Mundari
names 26objects 16ISO 639-3 unr
Spoken in Chota Nagpur plateau, Ranchi district, Jharkhand.
tribal 25 · borrowed 1
See the Mundari sky on the chart →
The sky in Mundari
| Name | Object | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| jarom ipilkiŋ | Aldebaran | the two egg stars The two eggs left in the dove's nest. Hoffmann remarks that there are never more than two eggs in a dove's nest, which is why the dual is right. | tribal |
| putam ipil | Aldebaran | the dove star The dove flushed off her nest by the ploughman's mallet, which alighted a little way off to wait until the enemy had gone. | tribal |
| jilu-atiŋ ipil | Canopus | the star under which the game grazes Deer are believed to graze only while this star is above the horizon — a hunter's star, from the days when the forests were denser and game was an important part of the daily food. | tribal |
| barai ipil | Capella | the blacksmith star The village blacksmith, sitting and watching his smithy fire. | tribal |
| capua ipilkiŋ | Capella | the two bellows stars The blacksmith's double bellows; Epsilon Aurigae is the sharp vertex of the isosceles triangle whose base they form, and is the smithy fire. | tribal |
| hirumea repą ipilkiŋ; parkom repą ipilkiŋ | Centaurus | the two stars trying to steal the co-wife status — or the bed — from one another The two co-wives pulling at opposite corners of the bed, which is why the parallelogram is out of square. Delta Centauri is the brighter and lies a little closer to the bed because, the Mundas say, she is the first wife and has gained the upper hand. | tribal |
| joṅg ipil | Comets | broom star Comets portend public calamities. The name is from joṅg, the broom the Mundas sweep their houses with. | tribal |
| laṇḍae ipil | Cygnus | the one who is laughing The third fire-thief, who cannot help laughing at the discomfiture awaiting the sleeper, and whom the others push aside for fear he will wake the man. | tribal |
| hirumea parkom ipilko | Lupus | the co-wives' bed stars The bed two co-wives are fighting over — that is, the mastership of the house. | tribal |
| ipilko ic' | Meteors and shooting stars | the excrements of the stars Most noticeable about the middle of November, when the threshing floors are made and must be watched at night. 'Tonight the stars have many evacuations.' | tribal |
| cuṭu gutu'keḍ ipil | Orion | the one who has spitted the mice The ploughman's small son, who has skewered the two mice on a splinter of bamboo to roast them; the three stars lie on a straight line. | tribal |
| cuṭu ipilkiŋ | Orion | the two mice stars Mice turned up by the ploughshare in the tableau; roasted mice are a much-coveted delicacy. | tribal |
| nahel ipil | Orion | the plough star In the version heard in villages south of Ranchi, where the belt is the yoke Siṅgboṅga was chiselling, the plough itself is Rigel. | tribal |
| siṭan ipil | Orion | the ploughing star Rigel is the ploughman himself, standing a little behind his team; Hoffmann notes the four stars form an elongated isosceles triangle with Rigel at the apex, which is what suggested the ploughman's stance. | tribal |
| araṛ ipilko | Orion's Belt | the yoke stars Part of a ploughing tableau: the middle star is the plough itself and the two outer ones the team of bullocks. Hoffmann's informants also used the group to tell the hour — 'ararako hasurtana, Orion is on the western horizon'. | tribal |
| siṭan ipilko | Orion's Belt | the ploughing stars The arrival of this group in the evening sky is the sign for the farming season. | tribal |
| bursi ipilko | Pegasus | the smouldering-fire stars The dying embers of the fire the threshing-floor watchman keeps under his cot on cold nights. Hoffmann adds that Mundas who do not know the maraṅ parkom group transfer the name to the Pleiades. | tribal |
| bursi kumbuṛu ipilko (bursi repą ipilkiŋ) | Pegasus | the fire-thief stars Three men creep up on a sleeping watchman to steal embers from the fire under his cot; two of them are these stars, lying west of the bed on a line pointing at the fire. | tribal |
| maraṅ parkom ipilko; Siṅgboṅga gitikente parkom ipilko | Pegasus | the great bed stars; the bed Siṅgboṅga sleeps on On so great and splendid a bed none but Siṅgboṅga can be supposed to sleep. | tribal |
| gaiko hora, gaiko hor, gaikoiḍ, caṭar | The Milky Way | the cattle road The village cattle-road along which the herd is driven out a little before dawn and led back at night. Siṅgboṅga's cattle are driven along it by Lugu, his cowherd. | tribal |
| cuṭu rapa ipilko | The Pleiades | the mouse-roasting stars | tribal |
| muṅgaru ipilko (moṅgaru ipilko) | The Pleiades | the wooden-mallet stars The mallet the ploughman flung at a dove on her nest, aimed too high; it fell where the Pleiades are. In a second version heard south of Ranchi it is Siṅgboṅga who was chiselling a yoke and a plough to teach men to plough, and who threw the mallet at the dove. | tribal |
| topoḍ-akan parkom ipilko (printed 'topagara parkom ipilko') | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | the bier stars The cot doubles as the bier that carries a corpse to the grave; after the burial one side of the frame is broken and the bed left at the burial ground. The watchman on the threshing floor, waking cold before dawn, sees the broken frame in the north, and in Alioth and Mizar the mourners walking away from the grave. | tribal |
| Sukura and Sukurani; lagan ipilkiŋ, logon ipilkiŋ | Venus | Sukra and Sukrani; the two stars that fix the marriage date In the Hasada country and the Karra police subdivision their close conjunction is read by animists as a very favourable omen for marriages contracted in that month or year — the stars are said to be loving and kissing each other. Elsewhere in Nagpur they are unknown, as is the logon-tol ceremony itself. | borrowed |
| Lugu ipil, mahara ipil, gaikohaṛ ipil | Venus as morning star | Lugu's star; the cowherd's star Lugu is the cowherd in Siṅgboṅga's service, and is visible only when, like the maharas on earth, he drives the cattle out a little before dawn. | tribal |
| aṅgo ipil | Venus as morning star | the dawn star The star that heralds dawn; aṅgo-dipli is 'at dawn, at daybreak'. | tribal |
Sources
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. VII, s.v. ipil, cols. 1919-1925 link
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. VII, s.v. jilu-atiŋ ipil, col. 2065; the story at cols. 1920-1921 link
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. VI, s.v. hirumea repą ipilkiŋ, cols. 1751-1757 link
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. VI, s.v. hirumea parkom ipilko, cols. 1751-1757 link
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. III, s.v. cuṭu gutu'keḍ ipil, col. 936 link
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. III, s.v. cuṭu ipilkiŋ, col. 936; also vol. VII s.v. ipil col. 1920 link
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. V, s.v. gaiko hor / gaiko hora, col. 1356; the account at vol. VII s.v. ipil, col. 1923 link
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. III, s.v. cuṭu rapa ipilko, col. 937 link
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. I, s.v. aṅgo-ipil link