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Orion's Belt
Orion's Belt (Mintaka, Alnilam, Alnitak) · δ, ε, ζ Orionis · Orion
names 30languages 20stars 3
In the classical tradition this is इषुस्त्रिकाण्डा Iṣus trikāṇḍā, attested in 2 texts.
The names
vernacular 5 · folk 2 · tribal 20 · borrowed 3
| Name | Language | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| bela- | Andamanese South Andaman (Aka-Bea and neighbouring tribes) | The only star or constellation in the Andamans that Man found to bear a name at all. | tribal |
| Thepeko, Rhupeko | Angami Naga the Angami country, Naga Hills (now Nagaland) | possibly 'the Carriers' Three men carrying a post for a house, who were attacked by their enemies and killed. The smaller stars hanging below, forming Orion's sword, are the enemies who ambushed them. | tribal |
| Kenseu | Chaura (Chowra) Chowra (Chaura) island, Nicobars | 'an old man's walking stick' Given for Teressa as Konseu. | tribal |
| Wak-ripe | Garo the Garo Hills, Assam (now Meghalaya) | 'the carrying of the pig' (wak, pig) The pig brought to the funeral as food for the mourners, slung on a pole between bearers. | tribal |
| Naagarda, Nangar, Nangal, Nangir | Gondi Nagpur region: Chandrapur, Yavatmal, Gondia (Maharashtra), Adilabad (Telangana), Balaghat, Seoni, Mandla (Madhya Pradesh) | the plough Belt plus sword read as a plough; with Taurus, Orion's eastern shoulder, Lepus and Sirius it makes a whole farming scene. | tribal |
| Tipan | Gondi Nagpur region: Chandrapur, Yavatmal, Gondia (Maharashtra), Adilabad (Telangana), Balaghat, Seoni, Mandla (Madhya Pradesh) | Its arrival in the early night sky signals the farming season; when Tipan appears at sunset the monsoon is coming. | tribal |
| Kavadi Kunde / Kavde Kunde | Kolami Kolam villages of Yavatmal and Chandrapur districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, and adjoining Adilabad, Telangana | 'the tower of three pots' At Raipur and Landgi Pod the three pots are the Belt of Orion and Tipan is the sword; the paper notes in the same breath that in the other villages Kavde Kunde is Cygnus. | tribal |
| Harnangar | Korku Melghat, Amravati district, Maharashtra, and adjoining Betul and Khandwa districts, Madhya Pradesh | 'a plough' Reported in all twelve villages, with two bullocks and a ploughman around it. The Korku say the plough is not in the sky from April to October, and in two villages tell a story explaining why. | tribal |
| ugtā-pagṛī bīnkō | Kurukh Chota Nagpur plateau (Oraon country), Jharkhand | the plough constellation | tribal |
| ഞേങ്ങോല് ñēṅṅōl | Malayalam Kerala (Malabar, Cochin, Travancore) | 'plough-shaft' (the beam of a plough) An agricultural time-marker. Gundert: it rises in the month of Dhanu (mid-December to mid-January) about an hour after sunset, and its rising tells the cultivator when to do ചക്രം ചവിട്ടുക — 'to clear a ricefield of water preparatory to sowing' (Gundert s.v. ചക്രം, p. 340). | folk |
| Vothawlapiapa | Mara (Lakher) the Lakher country, southern Lushai Hills (now southern Mizoram) and the Chin Hills | Two men going along carrying a pig, caught by the great darkness as they carried it. | tribal |
| तिकांडें tikāṇḍēṃ | Marathi Maharashtra | the three-shafted (thing) | vernacular |
| त्रिकांड्या trikāṇḍyā | Marathi Maharashtra | having three shafts/arrows | vernacular |
| शर śara | Marathi Maharashtra | arrow | borrowed |
| araṛ ipilko | Mundari Chota Nagpur plateau, Ranchi district, Jharkhand | 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 | Mundari Chota Nagpur plateau, Ranchi district, Jharkhand | the ploughing stars The arrival of this group in the evening sky is the sign for the farming season. | tribal |
| तिन्-तारे tin-tāre | Nepali Nepal, and the Nepali-speaking Darjeeling and Sikkim hills | 'the three stars' Turner defines it as the name of three particular stars that always appear in a straight line. | vernacular |
| ଇଲ୍ୱଳା Ilwaḻā | Odia Odisha | Ilvala, the asura brother of Vātāpi killed by Agastya Praharaj supports it with a line of Rādhānātha Rāya's Yayāti: 'these three forms appear in one line, like Ilwaḻā in the sky'. | borrowed |
| ନଙ୍ଗଲ ଜୁଡ଼ା Naṅgal juṟḍ̠ā | Odia Sambalpur (western Odisha) | 'the yoked plough' — naṅgal is the western-Odia form of laṅgaḻa, a plough THE agricultural entry in this file. Praharaj's note: the Khaṛiās of Sambalpur do not yoke the plough — that is, do not begin the paddy sowing — until this asterism has risen, which is to say not before the month of Baiśākha; and it is for that reason that the cluster is called Naṅgal-juṛā. | folk |
| ଉଷା, ଅନିରୁଦ୍ଧ, ଚିତ୍ରଲେଖା Uṣā, Aniruddha, Citralekhā | Odia Odisha | Uṣā daughter of king Bāṇa, her husband Aniruddha, and her companion Citralekhā From Praharaj's long systematic note on the Kālapuruṣa group (item 36 under the headword ନକ୍ଷତ୍ର), which numbers 21 stars of Orion and gives each a name. Stars 6, 7, 8 are Uṣā, Aniruddha and Citralekhā individually and 'ଇଷୁ ତ୍ରିକାଣ୍ଡ ବା ପାଶୁପତ ବାଣ' (the three-jointed arrow, or the Pāśupata shaft) collectively. | borrowed |
| Tira harine, Tin haran, Taran Haranya, Tran Haranya | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | 'three deer' Reported in seven villages. The Spotted Deer is the one animal in the paper's hunting table important enough to reach the sky. | tribal |
| Trirkandu | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | Reported in eight villages, more than the deer. The paper gives no gloss; tri- is 'three' and the Pardhi vocabulary table gives taran and tran for the numeral. | tribal |
| Hulgi | Pauri Bareli (Pawra) Boradi, Pawra country, north-western Maharashtra | the three Belt stars as the three eggs of a pigeon-like bird called hulgi In other villages the Belt is a deer with hunters around it; the Koknas of one village make the deer the Belt and Sirius, Canopus and Procyon the three hunters chasing it, Sirius being closest and shooting first, which is why the other two are angry with it. | tribal |
| Arrhi (C) | Rengma Naga the Rengma country, Naga Hills (now Nagaland), and the Mikir Hills | 'enemies' | tribal |
| Terrhisonkeyenyu (A) | Rengma Naga the Rengma country, Naga Hills (now Nagaland), and the Mikir Hills | 'the sentries' The whole constellation represents the sentries of a village waiting to kill travellers who are going up to it in single file. | tribal |
| Arar (ipilko) | Santali Santal Parganas, Jharkhand / adjoining Bengal and Odisha | 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) | Santali Santal Parganas, Jharkhand / adjoining Bengal and Odisha | 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 |
| Phoghwosülesipfemi | Sema (Sumi) Naga the Sema country, Naga Hills (now Nagaland) | 'the Rooftree-carriers' Three men killed by their enemies as they carried a tree to make the roof-beam of a house. The small stars forming the sword or scabbard are sometimes the enemies who ambushed them. | tribal |
| تَرازوُ tarāzū | Sindhi Sind; Baloch's dictionary is not dialect-marked at these entries | 'the balance, the pair of scales' Baloch defines the balance, then gives it as the name of a nakshatra of stars, and glosses that with ٽيڙوُ ṭīṛū. | vernacular |
| ٽيڙۇ ṭīṛū | Sindhi Sind (Bombay Presidency); Mewaram's dictionary is not dialect-marked | — | vernacular |
Sources
- Man, On the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands (1883), § 8, p. 118 link
- J.H. Hutton, The Angami Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1921), Appendix VIII, p. 412 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, S.A. Awaradi and Kishore Menon, 'In situ studies of astronomy of the Nicobarese tribe of Nicobar Islands', Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology, 6, 1014-1039 (2018), Table 3, pp. 1026-1027 link
- Major A. Playfair, The Garos (London: David Nutt, 1909), p. 86 link
- Vahia & Halkare, 'Aspects of Gond Astronomy', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 16(1), 29-44 (2013); preprint arXiv:1306.2416 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, Kishore Menon and Harini Calamur, 'The astronomy of two Indian tribes: the Banjaras and the Kolams', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 17(1), 65-84 (2014), Appendix 1.2.6 (Landgi Pod), p. 82, and 1.2.9 (Raipur), p. 83 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare and Purushottam Dahedar, 'Astronomy of the Korku tribe of India', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 19(2), 216-232 (2016), Table 2, p. 221 link
- Grignard, An Oraon-English Dictionary (1924), s.v. ugtā, p. 684; also s.v. bīnkō, p. 85 link
- Gundert, A Malayalam and English Dictionary (1872), s.v. ഞേങ്ങോല് ñēṅṅōl, p. 413 (sense 3) link
- N.E. Parry, The Lakhers (London: Macmillan, 1932), p. 494 link
- J. T. Molesworth, A Dictionary, Marathi and English, 2nd ed. rev. and enl. (Bombay: Bombay Education Society's Press, 1857), s.v. तिकांडें, p. 378 link
- J. T. Molesworth, A Dictionary, Marathi and English, 2nd ed. rev. and enl. (Bombay: Bombay Education Society's Press, 1857), s.v. त्रिकांड्या, p. 391 link
- J. T. Molesworth, A Dictionary, Marathi and English, 2nd ed. rev. and enl. (Bombay: Bombay Education Society's Press, 1857), s.v. शर, p. 782 link
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. VII, s.v. ipil, cols. 1919-1925 link
- R. L. Turner, A Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali Language (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1931), s.v. तिन्-तारे, p. 283 link
- G. C. Praharaj, Purnnachandra Ordia Bhashakosha: a lexicon of the Oriya language, Cuttack: Utkal Sahitya Press, 1931-1940 (DSAL digital ed.), s.v. ଇଲ୍ୱଳା Ilwaḻā, p. 876 link
- G. C. Praharaj, Purnnachandra Ordia Bhashakosha: a lexicon of the Oriya language, Cuttack: Utkal Sahitya Press, 1931-1940 (DSAL digital ed.), s.v. ନଙ୍ଗଲ ଜୁଡ଼ା Naṅgal juṟḍ̠ā, p. 4106 link
- G. C. Praharaj, Purnnachandra Ordia Bhashakosha: a lexicon of the Oriya language, Cuttack: Utkal Sahitya Press, 1931-1940 (DSAL digital ed.), s.v. ନକ୍ଷତ୍ର Nakshatra, note item 36 କାଳପୁରୁଷ ପୁଞ୍ଜ, p. 4095 link
- Ganesh Halkare, Purushottam Dahedar, Wayne Orchiston and M.N. Vahia, 'Astronomy of the Pardhi tribe of central India', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 22(1), 179-194 (2019), Table 5, pp. 184-185 link
- Shreya Shetye, Ganesh Halkare and Aniket Sule, 'Bhil, Pawra and Kokna astronomy', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 26(2), 441-468 (2023), p. 462 link
- J.P. Mills, The Rengma Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1937), p. 244 link
- J.P. Mills, The Rengma Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1937), p. 244–245 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
- J.H. Hutton, The Sema Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1921), p. 251 link
- Nabi Bakhsh Khan Baloch, Jāmiʻ Sindhī lughāt (Hyderabad: Sindhi Adabi Board), s.v. تَرازوُ, p. 449 link
- Parmanand Mewaram, A Sindhi-English Dictionary (Hyderabad, Sind: The Sind Juvenile Co-operative Society, 1910), s.v. ٽيڙۇ, p. 117 link