Pagan Study Group Blog

“Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the Universe.” – Maria Mitchell (1818-1889), Unitarian and the first American woman to work as a professional astronomer.  

The Astronomical League produces monthly star maps. We have downloadable copies of the guides available, and update this page monthly once received from the League.

The Cosmic Hunt is perhaps the oldest myth. The original prototype of the story must have been told at least 15,000 years ago for it to have diffused across the Bering land bridge, as variants are common in cultures of Northern Eurasia and the Americas.

The first version of the Cosmic Hunt, the ancestor of all the other accounts of the story of Zeus and Callisto, would have gone something like this: a large animal is pursued by hunters; the hunt ends in the sky with the wounded animal transformed into a constellation; typically the four stars of the bowl in the Big Dipper asterism of Ursa Major. Sometimes the hunters are also placed in the firmament, represented by the stars of the Big Dipper’s handle. In some variants blood or grease may fall from the wounded animal; in an Iroquois version the blood causes leaves to change color in autumn.

Cave of the Trois-Frères, Montesquieu-Avantès, Ariège, France. This cave art appears to date to approximately 13,000 BCE. FIG. 1 is a sketch made by Henri Breuil in 1930 CE, of an engraving representing a man known as “the little shaman” masquerading as a bison, apparently lifting his left knee and holding a small bow; and two cows nearby. These figures are part of a large engraved panel depicting many animals (only one human figure, this one here), in a confusing style which the simplified lines of this sketch do not convey. FIG. 3 is an engraving on the cave wall representing a bear expelling something from his mouth. His body is covered with smallish spots or circles, and with straight lines in many directions. Henri Breuil interprets it as a bear wounded with arrow shots that looks like it’s vomiting blood. Could the little shaman be participating in the Cosmic Hunt, connecting cave art with constellations?