Elieli
Authors: Clive Ruggles, Susanne M Hoffmann
Elieli is a Micronesian star name, recorded on the island of Ifalik (Federated States of Micronesia).
Concordance, Etymology, History
The name Elieli for a [navigators'] guiding star <NIH3, p 414, Elieli [1]> was recorded on Ifalik by ethnographers Edwin Burrows and Melford Spiro, who spent six months on the island in 1947–48. It appears in a manuscript held in the Human Relations Area Files database (https://hraf.yale.edu/) and published as a book in 1953 <B&S 1953>. On p. 97, they give its possible identification as either Algedi (α Cap) or ε Lep, based on azimuth calculations by Maud Makemson. Makemson does not, however, list the term in her star list in "The Morning Star Rises" <Makemson 1941>, which is restricted to Polynesia.
The name may well, however, be a variant of Eliel, or Ēlluel, other variants of which are widely recorded in the central Caroline Islands. Of so, it likely referred to Orion's belt.
The meaning (if any) of Elieli in Woleaian, the indigenous language spoken in Ifalik, is unclear but the phonetically similar modern term "Eleeligu" (double "e" now signifying long "i") is a type of taro grown in the central Carolines.
How this identification was obtained
The ethnographer Burrows produced a star chart showing the rising (tagali) and setting (tubuwuli) positions of various Ifalik navigation stars <see figure, after Burrows and Spiro 1953: fig. 16> with the aid of a native informant, "Tom", as follows:
"Fig. 16 shows the positions of the stars used for navigation in Ifaluk [sic] ... Tom gave them to me [Burrows] from memory, but with a compass before us; and I wrote them down on sheets of paper with circles drawn on them like those in Fig. 16, marked to show the points of the compass. ... He approved it, and at times supervised my notations closely, so far as directions are concerned." <B&S p. 93>
Then, "To identify the stars with names used in our astronomy, Dr Maud W. Makemson of Vassar College, a pioneer in what might be called ethnoastronomy,* kindly responded to an appeal for help,. She computed the azimuths of the stars located by Tom according to points on the compass, and identified them as nearly as possible from such rough data. Later, Dr Ward H. Goodenough sent a copy of his "Native astronomy in the central Carolines" <Goodenough 1953>, which shows that the native system is, or was, the same throughout what he calls the Central Carolines Language Area. He has worked out an identification applicable to the whole area. ... Where [, as here, Makemson's and Goodenough's] disagree, the author of this report is quite incompetent to judge where the difficulty lies, beyond the obvious conclusions that ut is a matter of inadequate data." <B&S p. 95>
- This, by the way, appears to be the earliest reference to the term, appearing many years before Baity 1973, which is usually quoted.
Baity, Elizabeth C. (1973). "Archaeoastronomy and ethnoastronomy so far", Current Anthropology, 14, 389-449.
Burrows, Edwin G. and Melford E. Spiro (1953). An Atoll Culture: Ethnography of Ifaluk in the Central Carolines. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files.
Goodenough, Ward H. (1953). Native Astronomy in the Central Carolines. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
Johnson, Rubellite K., John K. Mahelona, and Clive Ruggles (2026). Nā Inoa Hōkū: Hawaiian and Pacific Star Names. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Makemson, Maud M. (1941). The morning Star Rises. New Haven: Yale University Press.
