 |
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
From the Director Dear Friends of Hawaii Astronomy,Recently, I attended the yearly convention of the Hawaiian Civic Clubs to participate in a workshop about IfA’s Pan-STARRS project. At this workshop, I learned about something completely different but also astronomy-related, the ancient Hawaiian Moon calendar. Hawaiians in older times used a lunar calendar that had 12 or sometimes 13 months of about 30 days. For each night of the month, there was a Moon phase with a different name, and the following day took its name from that phase. While Western culture saw the Moon in only four phases, Hawaiians had a much more exact system of identifying 30 different phases. Each phase was important in daily life. Based on experience, some phases were good for fishing, and others were not. Some were very good for planting or for cultivating, while during other phases, these activities needed to be avoided. All the fishing and farming was done in accordance with the 30 phases of the Moon, which helped to build a society that could be sustained on small islands in the Pacific. This professional modern astronomer was deeply impressed to learn about a culture in which such detailed astronomical observations were a crucial element of daily life. Our modern society has lost much of its sensitivity to subtle changes in nature. At the crossroads of ancient and modern astronomy, there is much to be learned. Aloha!
|
|
