apache people speak Southern Athabaskan language and are linguistically related to the Navajo. Athabaskan languages are a large branch of the Na-Dene language family connected to Dene–Yeniseian is a proposed language family consisting of the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia and the Na-Dene languages of northwestern North America.” ref, ref, ref 

8. “Seneca people speak Seneca, a Iroquoian language and were part of the Six Nations or Iroquois League(Haudenosaunee). It is most closely related to the other Five Nations Iroquoian languages, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk(and among those, it is most closely related to Cayuga).” ref 

9. “Aztec people speak Nahuatl language part of the Uto-Aztecan language family.” ref, ref, ref 

10. “Maya people speak Mayan languages used in Mesoamerica, both in the south of Mexico and northern Central America.” ref, ref 

11. “Tucano people speak Tucanoan languages, a language family of Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru.” ref, ref 

12. “Inca people speak Quechuan languages used throughout the central Andes Mountains including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.” ref, ref

THE MILKY WAY AS THE PATH TO THE OTHERWORLD: A COMPARISON OF PRE-COLUMBIAN NEW WORLD CULTURES

“The recently defined discipline of Archaeoastronomy has drawn attention to how PreColumbian New World peoples viewed the night sky. Countless studies now exist on the importance of sky-watching to Native American life. Like their European counterparts, early man in the New World had many myths about the planets, the stars and the universe. Indigenous-built structures from Chile to Alaska have been demonstrated to be observatories and models of the universe in miniature. The application of archaeoastronomy to the studies of New World cultures has greatly aided in the understanding of the customs of those groups. Cross-cultural comparison using archaeoastronomy has proven more difficult, and few attempts in the literature exist. The 1990 National Geographic article entitled “America’s Ancient Skywatchers”, by John Carlson, is one notable exception. The article compares the cosmologies of four New World cultures, the Inca, Maya, Aztec, and Navajo, and demonstrates that each believes in a three-planned universe: the earth plus an upper and underworld. This paper compares the role of the largest of all-sky phenomena, the Milky Way, from the perspectives of eleven New World cultures. The following culture groups will be discussed: Inca, Tukano, Maya, Aztec, Apache, Pawnee, Cheyenne, Sioux, Shoshone, Seneca, and Kwakiutl.” ref

“This group of cultures was picked for a number of reasons. First, the group is meant to be a representative sample of the three New World areas: North, Central, and South. Second, there are many ethnographies of New World cultures but few breach the topic of sky watching. Fewer still speak of the Milky Way. Many cultures are now vanished from the earth or changed to such a degree as to retain little of their Pre-Columbian customs. For those people, early ethnographies are the only source left that records their customs and beliefs. Thus, the cultures included in this study were also chosen due to the quality of ethnographic information regarding them. There are countless other cultural groups that should be included here but cannot due to lack of surviving information. Unfortunately, information concerning the Milky Way cannot be found for every New World culture. This should not be construed as a lack of beliefs regarding the Milky Way.” ref

“The examples given in this paper are simply the beliefs that have made their way into the written record. Each group discussed has their own myths regarding the creation and character of the Milky Way. They involve local animals and geography. The Milky Way is spoken of in terms of metaphors that have special meaning to each individual culture. However, if one looks beyond the metaphors, to the meaning and function of the Milky Way in those same cultures, continuity emerges. Each of the cultures discussed here regards the Milky Way 1 as the Path to the otherworld, traveled by spirits, deities, and shamans in trance. The following compilation of ethnographic information will demonstrate the existence of this belief in eleven cultures, starting with the Inca and moving northward. Moche, Navajo, and Eastern Greenland Eskimos will be tangentially discussed. Finally, a possible explanation for the continuity will be offered.” ref

In Ancient Egypt, The Milky Way Was A Ladder To The Afterlife

“The galaxy was seen as a conduit for the souls of the dead in many other ancient cultures.” ref

“The ancient Egyptians are famous for their reverence of celestial bodies, yet the role that the Milky Way played in their cosmology remains poorly understood by Egyptologists. However, according to a new analysis, the band of stars that streaks across the sky may have had a number of mythological functions, acting as a path to the underworld while also guiding birds along their annual migration route.” ref

“Penned by astrophysicist Dr Or Graur from the University of Portsmouth, the new study examined the idea that the Milky Way was represented by the sky goddess Nut, who is often depicted as a star-studded woman arching over the Earth in order to protect it from the menacing waters of the abyss, known as Nun. According to the Book of Nut, also known as The Fundamentals of the Course of the Stars, the sky woman’s primary job was to give birth to the Sun each morning, before swallowing it in the evening.” ref

To help her achieve this task, Nut is perpetually oriented with her rear in the east and her head in the west. The Milky Way, however, changes its position in the sky over the course of the year, running from east to west in the summer months and north to south in the winter. This discrepancy has cast doubt over the idea that Nut represents the galaxy. However, after consulting numerous funerary papyri found in Ancient Egyptian tombs, Graur identified several depictions of Nut with her arms outstretched at 45 degrees to her body.

“Such a pose enables the sky goddess to cover the various alignments of the Milky Way as the year progresses, thus suggesting that she may well have been the embodiment of our galaxy after all. For instance, Graur explains that “in the winter, the Milky Way delineates Nut’s arms, while during the summer months, it sketches out her torso (or backbone).” ref

“Seeking further assurances for Nut’s association with the Milky Way, the study author looked for similarities between her role in Ancient Egyptian mythology and other representations of the star gods in cultures around the world. For instance, according to one Egyptian Coffin Text, Nut is described as a “ladder” by which the souls of the dead are able to ascend to the afterlife, echoing the role of the Milky Way in Native American mythology.” ref 

“Many Native American peoples across North America view the Milky Way as a road along which the spirits of the dead travel to the afterlife,” writes Graur. “The Lakota name for the Milky Way is Wanáǧi Thacháŋku, the Spirits’ Road, which the Lakota follow to heaven when they die.” Similarly, he explains that “The dead of the Yucatec Maya travel along the Milky Way at night,” with the dark band of the Milky Way’s Great Rift envisioned as a highway leading straight to the underworld.” ref

“Yet another passage from the Book of Nut describes how birds appear from the goddesses’ northern end each winter as they migrate south from Europe to Africa. In isolation, this does little to prove that Nut represents the Milky Way, although such a link becomes clearer when one considers the associations between the band of stars and bird migration in other Indigenous cultures. “This link still exists today in the name given to the Galaxy by Finland, Estonia, and several Baltic states: ‘Birds’ Path’ (e.g., Linnunrata in Finnish or Paukščių Takas in Lithuanian),” writes Graur.” ref

“Overall, Graur’s findings shine a light on the mystery of Nut and her relationship with the Milky Way, indicating that different parts of her body are capable of representing the stars at different times of year. “My study also shows that Nut’s role in the transition of the deceased to the afterlife and her connection to the annual bird migration are consistent with how other cultures understand the Milky Way,” he explained in a statement. The study has been published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage.” ref

 The Mythology & Folklore Database

“Found 344 results in total for Milky Way. Database matches were found in the sections for Books (2), Folktales (3), Berezkins Database (339).” ref

Books results (2):

Metamorphoses – Ovid Metamorphoses
Read Chapters: 1, 13, 6, 9

Rig Veda – The Rig Veda trans. by Ralph T.H. Griffith (1896)
Read Chapters: Indra – Book: 2 Hymn: 13, Indra – Book: 8 Hymn: 13, Press-stones – Book: 10 Hymn: 94, Soma Pavamana – Book: 9 Hymn: 70, Soma Pavamana – Book: 9 Hymn: 86

Folktale results (3):

Folktales assigned an ATU Category:

(ATU 300-749) Tales Of Magic  

(ATU 400-459) Supernatural Or Enchanted Wife (Husband) Or Other Relative  

(ATU 425-449) Husband  

Title: The Enchanted Pig – Read it
Summary: Cf. also Types 430, 432, and 441. I. The Monster as Husband. (a) A monster is born because of a hasty wish of the parents. (b) He is a man at night. (c) A girl promises herself as bride to the monster, (c1) to recover stolen clothes or jewels, (c2)…
AT Motif Title: The Search for the Lost Husband
Other AT motif variants: 425A. Search for the Lost Husband*** 425B. The Disenchanted Husband: the Witch’s Tasks *** 425C. Beauty and the Beast*** 425D. Vanished Husband Learned of by Keeping Inn*** 425E. Enchanted Husband Sings Lullaby*** 425G. Recognition When Heroine Tells Her Story*** 425H. Short form of the tale*** 425J. Service in Hell to Release Enchanted Husband*** 425K. Search in Men’s Clothing*** 425L. The Padlock on the Enchanted Husband*** 425M. Bathing Girl’s Carments Kept *** 425N. The Bird Husband***

Thompson Motifs that align with ATU :
_______________________________

Folktales without ATU Category:

The Enchanted Pig – Read it

The Girl without Hands – The Girl without Hands – Finland (Wuokkiniemi) – Read it

Berezkin’s Database results (339):

Or click here to view results sorted by Number of Traditions

The Sun and Moon
A1. The ancient sun (59 traditions).
A2A. Several suns are scorching the earth, A720 (106 traditions).
A2b1. The Last Sun (26 traditions).
A3. The Sun is a man and the moon is a woman, A716 (346 traditions).
A4. Sun-woman, A736 (253 traditions).
A5. Sun and Month are men, A711 (339 traditions).
A10. The sun finds its eyes (6 traditions).
A11C. Sun, moon, and monster eyes (4 traditions).
A12. Eclipses: monster attack, A737 (299 traditions).
A12A. A predatory beast overshadows the stars (94 traditions).
A13a1. The raven extracts the sun (29 traditions).
A14. Eclipses: the relationship between the sun and the moon, A737 (105 traditions).
A17. Afternoon sun rest (46 traditions).
A19C. The Sun Horse (24 traditions).
A19c1. Solar cart (17 traditions).
A20. The childhood of the Sun and Moon (47 traditions).
A21. The stars are thrown into the sky, A700 (65 traditions).
A22. To the sky from the fire (30 traditions).
A22C. Sacrifice to the Sun (17 traditions).
A22D. When burned, it turns into a constellation (4 traditions).
A24. First sunrise (49 traditions).
A29B. The Torn Month (10 traditions).
A31. A Month in Love (103 traditions).
A32D. Man on the moon, A751 (296 traditions).
A32H. Moon tree, A751 (73 traditions).
A32J. A shaman on the moon (6 traditions).
A34. The fox and the moon (23 traditions).
A35A. Dirt thrown into the face (29 traditions).
A37. The sun is under attack (73 traditions).
A42. Phaeton (Sun Simulator), A724 (20 traditions).
A42A. A sun simulator falls from the sky (8 traditions).
A46. The sun and moon come from the creature’s eyes (24 traditions).
A47A. A lizard finds the sun (0 traditions).

The Origins of the Characteristics of the environment
B1. Two creators, A50 (78 traditions).
B2A. Earth is a female being, A401 (295 traditions).
B2D. A marriage between heaven and earth, A625 (102 traditions).
B2E. Earth is a man (55 traditions).
B6. When they meet halfway, they marry (18 traditions).
B9. The water is in the tree (51 traditions).
B12. Snake rivers (61 traditions).
B16. Salt water: body secretions, A1115 (0 traditions).
B20. Expedition to the Upper World (7 traditions).
B21. The destruction of the world tree (8 traditions).
B22. An offended tree is knocked down (9 traditions).
B27. Variants of metamorphosis (36 traditions).
B28E. The month is a world organizer (9 traditions).
B36. Color, voice, form: one is divided among many (69 traditions).
B36A. Bathing in blood (52 traditions).
B42. The Cosmic Hunt – Hunters, their dogs, and animals running away or killed can be seen in the sky in the form of stars and constellations (F59) (128 traditions).
B42B. Hunting for ungulates (70 traditions).
B42D. Tapir hunting (5 traditions).
B42E. Nandu hunt (6 traditions).
B42F. The Big Dipper is an ungulates (55 traditions).
B42H. Orion’s belt is game, hunter is another star (38 traditions).
B42I. Cassiopeia is a deer (6 traditions).
B42K. Space hunting — Pleiades (23 traditions).
B42L. The bucket is a beast, the handle is a hunter (23 traditions).
B42M. The second hunter has a bowler hat (11 traditions).
B42N. Orion is one person (72 traditions).
B42P. The Big Dipper is a bear (32 traditions).
B42Q. The Big Dipper is a wagon (62 traditions).
B42T. The seven stars of the Ursa Major are animals (61 traditions).
B42h1. An arrow pierced the animal (17 traditions).
B42m1. Ket, Selkup, and Evenk (8 traditions).
B42mn. One hunter chases the Big Dipper (23 traditions).
B45. Winter and Summer Wedding, A1153 (26 traditions).
B45A. Winter versus summer (0 traditions).
B46. Seven star brothers (78 traditions).
B46C. Big Dipper — seven characters (101 traditions).
B47. Pleiades and cold (16 traditions).
B57. Bloody sunset (37 traditions).
B71. Dancing flashes (38 traditions).
B75d. The sounds of the era of creation: the sound of foliage (6 traditions).
B77. Low sky, A625 (213 traditions).
B77C. The serpent pushed the sky away (4 traditions).
B79. Space egg (40 traditions).
B82. White Raven, A2411 (137 traditions).
B87A. Alcor is a dog (19 traditions).
B87B. Harnessed wolf (10 traditions).
B87C. Rider (15 traditions).
B93. Meeting in heaven once a year (13 traditions).
B93A. Bird bridge over the sky river (5 traditions).

Disasters
C1. The fall of the sky (37 traditions).
C2. Flood and fire (147 traditions).
C8. Brother and sister give birth to people (95 traditions).
C9. God is helping to survive the disaster (0 traditions).
C14. Monsters destroy people (60 traditions).
C18A. The sun lures the rooster (36 traditions).
C19. Finding the sun (195 traditions).
C19A. The child is playing with the sun (31 traditions).
C20. A drunken cannibal (0 traditions).
C25. Eschatological expectations (0 traditions).
C25C. The Big Dipper and the End of the World (12 traditions).
C38. People are coming soon (15 traditions).
C39. Repairing the sky (12 traditions).

Fire and Laughter
D2. The birth of the sun/fire (10 traditions).
D2A. A mother dies when she gives birth to fire or the sun (5 traditions).
D4A. Fire theft, A1415 (294 traditions).
D9. Vultures and fire (65 traditions).

The origins of people and culture
E5C. People from heaven (133 traditions).
E8. Wooden people (58 traditions).
E8A. Coconut women (8 traditions).
E9. Unknown hostess, N831 (271 traditions).
E9H. The magic wife is a dove (79 traditions).
E13B. Rituals from another world (0 traditions).
E30B. Pygmalion (7 traditions).
E32. Progenitor plants (85 traditions).

Gender and sex
F1. A transformed man (44 traditions).
F2. Birth from a leg T541; V52 (101 traditions).
F9A. Toothy womb (104 traditions).
F9B. Piranha in the vagina (18 traditions).
F27. Girls and water perfumes (49 traditions).
F32. The snake son is collecting fruit (29 traditions).
F41. Husbands kill wives (15 traditions).
F50. Children born many times (35 traditions).
F64B. An incestuous woman (31 traditions).
F66. A false house (10 traditions).
F88. The smell of women (18 traditions).
F90. Tragic incest (17 traditions).
F96. He became handsome (17 traditions).
F98. God and the cow (9 traditions).

Fertility and Agriculture
G2. Mr (58 traditions).
G3. The Rock of Plenty ( (15 traditions).
G6. The First Tree (142 traditions).
G15. Corn girls (28 traditions).
G16. Ants find cultivated plants (15 traditions).
G21. Coconut head (28 traditions).
G23. Multiple objects from the same creature (192 traditions).

Paradise Lost
H4. Skin change as a condition for immortality, D1889 (130 traditions).
H5. Humans and snakes (145 traditions).
H11. Call of God (48 traditions).
H12. Orpheus: Journey to the Underworld, F81 (190 traditions).
H12C. Get your dead wife back (73 traditions).
H16B. Milk pond (50 traditions).
H24A. A bag with stars (11 traditions).
H27A. A hole in the ground (16 traditions).
H28. The creature turns into mosquitoes, A2034 (152 traditions).
H28A. The ashes of the burned person turn into mosquitoes (36 traditions).
H34B. The river flows in both directions (27 traditions).
H50. Heavenly god and mistress of the dead (11 traditions).
H54. Veci Viya, F571 (58 traditions).

Supernatural objects, objects and creatures
I1. Thunder birds, A284 (174 traditions).
I3. Thunder Weapon (194 traditions).
I4. Thunder travels across the sky (43 traditions).
I5A. Thunder tapir (6 traditions).
I6. Birds carrying a storm (47 traditions).
I7. Cloud Serpent (77 traditions).
I8A. Peace pillars: anthropomorphic characters (0 traditions).
I8C. Suspended ground (30 traditions).
I8D. Peace pillars: pillars, mountains (0 traditions).
I8G1. A giant at the base of the world (0 traditions).
I8I. At first, the earth swayed (38 traditions).
I14. Creatures without anus, F529 (104 traditions).
I15. Creatures without mouths (37 traditions).
I17. Bodily anomalies of inhabitants of another world 19 (96 traditions).
I24. Snake Bridge (30 traditions).
I26. Dangers to souls (18 traditions).
I27. Dog of the Land of the Dead (104 traditions).
I27A. Dog villages and pathways (20 traditions).
I27D. The mouth of a black dog (3 traditions).
I39. Rainbow Bridge, F152 (107 traditions).
I39A. The souls of the dead walk across the rainbow (22 traditions).
I41. Rainbow serpent, A791 (195 traditions).
I41B. The rainbow is drinking water (58 traditions).
I41C. The heavenly object is the reflection of a snake (9 traditions).
I43A. Space serpent (48 traditions).
I43B. The Milky Way is a snake, a fish (37 traditions).
I44. Chthonic serpent (45 traditions).
I45B. Don’t point your finger at the rainbow, C843 (157 traditions).
I45C. It is forbidden to count stars (23 traditions).
I46. Rainbow belt (93 traditions).
I47. The rainbow is like a stream of secretions (38 traditions).
I50. The multi-legged beast, B15 (49 traditions).
I51B. Earth is an animal (23 traditions).
I56. Spirits don’t see the living (34 traditions).
I58. The Milky Way is the birds’ road (35 traditions).
I59. The Milky Way is scattered straw (48 traditions).
I59A. A thief in heaven 15 (50 traditions).
I59B1. The Milky Way is a road to a distant city (31 traditions).
I59B2. The Milky Way — St (20 traditions).
I59B3. The Milky Way is the road for those carrying salt (7 traditions).
I59B4. The Milky Way — snow, frost (8 traditions).
I60. The Milky Way is a celestial seam (14 traditions).
I60A. The Milky Way is a stripe on the belly (5 traditions).
I61A. The Milky Way is a belt (12 traditions).
I62. The Milky Way is a river, A778 (103 traditions).
I64. Animal trail on the Milky Way (42 traditions).
I64A. Racing on the Milky Way (11 traditions).
I65. The souls of the dead on the Milky Way (94 traditions).
I66. Ash on the Milky Way (22 traditions).
I67. Emu and nanda on the Milky Way (14 traditions).
I68. Opening the sky (50 traditions).
I71. Stars are roots (10 traditions).
I72. Stars are people (271 traditions).
I72A. Stars are children of the moon, A764 (61 traditions).
I74. Stars are stones (25 traditions).
I75. Previous worlds (30 traditions).
I81. The waters fall into the abyss (20 traditions).
I82A. Venus is a man (136 traditions).
I82B. Venus is a woman (157 traditions).
I83. Bird sky (59 traditions).
I84. The Milky Way — ski trail (30 traditions).
I84A. The frozen son of God (8 traditions).
I85. The North Star is a stake or a nail (61 traditions).
I85B. The North Star is a person (25 traditions).
I86. Fluff in birds, scales in fish (14 traditions).
I87F. Sledge suicide (6 traditions).
I93. The Milky Way is the backbone of the sky (21 traditions).
I93A. The Milky Way is the heavenly tail ( (0 traditions).
I95B. Orion is a rocker (12 traditions).
I98A. Pleiades — chicken with chickens (58 traditions).
I99. Pleiades are boys or men (91 traditions).
I102. The Milky Way is a tree (9 traditions).
I103. Dog star (30 traditions).
I107. Stars are nails (10 traditions).
I108. The Pleiades are one character (75 traditions).
I109. The Milky Way is the road of heavenly bodies (10 traditions).
I110. Heavenly farmers (60 traditions).
I110B. Orion — kostsy (31 traditions).
I115. Orion and the Pleiades (0 traditions).
I116. The Milky Way is the border of seasons (12 traditions).
I120B. Get the animal out of the ear (19 traditions).
I121. Paired constellations (65 traditions).
I124. The Big Dipper is a boat (18 traditions).
I125. Hyades are the animal’s jaw (16 traditions).
I126. Funeral stretcher constellation (19 traditions).
I128. Big Dipper — bucket (24 traditions).
I129. Heron constellation (4 traditions).
I130. Celestial network (26 traditions).
I133. A constellation all over the sky (14 traditions).
I134. Long neck on the Milky Way (13 traditions).
I135. Celestial skin (9 traditions).
I140. A jaguar and a deer in the sky ( (3 traditions).

Avenger heroes: The amerinday cycle
J6. The murdered woman’s children grew up in an antagonist house (37 traditions).
J12. Girls looking for a groom (114 traditions).
J15A. The Jaguar has a woman (40 traditions).
J16. Refuses to eat insects (14 traditions).
J22D. Animals cut in half (11 traditions).
J23C. It flies through the body of an ogre (3 traditions).
J25. Babies hide and come back (86 traditions).
J27. Discarded and homemade, Z210 (62 traditions).
J28B. Hot cake (36 traditions).
J37. The bird carries away the antagonist (37 traditions).
J40A. Avenged captives (0 traditions).
J43. A bait for enemies (13 traditions).
J44. The collapsed bridge (100 traditions).
J45. The leg serves as a bridge, R246 (60 traditions).
J47. The stalker falls from a height (111 traditions).
J50. An attempt to resurrect the deceased (27 traditions).
J51. A piece is missing, E33 (72 traditions).
J52. Children are killing children in avenging their parents (42 traditions).
J53A. Inviting you to play kills (16 traditions).
J57. Son of the Sun (27 traditions).
J58. A chain of arrows, F53 (82 traditions).

Adventures: Acts of heroes
K1A. Trap: A boy or a man will leave (0 traditions).
K8A. Ion: swallowed by an aquatic or chthonic creature (237 traditions).
K10. The fight with the bird (164 traditions).
K10i. An open tree (5 traditions).
K13A. The one-legged rises to the sky (32 traditions).
K19B. The husband is a star (54 traditions).
K22. Cranes and Pygmies, F535 (40 traditions).
K24. The hidden clothes of a supernatural woman, (ATU 413) (252 traditions).
K25. Heavenly Wife, T111 (497 traditions).
K25a1. Clothes found (105 traditions).
K27. Challenges and competitions (532 traditions).
K27F. Get a woman (118 traditions).
K27S. Running, racing (123 traditions).
K27U. Hide, ATU 329 (74 traditions).
K27g1. Task: Clean the barn (16 traditions).
K27g3. One thing falls down, they all fall (6 traditions).
K27g4. Sow, squeeze and bake bread in a day (43 traditions).
K28. A father or uncle is an enemy and a rival (193 traditions).
K29A. Unharmed in fire (192 traditions).
K32. Replaced woman, K1911; ATU 403, 404 (294 traditions).
K32A. The man leaves along the way (18 traditions).
K32h1. They put them in a barrel with nails (15 traditions).
K37. Find out your own among the same ones, H62 (164 traditions).
K47A. A woman and a dog (84 traditions).
K75. Youngest daughter agrees, ATU 433B (258 traditions).
K80. An indestructible woman (109 traditions).
K82. Evil sister-in-law (69 traditions).
K101. Girls Night Dances, ATU 306 (56 traditions).
K101C. In the afternoon in the palace, at night in the sky (5 traditions).
K114. Brothers leave after the birth of their sister, (ATU 451) (35 traditions).
K120a3. Walnut dress (36 traditions).
K121. Knight at the crossroads (53 traditions).
K127. The Swan Brothers, ATU 451 (67 traditions).
K130A. The girl in the brothers’ house, (ATU 709A) (76 traditions).
K137. The sister brings the women to revive her brother (11 traditions).
K153. Grateful beasts and an evil man, ATU 160 (61 traditions).
K175. The wind carried away the flour, ATU 759C (15 traditions).
K176. A man looking for a woman (353 traditions).
K177. A wandering heroine (237 traditions).

Adventures: Monsters and evil spirits
L1A. Werewolf: A large predator (41 traditions).
L1E. The character creates monstrous birds (7 traditions).
L4. Assassin Unveiled, ATU 311, 312 (112 traditions).
L5. Rolling head (0 traditions).
L11. Turtle bench (62 traditions).
L13. A raised monster (75 traditions).
L14. Raised snake (80 traditions).
L19b1. The seven-headed dragon (79 traditions).
L19b2. The 12-headed serpent (49 traditions).
L42i. The sister goes to save her brother (swan geese), ATU 480A* (15 traditions).
L43. The cannibal eats garbage (45 traditions).
L48. Demons devour theirs (40 traditions).
L50. Cannibal on the trail, G321 (32 traditions).
L53. Stones in the mouth, K951 (130 traditions).
L66. Underground passage under the monster (26 traditions).
L72. Magical Escape, D672, D673 (284 traditions).
L73B. A drawn feature (7 traditions).
L81. Demon fire (129 traditions).
L81A. The cat extinguishes the fire (22 traditions).
L81a2. A demon comes to drink a girl’s blood, (ATU 709A) (35 traditions).
L85. Half creatures, F525 (179 traditions).
L90. Fall to the sky (51 traditions).
L90A. A hut with chicken legs (27 traditions).
L98. The cannibal owl (54 traditions).
L100. The Unrecognized Fugitive, D671 (74 traditions).
L107. Blanket ears (38 traditions).
L123. The tracks lead in all directions (5 traditions).

Adventures: Tricks and episodes
M1. Dangerous crossing (0 traditions).
M1A. Cayman transports the Pleiades (5 traditions).
M3. Human chain (49 traditions).
M8A. Birds are hammering the rock: release from the trap (58 traditions).
M8D. Extend the hole in the body (10 traditions).
M9. Trapped in a hollow (29 traditions).
M10. Girl and honey (19 traditions).
M16. A cripple healed (48 traditions).
M21. The fugitive hides at the defender (170 traditions).
M27. Returning from Heaven (54 traditions).
M29z1. Anthropomorphic trickster (miscellaneous) (34 traditions).
M30. The trickster falls, (ATU 225, 225A) (237 traditions).
M44C. Food thieves are a young hero (31 traditions).
M46. An imaginary baby (61 traditions).
M46A. A picked up baby (28 traditions).
M46D. The child asks for a toy (27 traditions).
M50. Next to the stars (34 traditions).
M75. Taken from vultures (73 traditions).
M88. Involved in a dance (7 traditions).

https://www.mythologydatabase.com/index.php

Milky Way (mythology)

“There are many myths and legends about the origin of the Milky Way, the crowd of stars that makes a distinctive bright streak across the night sky. In Egyptian mythology, the Milky Way was considered a pool of cow’s milk. The Milky Way was deified as a fertility cow-goddess by the name of Bat (later on syncretized with the sky goddess Hathor). The astronomer Or Graur has suggested that the Egyptians may have seen the Milky Way as a celestial depiction of the sky goddess Nut.” ref

“In the Babylonian epic poem Enûma Eliš, the Milky Way is created from the severed tail of the primeval salt water dragoness Tiamat, set in the sky by Marduk, the Babylonian national god, after slaying her. This story was once thought to have been based on an older Sumerian version in which Tiamat is instead slain by Enlil of Nippur, but is now thought to be purely an invention of Babylonian propagandists with the intention to show Marduk as superior to the Sumerian deities. Another myth about Labbu is similarly interpreted.” ref

“In the Hindu collection of stories called Bhagavata Purana, all the visible stars and planets moving through space are likened to a dolphin that swims through the water, and the heavens are called śiśumãra cakra, the dolphin disc. The Milky Way forms the abdomen of the dolphin and is called Akasaganga which means “The Ganges River of the Sky.” According to Hindu mythology, Vishnu lies meditating on Shesha with his consort Lakshmi, in the Kshira Sagara (Sea of Milk), which is a representation of Milky Way. This “Sea of Milk” is also the (cosmic) ocean referenced in the Samudra Manthana episode of Vishnu Purana, a major text in Indian mythology. The Samudra Manthana explains the origin of the elixir of eternal life, amrita.” ref

“In Eastern Asian and Chinese mythology, the hazy band of stars of the Milky Way was referred to as the “River of Heaven” or the “Silvery River” (simplified Chinese: 银河; traditional Chinese: 銀河; pinyin: yínhé; Korean: 은하; RR: eunha; Vietnamese: ngân hà; Japanese: 銀河, romanized: ginga). The Silvery River of Heaven is part of a romantic Chinese folk tale, The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, of the romance between Zhinü, the weaver girl, symbolizing the star Vega, and Niulang, the cowherd, symbolizing the star Altair. Their love was not allowed, and they were banished to opposite sides of the heavenly river. Once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, a flock of crows and magpies would form a bridge over the heavenly river to reunite the lovers for a single day. That day is celebrated as Qixi, literally meaning ‘Seventh Night’ (Chinese: 七夕; pinyin: Qīxī; Korean: 칠석; RR: chilseok, Vietnamese: Thất Tịch, and Japanese: 七夕, romanized: Tanabata).” ref

“Ancient Armenian mythology called the Milky Way the “Straw Thief’s Way”. According to legend, the god Vahagn stole some straw from the Assyrian king Barsham and brought it to Armenia during a cold winter. When he fled across the heavens, he spilled some of the straw along the way. Similarly, in Assyrian Aramaic (Syriac), the Milky Way is called the ܫܒܝܠ ܬܒܢܐ shvil tivna, meaning the way of straw, or ܐܘܪܚܐ ܕܓܢܒ̈ܐ urẖa d’gannave, meaning the path of thieves.” ref

“Aboriginal Australian people had a well-developed astronomy, with much of their mythology and cultural practices relating to the stars, planets, and their motion through the sky, as well as using the stars to navigate the Australian continent. The Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains in South Australia see the band of the Milky Way as a river in the sky world. They called it Wodliparri (wodli = hut, house, parri = river) and believe that positioned along the river are a number of campfires. In addition, the dark patches mark the dwelling place of a dangerous creature known as a yura; the Kaurna call these patches Yurakauwe, which literally means “monster water.” ref

“A group of Yolngu people from the Ramingining area in central Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory have a Dreaming story known as “Milky Way Dreaming.” In this story, which relates to the land, two-spirit beings in the form of female quolls attacked their husband. The husband becomes a glider possum, gathers his warriors, and returns to kill them with spears. The spirits of the quolls transform into a type of freshwater fish, but they are caught in the creek nearby by the husband’s tribesmen and eaten. Their bones are collected by their brother, Wäk, aka the crow man, and put into a hollow log coffin. The Badurru Ceremony is performed, and the coffin is carried into the sky by the crow and his kin. The bones are then dispersed and form the Milky Way. Aboriginal groups from the Cape York region of Queensland see the band of light as termites that had been blown into the sky by the ancestral hero Burbuk Boon.” ref

“Further south, the band of stars that comprise the Milky Way are seen as thousands of flying foxes carrying away a dancer known as Purupriggie. The Aranda or Arrernte people, who come from Central Australia, see the band of the Milky Way as a river or creek in the sky world. This stellar river separates the two great camps of the Aranda and Luritja people. The stars to the east of this river represent the camps of the Aranda, and the stars to the west represent Luritja encampments, and some stars closer to the band represent a mixture of both. In the Kimberley region of Western Australia, the Aboriginal people called the Milky Way “Iowara” and saw in it the presence of a giant emu elongated.” ref

“A Cherokee folktale tells of a dog who stole some cornmeal and was chased away. He ran away to the north, spilling the cornmeal along the way. The Milky Way is thus called ᎩᎵ ᎤᎵᏒᏍᏓᏅᏱ (Gili Ulisvsdanvyi) “Where the dog ran.” ref

“In Hungarian mythology, Csaba, the mythical son of Attila the Hun and ancestor of the Hungarians, is supposed to ride down the Milky Way when the Székelys (ethnic Hungarians living in Transylvania) are threatened. Thus the Milky Way is called “The Road of the Warriors” (lit. “Road of Armies”) Hungarian: Hadak Útja. The stars are sparks from their horseshoes.

“Among the Finns, Estonians, and related peoples, the Milky Way was and is called “The Pathway of the Birds” (Finnish: Linnunrata, Estonian: Linnutee). The Finns observed that migratory birds used the galaxy as a guideline to travel south, where they believed Lintukoto (bird home) was. In Estonian folklore it is believed that the birds are led by a white bird with the head of a maiden who chases birds of prey away. The maiden, the goddess Lindu, was the Queen of the Birds and the daughter of Ukko, the King of the Sky. After refusing the suits of the Sun and Moon for being too predictable in their routes and the Pole Star for being fixed, she fell in love with the Light of North for its beauty. They became engaged, but the inconstant Light of North left her soon afterward. The tears of the broken-hearted Lindu fell on her wedding veil, which became the Milky Way when her father brought her to heaven so she could reign by his side and guide the migrating birds, who followed the trail of stars in her veil. Only later did scientists indeed confirm this observation; the migratory birds use the Milky Way as a guide to travel to warmer, southern lands during the winter. The name in the Indo-European Baltic languages has the same meaning (Lithuanian: Paukščių Takas, Latvian: Putnu Ceļš).” ref

“The Greek name for the Milky Way (Γαλαξίας Galaxias) is derived from the Greek word for milk (γάλα, gala). One legend explains how the Milky Way was created by Heracles (Roman Hercules) when he was a baby. His father, Zeus, was fond of his son, who was born of the mortal woman Alcmene. He decided to let the infant Heracles suckle on his divine wife Hera‘s milk when she was asleep, an act which would endow the baby with godlike qualities. When Hera woke and realized that she was breastfeeding an unknown infant, she pushed him away, and the spurting milk became the Milky Way.” ref

“Another version of the myth is that Heracles was abandoned in the woods by his mortal parents, Amphitryon and Alcmene. Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmene, was naturally favored by his father, who sent Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom, to retrieve him. Athena, not being so motherly, decided to take him to Hera to suckle. Hera agreed to suckle Heracles. As Heracles drinks the milk, he bites down, and Hera pushes him away in pain. The milk that squirts out forms the Milky Way.” ref

“A story told by the Roman Hyginus in the Poeticon astronomicon (ultimately based on Greek myth) says that the milk came from the goddess Ops (Greek Rhea), the wife of Saturn (Greek Cronus). Saturn swallowed his children to ensure his position as head of the Pantheon and sky god, and so Ops conceived a plan to save her newborn son Jupiter (Greek Zeus): She wrapped a stone in infant’s clothes and gave it to Saturn to swallow. Saturn asked her to nurse the child once more before he swallowed it, and the milk that spurted when she pressed her nipple against the rock eventually became the Milky Way.” ref

“Welsh mythology and cosmology derives from the ancient oral traditions of the Celtic Britons, which were maintained by druids and bards until the time of their recording in medieval Welsh literature. Many features of the night sky are named for the “children of Dôn” the ancient mother goddess and sky goddess, with the Milky Way being associated with Gwydion ab Dôn (the son of Dôn), and named Caer Gwydion (“The fortress/city of Gwydion”) or Llwybr Caer Gwydion (“the path to the Castle of Gwydion”).” ref

“In Irish mythology, the main name of the Milky Way was Bealach na Bó Finne — Way of the White Cow. It was regarded as a heavenly reflection of the sacred River Boyne, which is described as “the Great Silver Yoke” and the “White Marrow of Fedlimid,” names that could equally apply to the Milky Way. (Mór-Chuing Argait, Smir Find Fedlimthi).” ref

“Other Irish mythology, names include:

• Ceann Síne—”chief chain”
• Síog na Spéire—”stripe of the sky”
• Earball na Lárach Báine—the White Mare’s Tail. The Láir Bhán (white mare) is believed to a relic of a sovereignty goddess, and processions featuring a white hobby horse formerly took place in County Kerry around Samhain (Hallowe’en).
• Claí Mór na Réaltaí—”Great Ditch/Fence of the Stars”
• Sgríob Chlann Uisnich—”Track of the children of Uisneach.” This name derives from a legend: after the sons of Uisneach fell in battle, Deirdre threw herself into their grave. Angered, the king Conchobar mac Nessa exhumed the bodies and buried them separately, but a tree grew from each grave, and the branches entwined. Again he had them dug up and buried on opposite sides of a lake; but then the great cluster of stars appeared across the sky, connecting the two graves.” ref

“To the Māori the Milky Way is the waka (canoe) of Tama-rereti. The front and back of the canoe are Orion and Scorpius, while the Southern Cross and the Pointers are the anchor and rope. According to legend, when Tama-rereti took his canoe out onto a lake, he found himself far from home as night was falling. There were no stars at this time, and in the darkness, the Taniwha would attack and eat people. So Tama-rereti sailed his canoe along the river that emptied into the heavens (to cause rain) and scattered shiny pebbles from the lakeshore into the sky. The sky god, Ranginui, was pleased by this action and placed the canoe into the sky as well as a reminder of how the stars were made.” ref

“The San people in southern Africa say that long ago, there were no stars, and the night was pitch black. A girl of the ancient race, !Xwe-/na-ssho-!ke, who was lonely and wanted to visit other people, threw the embers from a fire into the sky and created the Milky Way.” ref

The Pleiades as Openings, The Milky Way as the Path of Birds, and The Girl on the Moon: Cultural Links Across Northern Eurasia

“The Baltic-Finnish and the Baltic (Latvian and Lithuanian) cosmonyms mostly coincide while the Baltic and Slavic cosmonymic patterns are different. The Pleiades in the Eastern Baltic are ‘a sieve’, the Milky Way is ‘the path of migratory birds’, and a girl holding water pails is seen on the Moon. Across most of Central, Western, and Southern Europe, the Pleiades are ‘a hen with its chicken’; the Milky Way and the lunar spots have other (and different) interpretations. The Eastern Baltic pattern is identical with the Middle Volgaone where it is widespread among both Finnish-Permian and Turkic groups and probably relates back to the (Proto-Baltic?) culture of the Iron Age. However, parallels for the cosmonyms in question are found across most of Northern Eurasia, and corresponding similarities are found in some parts of North America. ‘Water-carrier on the Moon’ is the most widespread of these motifs, and it is known in Japan and Polynesia. In Eurasia, the Northern Samoyeds noticeably lack all three images. The initial emergence of at least some of the cosmonyms under discussion in the Terminal Pleistocene of northern East Asia and their further dissemination towards the West, down to the Baltics, is a hypothesis to be checked. Areal distribution of the interpretation of the Milky Way as the path of migratory birds.” ref

“The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy’s appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with a D₂₅ isophotal diameter estimated at 26.8 kiloparsecs (87,400 ± 3,600 light-years), but only about 1,000 light-years thick at the spiral arms (more at the bulge). Recent simulations suggest that a dark matter area, also containing some visible stars, may extend up to a diameter of almost 2 million light-years (613 kpc). The Milky Way has several satellite galaxies and is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which form part of the Virgo Supercluster, which is itself a component of the Laniakea Supercluster.” ref

“It is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars and at least that number of planets. The Solar System is located at a radius of about 27,000 light-years (8.3 kpc) from the Galactic Center, on the inner edge of the Orion Arm, one of the spiral-shaped concentrations of gas and dust. The stars in the innermost 10,000 light-years form a bulge, and one or more bars that radiate from the bulge. The Galactic Center is an intense radio source known as Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole of 4.100 (± 0.034) million solar masses. The oldest stars in the Milky Way are nearly as old as the Universe itself and thus probably formed shortly after the Dark Ages of the Big Bang.” ref

“The Milky Way is visible as a hazy band of white light, some 30° wide, arching the night sky. Although all the individual naked-eye stars in the entire sky are part of the Milky Way Galaxy, the term “Milky Way” is limited to this band of light. The light originates from the accumulation of unresolved stars and other material located in the direction of the galactic plane. Brighter regions around the band appear as soft visual patches known as star clouds. The most conspicuous of these is the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud, a portion of the central bulge of the galaxy. Dark regions within the band, such as the Great Rift and the Coalsack, are areas where interstellar dust blocks light from distant stars. Peoples of the southern hemisphere, including the Inca and Australian aborigines, identified these regions as dark cloud constellations. The area of sky that the Milky Way obscures is called the Zone of Avoidance.” ref

“The Milky Way has a relatively low surface brightness. Its visibility can be greatly reduced by background light, such as light pollution or moonlight. The sky needs to be darker than about 20.2 magnitude per square arcsecond in order for the Milky Way to be visible. It should be visible if the limiting magnitude is approximately +5.1 or better and shows a great deal of detail at +6.1. This makes the Milky Way difficult to see from brightly lit urban or suburban areas, but very prominent when viewed from rural areas when the Moon is below the horizon. Maps of artificial night sky brightness show that more than one-third of Earth’s population cannot see the Milky Way from their homes due to light pollution.” ref

“Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Doust Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble in 1923 showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies.” ref

“In the Babylonian epic poem Enūma Eliš, the Milky Way is created from the severed tail of the primeval saltwater dragoness Tiamat, set in the sky by Marduk, the Babylonian national god, after slaying her. This story was once thought to have been based on an older Sumerian version in which Tiamat is instead slain by Enlil of Nippur, but is now thought to be purely an invention of Babylonian propagandists with the intention to show Marduk as superior to the Sumerian deities.” ref

“In Greek mythology, Zeus places his son born by a mortal woman, the infant Heracles, on Hera‘s breast while she is asleep so the baby will drink her divine milk and become immortal. Hera wakes up while breastfeeding and then realizes she is nursing an unknown baby: she pushes the baby away, some of her milk spills, and it produces the band of light known as the Milky Way. In another Greek story, the abandoned Heracles is given by Athena to Hera for feeding, but Heracles’ forcefulness causes Hera to rip him from her breast in pain. Llys Dôn (literally “The Court of Dôn“) is the traditional Welsh name for the constellation Cassiopeia. At least three of Dôn’s children also have astronomical associations: Caer Gwydion (“The fortress of Gwydion“) is the traditional Welsh name for the Milky Way, and Caer Arianrhod (“The Fortress of Arianrhod“) being the constellation of Corona Borealis.” ref

“In Western culture, the name “Milky Way” is derived from its appearance as a dim un-resolved “milky” glowing band arching across the night sky. The term is a translation of the Classical Latin via lactea, in turn derived from the Hellenistic Greek γαλαξίας, short for γαλαξίας κύκλος (galaxías kýklos), meaning “milky circle”. The Ancient Greek γαλαξίας (galaxias) – from root γαλακτ-, γάλα (“milk”) + -ίας (forming adjectives) – is also the root of “galaxy”, the name for our, and later all such, collections of stars. The Milky Way, or “milk circle,” was just one of 11 “circles” the Greeks identified in the sky, others being the zodiac, the meridian, the horizon, the equator, the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic Circle, and two colure circles passing through both poles.” ref

“In Meteorologica, Aristotle (384–322 BCE or around 2,384 to 2,322 years ago) states that the Greek philosophers Anaxagoras (c. 500–428 BC) and Democritus (460–370 BCE or around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago) proposed that the Milky Way is the glow of stars not directly visible due to Earth’s shadow, while other stars receive their light from the Sun, but have their glow obscured by solar rays. Aristotle himself believed that the Milky Way was part of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, along with the stars, and that it was a byproduct of stars burning that did not dissipate because of its outermost location in the atmosphere, composing its great circle. He said that the milky appearance of the Milky Way Galaxy is due to the refraction of the Earth’s atmosphere. The Neoplatonist philosopher Olympiodorus the Younger (c. 495–570 CE) criticized this view, arguing that if the Milky Way were sublunary, it should appear different at different times and places on Earth, and that it should have parallax, which it does not. In his view, the Milky Way is celestial. This idea would be influential later in the Muslim world.” ref

“The Persian astronomer Al-Biruni (973–1048) proposed that the Milky Way is “a collection of countless fragments of the nature of nebulous stars.” The Andalusian astronomer Avempace (d 1138) proposed that the Milky Way was made up of many stars but appeared to be a continuous image in the Earth’s atmosphere, citing his observation of a conjunction of Jupiter and Mars in 1106 or 1107 as evidence. The Persian astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201–1274) in his Tadhkira wrote: “The Milky Way, i.e. the Galaxy, is made up of a very large number of small, tightly clustered stars, which, on account of their concentration and smallness, seem to be cloudy patches. Because of this, it was likened to milk in color.” Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1292–1350) proposed that the Milky Way is “a myriad of tiny stars packed together in the sphere of the fixed stars.” ref

• “Birds’ Path” is used in several Uralic and Turkic languages and in the Baltic languages. Northern peoples observed that migratory birds follow the course of the galaxy while migrating at the Northern Hemisphere. The name “Birds’ Path” (in Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Bashkir, and Kazakh) has some variations in other languages, e.g., “Way of the grey (wild) goose” in Chuvash, Mari, and Tatar and “Way of the Crane” in Erzya and Moksha.
• House river: The Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains of South Australia called the Milky Way wodliparri in the Kaurna language, meaning “house river.”
• Emu in the Sky: The Gomeroi people between New South Wales and Queensland called the Milky Way Dhinawan, the giant Emu in the Sky that it stretches across the night sky.
• Milky Way: Many European languages have borrowed, directly or indirectly, the Greek name for the Milky Way, including English and Latin.
• Road to Santiago: the Milky Way was traditionally used as a guide by pilgrims traveling to the holy site at Compostela, hence the use of “The Road to Santiago” as a name for the Milky Way. Curiously, La Voje Ladee “The Milky Way” was also used to refer to the pilgrimage road.
• River Ganga of the Sky: this Sanskrit name (आकाशगंगा Ākāśagaṃgā) is used in many Indian languages following a Hindu belief .
• Silver River: this Chinese name “Silver River” (銀河) is used throughout East Asia, including Korea and Vietnam. In Japan and Korea, “Silver River” (Japanese: 銀河, romanized: ginga; Korean: 은하; RR: eunha) means galaxies in general.
• River of Heaven: The Japanese name for the Milky Way is the “River of Heaven” (天の川, Amanokawa), as well as an alternative name in Chinese (Chinese: 天河; pinyin: Tiānhé).
• Straw Way:In West Asia, Central Asia and parts of the Balkans the name for the Milky Way is related to the word for straw. Today, Persians, Pakistanis, and Turks use it in addition to Arabs. It has been suggested that the term was spread by medieval Arabs who in turn borrowed it from Armenians.
• Walsingham Way: In England the Milky Way was called the Walsingham Way in reference to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham which is in Norfolk, England. It was understood to be either a guide to the pilgrims who flocked there, or a representation of the pilgrims themselves.
• Winter Street: Scandinavian peoples, such as Swedes, have called the galaxy Winter Street (Vintergatan) as the galaxy is most clearly visible during the winter at the northern hemisphere, especially at high latitudes where the glow of the Sun late at night can obscure it during the summer.” ref

1000 to 1100 CE, human sacrifice Cahokia Mounds, a pre-Columbian Native American site

Following The Milky Way Path of Souls: An Archaeoastronomic Assessment of Cahokia’s Main Site Axis and Rattlesnake Causeway

“Abstract: Cahokia was a major Native American city on the east side of the Mississippi River, across from the modern-day city of St. Louis, Missouri. Cahokia flourished from c. 1050 to c. 1250 CE. In this paper, archaeoastronomic and ethnohistoric data, along with computer simulations, are used to explore the idea that the Cahokia site axis and the Rattlesnake Causeway were intentionally aligned to the Milky Way. It is proposed that this alignment accounts for the peculiar 5° ofset of the site from the cardinal directions. Following Sarah Baires, it is suggested that the Rattlesnake Causeway was a terrestrial metaphor for the Milky Way Path of Souls used by the deceased to cross to the Land of the Dead. Rattlesnake Mound at the end of the Causeway is suggested as a portal to the Path of Souls. According to ethnohistoric accounts, the Land of the Dead was guarded by a Great Serpent – suggested here as visible in the night sky as either the constellation Serpens or that of Scorpius.” ref

“Cahokia (Figure 1) was a major city of the Native American Mississippian culture. The site is located on the east side of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois. It flourished between c. 1050 and c. 1250 CE. The site has more than 100 earthen mounds including Monks Mound, the largest earthen mound north of Mexico. It also features an earthen causeway about 1 km in length known as Rattlesnake Causeway (Figure 2, below). This paper explores the hypothesis that the Cahokia site axis and Rattlesnake Causeway were aligned to the Milky Way Path of Souls. The Path of Souls was the celestial path traveled by the deceased to the Land of the Dead.” ref

“The researcher’s investigation proceeds from the position that if we, as archaeologists, are ever to hope to understand the ancient cultures we study, then we need to open our inquiries to what mattered most to the people who constituted those cultures (sensu Hall 1976, 363). Indeed, this researcher agrees with Susan Alt (2020b, 62): suggesting that opening up our histories to include other sorts of assemblages that include the unseen powers and forces, or the other-than-human persons that many ancient Native American groups interacted with, and the landscapes and places that created the atmospheres and affects that shaped living not only gets us closer to the people in the past but can help us decolonize our thinking as we consider how to better operationalize Indigenous points of view.” ref

“To that end, archaeoastronomy has an important contribution to make, as it brings into play an entire universe of other-than-human entities and relationships that are not typically considered by most archaeologists. A good example is the posited alignment of Cahokia to the Milky Way discussed in this paper. The idea that Cahokia might be associated with the Milky Way was first introduced by Sarah Baires (2014a, 2014b, 2017). Beyond a few intriguing comments, however, the idea has never been fully investigated, and what little mention was made (Baires 2017) was not empirically based. Nevertheless, this researcher believes the idea has merit, and in the present paper, astronomic, ethnographic, archaeological, and iconographic data are offered in support of the hypothesis that the Cahokia site axis and Rattlesnake Causeway were intentionally oriented to the Milky Way at nightfall on the summer solstice.” ref

“Ethnologist George Lankford (2007b, 2007c) has found that many Native American tribes believed that to reach the Land of the Dead, souls of the deceased had to proceed along a celestial path known as the Ghost Road, Spirits’ Path or Path of Souls. This path was seen in the night sky as the Milky Way. Tribes identified by Lankford (2007b, 179–180) as believing in the Path of Souls include the Ojibwa, Fox, Sauk, Menomini, Miami, Delaware, Shawnee, Powhatan, Cheyenne, Huron, Iroquois, Oglala, Osage, Omaha, Quapaw, Saponi, Caddo, Pawnee, Chickasaw, and Creek. In addition to the people noted by Lankford, we can add the Apache (Curtis 1907, 134), Paiute (Mooney 1900, 290), Seneca (Wallace 1972, 245), Lakota (Miller 1997, 304) and Shoshone (Curtis 1926, 82). No doubt there are others. As Lankford (2007b, 175) explains: The mortuary belief complex in question manifests variation in ethnographic details from one tribal group to another, as might be expected, but there is a unifying metaphor that argues for a common core of belief across the Eastern Woodlands and Plains, and probably far beyond that area.” ref

“That unifying notion is an understanding of the Milky Way as the path on which the souls of the deceased must walk. He goes on to lay out a general model of how the death journey proceeds. Details vary, but it is generally agreed that after remaining in the vicinity of the grave for a few days, the soul begins its journey to the Land of the Dead. Existence in the Land of the Dead is similar to life in This World, but things are reversed. When it is daytime in This World, for example, it is night-time in the Land of the Dead. Mostly, existence in the Land of the Dead is pleasant. Not everyone, however, is successful in their journey. The Milky Way Path has its dangers. In some traditions, the Milky Way Path splits into two. Souls that take the wrong path are forever lost. In other traditions, there is an entity along the way that judges the soul (Lankford 2011, table 10.1). Fail the judgment and the journey is ended. In some tradi- tions the soul must negotiate a hazardous log/serpent bridge across an abyss or river. Fall of the bridge, and again, the soul is lost (Lankford 2007b, 182–183).” ref 

“In some cases, crossing the bridge is made difficult as the bridge is actually a shape-shifting serpent (Lankford 2007c, 208). We will encounter this serpent later in the present discussion, in the context of how the Land of the Dead is “protected by the Great Serpent” (Lankford 2007b, 178; 2007c, 214). Given the wide geographic extent of the Milky Way Path of Souls belief, it seems reasonable to infer that it has great time depth. For reasons explained below, this researcher believes the concept was expressed in the design of Cahokia more than a thousand years ago. The Milky Way Made up of billions of stars, the Milky Way looks like a hazy band of white light stretching across the night sky. Unfortunately, modern-day light pollution has reduced the visibility of the star band to where today, the Milky Way “is hidden from more than one-third of humanity, including 60% of Europeans and nearly 80% of North Americans” (Falchi et al. 2016, 1).” ref

“In ancient times, however, the Milky Way was one of the most prominent features in the night sky. The position of the Milky Way relative to a stationary observer changes over the course of a year and over the course of a single night. As Edwin Krupp (1996, 411) explains, the Milky Way “connects one side of the horizon with another by vaulting over the earth, but the angle it makes with the ground depends on where you are located and how the spinning Earth has lifted the Milky Way into the sky.” Importantly, the Milky Way is at its brightest and most visible during the summer months. During the winter the Milky Way is considerably lower in the night sky and often not visible. Kevin Palmer (2016) gives a useful explanation regarding the view in the Northern Hemisphere: The core of the Milky Way is only visible about half of the year. The other half it is located beneath the horizon. In the winter months (December–February) it is not visible at all because it’s too close to the sun. In the spring (March–May), it will first become visible a few hours before sunrise. By June it will rise much earlier before midnight. The summer months (June–August) are generally the best viewing time because it will be up most of the night.” ref

“By fall (September–November), the Milky Way will be best seen in the evening, before it sets. Twilight can brighten the sky up to 2 hours before sunrise and 2 hours after sunset, so you want to avoid those times. Given that the position of the Milky Way is an ever-changing phenomenon, if Cahokians intended to align the site to the Milky Way, their frst task would have been to select a particular time and date. Analysis of the site axis and causeway suggest that the builders chose nightfall on the summer solstice, c. 1050 CE (the approximate presumed date when Cahokia was laid out). This was perhaps guided by two considerations. First, as noted, the Milky Way is easily seen during the summer months. Narrowing down further, the summer solstice marks the beginning of the colder and darker half of the year. From summer solstice to winter solstice, the Sun sinks lower in the sky, days become shorter, nights become longer, and temperatures drop. For many plant and animal species, this half of the year marks the time of their maturity, followed by hibernation or death. Beginning with the summer solstice, the summer-to-winter solstice season can, therefore, be understood as the appropriate time for souls to begin their journey to the Land of the Dead.” ref

“Although somewhat removed from Cahokia, the timing of mortuary rituals to the summer solstice also fnds explanatory power in an interview by Edwin Krupp with Floyd Buckskin, a member of the Ajumawi tribal council. The Ajumawi Indians of northeast California believe that souls of the dead make the transition to the Milky Way Path of Souls at the time of the summer solstice. Krupp (1996, 417) reports as follows: [T]he shadow heads north and soars to the summit of Mount Shasta. From the moun- tain top, the shadow transfers to the Milky Way. The Ajumawi call the Milky Way “the pathway of spirits.” When the Milky Way arcs over Mount Shasta, the shadow is able to travel east and join Hewisi the Creator at sunrise.” ref

“This itinerary has a seasonal aspect, for the Milky Way climbs out of the northeast before dawn at summer solstice. The Ajumawi say the Milky Way is aligned at this time with the trail followed on the Earth by the dead and aligned with the Sun as well. Because these celestial and terrestrial routes are all so congruent, it is easier for those who die at this time to travel to the Creator. Second, as regards the specifc timing on the summer solstice, it should be noted that nightfall is not the same as sunset. Nightfall occurs after sunset and after twilight, and is when night actually begins. Nightfall occurs when the Sun drops to about –18° below the horizon. It is at this time that all the stars that can be seen with the naked eye from any particular location become visible. This includes the Milky Way.” ref

Cahokia Site Axis and Rattlesnake Causeway

“In earlier work, I suggested that Cahokia was designed using squares and rectangles (Romain 2017a, 2017b, 2018). Figure 3 shows the general idea. While other design plans are possible, Figure 3 demonstrates how the overall orientation of the site is along a trajectory of 5° in one direction and 185° in the other (see also Reed 1969, 33). This is the site axis, which in the northern half of the site runs through Monks Mound and bisects the Grand Plaza, and in the southern half shifts to the east where the aforementioned 185° azimuth is established by Rattlesnake Causeway (Moorehead 1929, 104–106; Reed 2009; Baires 2014a, 2014b, 2017). The Causeway bisects the large design square that outlines the southern half of the site (Figure 3). As an aside, in this design, the mounds did not need to be built all at the same time, so long as the presumed master plan was known and more or less followed by later builders. Nor did every mound need to be precisely situated on an ideal design quadrilateral in order to convey the idea of a planned and symmetrical layout.” ref

“Rattlesnake Causeway is a raised earthen feature roughly 800 m (2625 ft) in length, 18 m (59 ft) wide, and between 0.5–1.5 m (1.5–5.0 ft) high (Baires 2014b, 6). It extends from just south of the Grand Plaza to Mound 66 (also known as Rattlesnake Mound). In the late nineteenth century, a railroad spur was built on the causeway, remnants of which are visible today in LiDAR DTMs (Figure 5, below). Radiocarbon dating shows that “the causeway was constructed at the onset of Cahokia’s ‘Big Bang’” (Baires 2014b, 9). As mentioned, the idea that the Rattlesnake Causeway might be associated with the Milky Way Path of Souls originated with Sarah Baires (2014a, 196–197; 2014b, 13; 2017). Specifically, Baires (2014a, 197) argues that “the causeway and Rattlesnake Mound were constructed to cite a possible Path of Souls (which is oriented slightly east of north), directing the dead along the Rattlesnake Causeway, through the marshy, watery realm […] and ultimately to the Realm of the Dead.” ref

“She repeated this interpretation nearly verbatim a few years later (Baires 2017, 113), but did not add any empirical or new data. Expanding on Baires’s idea, Timothy Pauketat (2017, 13) commented that it is possible that the circular mound atop the site’s main pyramid [Monks Mound], if not the entire pyramid itself, was an earthly bundle of the moon itself, perhaps intended to depict the full moon passing through the Milky Way/causeway, with the burial mound at its southern terminus being the point of articulation between earth and sky and living and dead. More recently, Pauketat’s work has been discussed in a news item that was published by the University of Illinois news bureau (Yates 2020). Pauketat is quoted as stating that it “turns out that on the days of the solstices, when the Milky Way is most vertical, if you stand on Monk’s Mound right before sunrise, the Milky Way arises out of the end of the causeway and kind of arcs across the sky and then taps back into a line that the causeway marks.” ref

“The same article appeared on the websites of the Archaeology News Network and the archaeology section of Science X’s Phys.Org (see the reference list for links). Baires was well-positioned to draw conclusions about Rattlesnake Causeway, given that she conducted limited excavations into the structure (Baires 2014b). Archaeoastronomy, however, was not a focus of her work (Baires 2014a, 2014b, 2017), and no real data documenting how Cahokia or the Causeway might be connected to the Milky Way has been provided by either her or Pauketat. Nor did they cite other Mississippian sites (or earlier Hopewell sites [e.g. Romain 2015a]) that have Milky Way alignments. Nevertheless, their comments were prescient. As shown below, the Cahokia site axis and Rattlesnake Causeway are indeed aligned to the Milky Way. However, neither the site axis nor Causeway are aligned to the Milky Way “right before sunrise” on either the winter or summer solstices.

“In the representations, the night sky at Cahokia is simulated using the computer planetarium Stellarium (ver. 0.19.3). The Milky Way one hour before sunrise on the date of the 1050 CE winter solstice (solstice sunrise was on 16th December at 07.21 am LMST). In this figure, in order to better see the Milky Way, the atmospheric effects function for the planetarium simulation has been turned off. In reality, due to atmospheric extinction, the Milky Way would have been even less visible. In any case, there was no alignment of the Cahokia site axis or Rattlesnake Causeway to the Milky Way at this time. The Milky Way was about one hour before sunrise six months earlier, on the summer solstice of 1050 CE (solstice sunrise was on 16th June at 04.36 am LMST; see Stellafane [2021] for date determinations, Stellarium for times). As shown, the Milky Way extends from an azimuth of about 60° in the northeast to about 240° in the southwest. Again, there is no alignment of the site axis or causeway to the Milky Way.” ref

Cahokia and the Land of the Dead

“In many Native American traditions, the Land of the Dead is in the south, west, or southwest (Lankford 2007b, 176; 2007c, 207, 240). If the same was true at Cahokia, then it is appropriate that as the soul moves toward the south or southwest, it also moves deeper into the Land of the Dead. Correspondingly, Rattlesnake Causeway proceeds from a relatively dry area at its north end to a lower and wetter elevation further south. As Baires (2014a, 22) explains: Some areas, like where Monks Mound, part of the Grand Plaza, and Mounds 42 and 41 are located, remain relatively dry as they sit on land higher than the surrounding foodplain, the areas directly south and north of Cahokia’s central core, consistently marshy and swampy were home to neighborhoods, other mounds, and the Rattlesnake Causeway in particular. The area south of the Grand Plaza is one of the lowest in elevation and marshiest landscapes at Cahokia and is home to the majority of identified ridge-top mounds (Rattlesnake Mound, Mound 72, Mound 64, Mound 65).In Native American cosmologies where it is believed there is an Upperworld, This World, and Below World, the Land of the Dead is often associated with the Below World (aka Beneath World or Underworld).” ref

“Theresa A. Smith (1995, 46) explains it as follows: The underworld in this scheme consisted of several layers, including a layer in which earthly rhythms were reversed: “In this [lower] world it is day when it is night on [the] earth and vice versa, for the sun travels above the earth during the day and under it during the [night]” (Hallowell 1942, 6). This mirror world was often understood as the final destination for the dead […]. Also below was the realm of the Underwater and Underground creatures, sometimes said to lie between the earth and the land of the dead. From a cosmological perspective, the southern half of Cahokia, or what might be termed the “Swamp Zone,” corresponds with the underwater region that Smith describes as situated between This World and the Land of the Dead. As Baires (2014a, 157) points out, Rattlesnake Causeway bridges the watery realm. Appropriately enough, a considerable number of burials are found in the Swamp Zone.” ref

“Burial mounds located in this area include Mound 72, as well as Rattlesnake Mound (Mound 66). Iseminger (2010, 80) estimates that at least 300 people were buried in Mound 72. Jay L. B. Taylor, the chief project engineer of the 1927 excavation of the site, estimated that at least 150 burials were found in Rattlesnake Mound (in Moorehead 1929, 74). Indeed, sufficient numbers of burials were found in the Swamp Zone, and Dalan and co-authors (2003, 155) referred to the area as a “mortuary precinct.” Portal to the Otherworld Rattlesnake Mound is one of several at Cahokia that are classified as ridge-top mounds. Its dimensions are impressive: Fowler (1997, 133) records it as 132 m (433.1 ft) long, 51 m (167.3 ft) wide and 7.4 m (24.3 ft) high. As noted above, it is situated at the south end of Rattlesnake Causeway.” ref

“Moreover, it is positioned so that its minor axis extends along the 185° azimuth (Figure 3, above). This places the mound on the Milky Way Path and in align- ment with it. Together, the special location and orientation of Rattlesnake Mound suggest that the mound was a portal to the Otherworld (sensu Knight 1989) and, in particular, a portal to the Path of Souls. Most mounds at Cahokia are square, rectangular, or conical. In plain view, however, Rattlesnake Mound is oval-shaped at its base. As Taylor stated (fieldnotes quoted in Moorehead 1929, 68): “Attention is called to the fact that […] the mound’s peripheral outline is almost a perfect ellipse”. Deviations from an ideal ellipse resulted from damage caused by a farm building foundation at the west end and an “old barn foundation, eighty feet long at the south end of the line through Stn.1” (Taylor’s fieldnotes in Moorehead 1929, 67).” ref

“From its oval base, Rattlesnake Mound rises to a narrow ridge at its top. Figure 10a shows this ridge highlighted in yellow. With its oval base rising to a narrow ridge, I suggest that Rattlesnake Mound and others like it were intended as three-dimensional ogee or barred-oval symbols. In plan view, the base of the Rattlesnake Mound closely resembles the center ogee design shown in Figure 10c, while the ridge along the top of the mound recalls the barred oval design in Figure 10b. The ogee symbol is generally considered a symbol for a portal to the Otherworld (Lankford 2007b, 202; Reilly 2004, 130; 2011, 125; King 2011, 288), and the barred oval likely represents the same concept. The barred oval design is often found on creatures such as the serpents shown in Figure 10d.” ref

“Here, as suggested by Reilly (2011, 122), wings on the serpents likely serve as “symbolic locatives” – meaning they situate the serpents in the celestial realm. Similarly, barred oval symbols identify the serpents with the Otherworld portal they circle around. Diaz-Granados (2011, 90) suggests that “depictions of the ogee bring to mind a version of the vulva form and might serve as a metaphor for a portal.” This would seem to apply to the ogee and barred oval designs in Figures 10b, 10c, and 10d. Specifically, new life comes into This World through female genitalia symbolized by ogee or barred ovals. Correspondingly, it seems appropriate that if a soul is transitioning in the opposite direction – i.e. from This World to the next through death – then the portal to that world or realm might likewise be represented by ogee and barred oval symbols. The shape of Rattlesnake Mound is consistent with these notions. Further support is found in the book D(L) Akota Star Map Constellation Guide.” ref

“The writers are Native American, and the stories they tell are intended to explain Lakota star constellations. Here is part of one story about the Sacred Hoop or Womb constellation (Lee et al. 2014, 26): The buffalo embryo emerges from the Sacred Hoop or Womb constellation – Winter Circle. Notice how the Wanagi Tacanku – Road of the Spirits/Ghost Trail, or Milky Way goes directly through the center of the womb. The teaching is that the spirit comes from the Star World through the Wanagi Tacanku – Road of Spirits/Ghost Trail and then emerges from the Womb going to Oceti/Peta – Fireplace in Leo. Adding to the idea that Rattlesnake Mound is a portal to other realms, Taylor (field- notes published in Moorehead 1929, 72) found in the mound “an almost continuous bed of human skulls, humeri, ulnae, radii, femora, tibiae, and fibulae […] but no other bones appeared.” ref

“Taylor (feldnotes quoted in Moorehead 1929, 73) goes on to note that “femora and other limb bones accompanying skulls usually lay parallel with the minor axis of the mound, although a few bundles were found lying almost at right angles to this”. As already pointed-out and as shown by Figures 3 and 10a, the minor axis of Rattlesnake Mound extends along the 185° azimuth. If this azimuth points to the Milky Way, it follows that the minor axis-aligned bundle burials were also aligned to the Milky Way. If the bone bundles were to stand up, they would appear to be walking through the ogee mound symbol, onto the Milky Way Path of Souls.” ref

Serpents and Serpent Constellations

“Perhaps relevant is that the Cahokia Swamp Zone is sometimes infested with snakes – hence the names Rattlesnake Mound and Rattlesnake Causeway. Taylor (fieldnotes in Moorehead 1929, 70) reported that as a result of rainstorms, the area was “so completely inundated that numbers of blue racers and rattlesnakes sought refuge on the mound where they finally became so annoying that we postponed work in the trench long enough to mow and burn all vegetation on such parts of the mound as we were camped on or working over.” There are a significant number of snake species in the Cahokia area. The most detailed data come from the Shawnee National Forest, roughly 160 km (100 miles) southeast of Cahokia. In that area, Palis (2016, Table 1) identified 17 species, including copperheads, cottonmouths, and rattlesnakes. In Illinois, both the timber rattlesnake and eastern Massasauga rattlesnake are found. The eastern massasauga is also known as the “swamp rattler” because it favors wet prairies, swamps, and bogs. The massasauga was likely the rattlesnake that Taylor encountered. Given the swampy lowland area occupied by Cahokia, real snakes were probably a common sight for inhabitants, particularly due to fields of maize surrounding the city: maize attracts rodents; rodents attract snakes.” ref

“Snakes were an important feature of Mississippian cosmology and belief. Serpents were Underworld creatures associated with women, horticulture, fertility, night, and water (Emerson 1989; 1997, 205–207; Lankford 2007c). Indeed, Reilly (2011, 119) makes it clear that “The Great Serpent not only dwelt in the Beneath World as the master of beneath and underwater creatures but reigned as Lord of the Realm of the Dead.” Serpent representations are found on Mississippian pottery, shell gorgets, and sculpted stone figurines. The Birger figurine, for example, was found at the BBB Motor site, about 3.5 km (2 miles) northeast of Cahokia (Emerson 1982, 1989). The front view shows a woman using a hoe to till the back of a serpent, while the side view shows its head. Vines and gourds are growing from the tail of the serpent. Thus, the serpent is shown to provide plant resources for humans. However, the serpent’s potentially deadly aspect is also revealed by its impressive fangs and teeth. Indeed, as discussed below, it is the serpent’s deadly potential that makes it ideally suited as a guardian of the Milky Way portal.” ref

“The association of serpents with the Cahokia Swamp Zone is not a trivial matter. Earlier, it was mentioned how various Native American oral traditions tell of a serpent/log bridge that the soul must cross in order to reach the Land of the Dead. This shape-shifting serpent is situated on the Milky Way Path. We do not know if Cahokians believed that the Great Serpent was a shape-shifting serpent on the Milky Way Path, or a celestial guardian to the Land of the Dead. Walking along Rattlesnake Causeway, however, might easily bring one into contact with a serpent; and according to Lankford (2007c, 256), the location of the Great Serpent “at the foot of the Milky Way makes him the guardian of the entry into the Realm of Souls”. In this regard, at Cahokia, on the night of the summer solstice, Rattlesnake Causeway not only points to the Milky Way Path of Souls; it also points to what may have been cognates for the Great Serpent – i.e. the star constellations Ophiuchus-Serpens and Scorpius (Figure 12). Although these names are Western in origin, their serpent forms were recognized in the southern summer sky by certain Native Americans.” ref

“In particular, the Skidi Pawnee of the Great Plains recognized Serpens and Scorpius as celestial serpents. Summarising interview data collected by Fletcher (1903, 15), a 1906 letter by the astronomer Forest Ray Moulton (published in Chamberlain 1982, Appendix 2) concluded that “the Skidi recognized two serpent constellations”. These constellations were “Real Snake” and “Snake-not-Real.” Real Snake referred to Scorpius; Snake-not-Real was Serpens (Chamberlain 1982, 133, 134; see also Weltfsh 1977, 329). Lankford (2007b, 2007c) proposes that in Mississippian iconography, the Great Serpent was seen in the night sky as Scorpius: “The stars comprising the constellation make a clear serpentine shape, and the constellation stretches across the southern end of the Milky Way” (Lankford 2007a, 129). What is interesting about the above ethnohistoric data is that the Pawnee are Caddoan speakers. During the Mississippian culture period, Caddoan sites (e.g., Spiro in Oklahoma) were known to have had contact with Cahokia (Brown 2004, 120), and Caddoan and Middle Mississippian sites shared many cultural traits. Assuming that the Pawnee serpent constellations have temporal depth, it seems entirely possible that Cahokians were familiar with the celestial Caddo-Pawnee serpents. Indeed, it is likely that these serpents were well-known throughout the Mississippian world.” ref

“It may be that the seasonal appearance of the Great Serpent is refected in Missis- sippian-era designs. In Figures 13a and 13b, for example, both designs include opposed serpents. With reference to the Rattlesnake disk found in Alabama and another piece known as the Kersey beaker, Reilly (2011, 124) suggests that the negative space in the center, formed by the two serpents, “may very well designate portals.” To this I would add that perhaps the surrounding serpents represent summer and winter manifestations of the Great Serpent as it rotates around a central portal. As Scorpius, for example, the Great Serpent is visible in the summer night sky, at the southern end of the Milky Way. Slowly, the serpent rotates through the night sky until the fall and winter months, when the constellation disappears as it moves below the horizon. Notably, the winter-time period of invisibility for Scorpius corresponds to the period of dormancy for real snakes. One of the interesting things about the Mississippian serpent representations is that they portray rattlesnakes, with designs invariably showing the rattlesnake’s characteristic rattles.” ref

“It is easy to understand why the rattlesnake might be considered the guardian to the Land of the Dead. Although rattlesnake bites are usually not fatal in humans (even without modern medical treatment [Klauber 1982, 173–179]), there is nevertheless a risk that a bite could speed one along on a journey to the Land of the Dead. It also happens that one of the characteristic features of rattlesnakes is that they coil before striking. This characteristic coiling is perhaps seen in the way the tail end of Scorpius begins to coil. Other Native American groups, in addition to the Pawnee, also recognized serpents in the night sky. One of the best-known is the Cherokee Uktena (Figure 14). This deadly serpent was placed in the sky by the Little People (Mooney 1900, 297–298). Further to the north, the Iroquois (Hewitt 1891, 384) believed “fre dragons” sometimes seen in the night sky were huge serpents having the head of a panther and the wings and claws of an eagle. They lived in large lakes and few through the night as they crossed from one lake to another.” ref

“The Kiowa of the Great Plains (Marriott and Rachlin 1975, 131) believed that solar eclipses were caused by a great serpent that swallowed the Sun (Marriott and Rachlin 1975, 131), and the Lakota tell of a great serpent constellation known as Zuzeca in the southern winter sky (Lee et al. 2014, 26). Returning to Cahokia, it seems appropriate that as one moves along Rattlesnake Causeway from north to south and deeper into the Swamp Zone, one also moves into an area infested with rattlesnakes and other serpents – i.e. living cognates for the Great Serpent at the end of the Milky Way Path. Add to that the occurrence of swamp mists and ground fogs (Alt 2020a, 28), and it is easy to imagine the Swamp Zone as a metaphor for the Lowerworld, or Otherworld – i.e. a place where things are not always as they seem; a place where a log lying in the weeds might, in the blink of an eye, transform into a deadly rattlesnake; a place where shape-shifting serpents are real.” ref