Hadali: Difference between revisions

From All Skies Encyclopaedia
No edit summary
No edit summary
 
Line 26: Line 26:
* [[References]] (general)
* [[References]] (general)


[[Category:Sun]] [[Category:Lokono]]
[[Category:Asterism]] [[Category:Sun]] [[Category:American]] [[Category:South American]] [[Category:Lokono]]

Latest revision as of 03:50, 13 May 2026

Authors: Youla Azkarrula


Lokono constellation: Hadali (Sun) in the planetarium software Stellarium (CC-BY Konrad Rybka)

Hadali is an Arawakan name from Lokono. This name is referring to the Sun.

Etymology and History

Spelling Variants

  • Adali

Origin of Constellation

The Lokono term for the Sun is Hadali, also pronounced as Adali. Claaudius de Goeje suggests that the variously spelled names of the Lokono culture hero, the first medicine-man known as Harlitvanli, Haliwalika, Halwanli, Hariwalli, and Arawanili, and sometimes Arawidi, may all refer to the same hero identified as the Sun. [1] While we cannot confirm this hypothesis, the myth of Arawidi is worth mentioning. In the Lokono myth, Arawidi, the Sun, is the father of a man that becomes the constellation Mabukuli ‘Man without a thigh’ (Orion’s belt). [2][3][4]

Mythology / Religion

According to the story, the Sun used to come to earth in the shape of a man called Arawidi to meet his lover with whom he had twins. In a later episode of the myth, one of the twins marries a woman, whose mother the couple decide to kill. When they try to escape, the wife’s sister chases them and manages to cut off his leg in revenge. As a result, the man ascends to the sky and becomes the constellation Mabukuli.

Another Lokono myth warns against offending the Sun: a man, stuck on an uninhabited island in the middle of a swamp, cries out for help. A boat passes him, but inside the boat is the Sun, which does not want to help the man, since people always complain that the Sun shines too hard. [4] As far as practices related to the Sun, Im Thurn reported that among the Lokono, the eclipse of the Sun was considered a war between Hadali and Kathi, the Moon, and that the Lokono would shout and make all kinds of noises to stop them from fighting.[5][6]

References

  1. Goeje, Claudius Henricus de. 1928. The Arawak Language of Guiana. Amsterdam: Uitgave van der Koninklijke Akademie von Wetenschappen te Amsterdam.
  2. Brett, William Henry. 1880. Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians of British Guiana. London: Williams Wells Gardner.
  3. Roth, Walter Edmund. 1915. An Inquiry into the Animism and Folk-Lore of the Guiana Indians. Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology 30. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Goeje, Claudius Henricus de. 1942. “De Inwijding Tot Medicijnman Bij de Arawakken (Guyana) in Tekst En Mythe.” Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië 101: 211–76.
  5. Im Thurn, Everard Ferdinand. 1883. Among the Indians of Guiana: Being Sketches Chiefly Anthropologic from the Interior of British Guiana. London: K. Paul, Trench & Company.
  6. Rybka, Konrad (online). Lokono sky culture in Stellarium, https://github.com/stellarium/stellarium , printed in Hoffmann and Wolfschmidt (eds., 2022), Astronomy in Culture --Cultures of Astronomy. Astronomie in der Kultur--Kulturen der Astronomie.: Featuring the Proceedings of the Splinter Meeting at the Annual Conference of the Astronomische Gesselschafb Sept. 14-16, 2021, tredition, Ahrensburg (Germany): 706-726.