Mabukuli
Mabukuli is an Arawakan constellation name from Lokono. This constellation is referring to a man without a thigh. Thus, this constellation is the man's thigh.
Etymology and History
Spelling Variants
Origin of Constellation
The constellation Mabukuli ‘Man without a thigh’ is well known among the Lokono and appears in a few myths. According to Charles Dance, an unsuccessful huntsman cut off his own leg, wrapped it up in a leaf, and gave to his step mother so that she had something to eat, and ascended to sky.[1] Similarly, the Penard brothers speak of an unsuccessful hunter who cut off his leg and gave it to his wife and mother-in-law, telling them it was tapir meat.[2] He then asked other people to follow his traces to help him bring the rest of the tapir, but when they arrived at the place they only found the akalali plant with which he treated his wounds. His body turned into the Kama tâla constellation and his spirit into Mabukuli.[3]
Mythology / Religion
Claudius de Goeje relates a strikingly different myth.[4] The Sun, once a man called Arawidi (see the myth about Hadali 'Sun'), took a woman as his wife, who followed him with unborn twins inside her. One day, she lost the way and ended up being eaten by vulture spirits, but her twins were brought up by an old woman, whom they later killed and ran away. While hiding in a treetop, they saw a woman catching fish with a sifter. She saw their reflection in the water and tried to catch it, at which they laughed. She then realized they were up in the tree, and sent ants up the tree to make them come down. When they came down, she killed one of them and took the other home. One of her daughters fell in love with the man and married him. Now the husband had to catch a lot of fish every day for the mother-in-law. One day, tired of his demanding mother-in-law, he tricked her into getting into the water to help him unload a boat full of fish, where she was eaten by a shark. When her other daughter arrived, the liver of her mother was still floating on the water and told her that the man killed her. The daughter wanted to kill him but he flew away on wings of cotton that his wife made for him, so she only cut his thigh off, which is why he is now the constellation Mabukuli. It appears the Orion's belt represents the cut-off leg, not the man himself.[3]
Weblinks
All HIP Stars within this constellation
IAU Working Group on Star Names
References
- References (general)
- ↑ Dance, Charles D. 1881. Chapters from a Guianese Log Book. Georgetown, Guyana.
- ↑ Penard, Frederik Paul, and Arthur Philip Penard. 1907. De Menschetende Aanbidders Der Zonneslang. Paramaribo: H.B. Heyde.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 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.
- ↑ 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.
