Tonight we gather to sing scientific songs of praise to Orion and all hunters.
Against a star speckled dome we find the firm bright shoulders of the Hunter, Betelgeuse and Bellatrix. But now I wonder, should we upend convention and follow Herschel’s heed when viewing the constellation from a Southern Sky and name Rigel and Saiph the shoulders of Orion, while the knees bend through nodes and vectors of Betelgeuse and Bellatrix.
Let’s stay conventional for now and while the string of three stars astride the celestial equator remain in place, I am happy enough to see the strong shoulder that steadies the bow and holds a shield is Bellatrix. Aka Gamma Orionis, our Amazon Star. Female Warrior. Closer to Orion’s heart. Her brother, Betelgeuse the shoulder to swing a club, marks the hunter’s right shoulder. She is off course, less famous than her temperamental brother; but beautiful, graceful, steadfast and mostly consistent. Bellatrix will remain in the sky, steadying the shield, long after Betelgeuse had gone supernova.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, instead of turning the clock forward and speculating on what’s to come, let’s turn the clock back 9000 years or so, let us imagine a landscape in the Andean mountains. A hunter found, buried, in the Andean highlands. Under perhaps the burial took place under the skies of Orion’s belt, the same three stars the Aymaran people call the celestial bridge. The body rests with legs in a semi-flexed position, a collection of stone tools placed carefully next to them. The hunter was between 17 and 19 years old and one of a many buried around the same period in the Americas.
This hunter, named individual 6, by archaeologist has, like Orion in the Southern latitudes turned science on its head. Individual 6, like a substantial percentage of bodies found were female hunters. Looking at the research it seems 9000 years ago, men and women hunted shoulder to shoulder, much like Betelgeuse and Bellatrix. When we are equal and stand shoulder against shoulder, we are strong. We have a voice, we are heard.
Perhaps we can turn to Orion like the indigenous people of the Andes using Orion as celestial bridge, to help us find a way and reach out to each other across a world so polarised.
Let us then be reminded of the hunter, the celestial bridge that is Orion’s belt, and how the world can be united. To turn to that which is visible to us all, to understand and see that what we see and hear and feel is real, and that while validated, it is really just our vantage points that differ.
Our voices are the voices of people of the Earth, of coming together through looking and validation of what we see. What we hunt we hunt together and what we save we save for all.
https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/female-hunters/
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/south-african-star-myths
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/45/eabd0310