What is the Cultural Significance of the Moon for Native Americans?

[gabriel alexander]

Here's a little funny story I read in a book written by Carl Sagan, God rest his soul. I can't remember exactly which one, since I read four of his books. I think it was The Demon Haunted World, I'm not sure. But here goes: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were letting off some steam in a Native American reservation, just before their historical journey. They met a man who was weaving baskets and they approached him. They introduced themselves, to which they guy said "Oh, you're the guys who are about to fly to the moon, right? The whole media is all over you. Listen, my tribe believes that there are Natives living on the moon as well. When you get there, could you please send them a message?" "Sure," the three said. The man uttered a sentence in his language and asked them if they can remember it. They said yes, but what does it mean? "They"ll know what it means," the guy replied. Needless to say they encountered no Natives on the moon, but they remembered the sentence and, intrigued, they visited a linguist after they came back. After he heard it, the guy laughed and said: "It means "Don't trust these three white yahoos here. They came to steal your land and exterminate you, just like they did to us." I don't know if it's true or not, I don't know if this is the right version, but I hope I made you laugh.

 

[jedishrfu]

That's a great story. It's an example of a Bellerophontic letter from the story of Bellerophon where he carried a letter from one king to another which said to kill the bearer of the letter. However, the other king couldn't do it because he had already offered his hospitality to his guest.

https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Heroes/Bellerophon/bellerophon.html

The king decided to send Bellerophon on some quests in the hopes that he would die.

 

[DrClaude]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/native-sun/

 

[Borek]

Se non è vero, è ben trovato.

 

[Mondayman]

I read a book about the Studies and Observations Group (SOG) in the Vietnan War. There was a team of three Americans and six or so Montegnards, Natives of Vietnam and Laos, running a secret cross border mission in Laos in 1968. The team had set up for the night when HQ told the Americans about the moon landing happening as they spoke. The Americans tried to tell the Montegnards about mission to the moon, and it absolutely did not compute. To them the moon was a sacred godlike thing or something, I don't remember the significance of the moon in their culture. But the idea of humans leaving the Earth to explore the moon was just incomprehensible to them. Kind of funny how we choose to look at the same thing with different views.