Santali
names 17objects 12ISO 639-3 sat
Spoken in Santal Parganas, Jharkhand / adjoining Bengal and Odisha.
tribal 15 · borrowed 2
See the Santali sky on the chart →
The sky in Santali
| Name | Object | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| Argom | Antares | a clod-crusher, a harrow without teeth A farming implement seen in the sky: three stars in a line with a fourth at the apex. | tribal |
| Candbol ipil | Comets | tail star | tribal |
| Kaemaiya | Figures with no secure modern identification | — | tribal |
| Sin boṅga reak hopon ko (the sun-god's children) | Figures with no secure modern identification | Cosmological frame rather than a star name: the sun-god is male, his wife is the moon, and the stars are their children. | tribal |
| Ipil ic' | Meteors and shooting stars | star excrement | tribal |
| Arar (ipilko) | Orion's Belt | the yoke Its rising is announced as an event: 'the Yoke constellation has risen'. The same word is the ordinary word for a yoke of oxen (miṭ arar sadom). | tribal |
| arar lalak (arar lalakko) | Orion's Belt | the yoke that shows itself off Named only inside Bodding's entry for the Pleiades, as the thing to which the Pleiades-mallet belongs. | tribal |
| ruhni | The Hyades | Not used by Santals as a star at all but as the sowing week: the 13th of Jeṭ and the six days following. Paddy, maize, pumpkins and beans sown in Ruhni are said to come up strong. A cow-dung streak is drawn round the house wall on the first day to keep snakes off, and the ojha begins teaching his disciples. | borrowed |
| Hat dahar | The Milky Way | the market road The Milky Way as the road people walk to the weekly hāṭ. | tribal |
| Panjar dahar | The Milky Way | the rib road | tribal |
| Sorenko | The Pleiades | the Soren people (a Santal sept name in the animate plural) The totem of the Soren sept; the position of the cluster before dawn is used to tell the time of night. Campbell's illustrative sentence asks in which quarter of the sky the Pleiades stand at dawn. | tribal |
| sɘren (ipil), sɘrenko | The Pleiades | the Soren stars Used to tell the hour of the night: 'the Pleiades have reached half down the western sky' marks roughly the position the sun holds at 3 p.m. Bodding also records the figure that joins the Pleiades to Orion: the cluster is the mallet belonging to the arar lalak. | tribal |
| sin ipil | The Sun | sun-star, day-star | tribal |
| Buḍhi parkom ipil | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | the old woman's cot star | tribal |
| Bele kombro | Vega | the egg thief Part of a Santal figure in Lyra: two small stars are a pigeon's eggs and the bright star beside them is the thief that comes for them. | tribal |
| Potam bele | Vega | the imperial pigeon's eggs | tribal |
| sukąr, sukro, sukur ipil | Venus as evening star | — | borrowed |
Sources
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Argom, p. 20 link
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Candbol ipil, p. 89 link
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Kaemaiya, p. 289 link
- Bodding, A Santal Dictionary, vol. V (1936), s.v. Sin boṅga, p. 283 link
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Ic', p. 244 link
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Arar, p. 19 link
- Bodding, A Santal Dictionary, vol. V (1936), s.v. sɘren (ipil), p. 352 link
- Bodding, A Santal Dictionary, vol. V (1936), s.v. ruhni, p. 133 link
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Hat dahar / Panjar dahar, p. 223 link
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Panjar dahar, p. 473 (also given s.v. Hat dahar, p. 223) link
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Sorenko, p. 594 link
- Bodding, A Santal Dictionary, vol. V (1936), s.v. sin ipil, p. 284 link
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Buḍhi parkom ipil, p. 79 link
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Bele kombro, p. 51 link
- Campbell, A Santali-English Dictionary (1899), s.v. Potam bele, p. 512 link
- Bodding, A Santal Dictionary, vol. V (1936), s.v. sukąr, sukro, sukur ipil, c. pp. 370-372 link