The Moon as a Symbol of Life and Fertility in Sandawe Thought

Africa ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Ten Raa
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
The Other ◽  
Central Position ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Good And Evil

Opening ParagraphThe Sandawe of central Tanzania speak a click language which shows no relationship with the languages of their Bantu-speaking neighbours, nor with any of the other non-Bantu languages in the neighbourhood; rather, it may be remotely related to the Khoisan languages of South Africa, in particular to Nama Hottentot. Physically the Sandawe differ to a degree from their neighbours, and their closest affinities may again be with Hottentot peoples. Sandawe material culture also differs to a degree from the cultures of their neighbours; like them, the Sandawe have an economy which largely depends on cattle-keeping and horticulture, but it is less sophisticated and their reliance on food-gathering and hunting is still considerably greater. Considering this difference in background it would be not at all surprising if their system of beliefs also showed differences. Comparisons cannot yet be profitably made, however, because little has so far been published about Sandawe religion, except a paper by van de Kimmenade and some details which can be found in the writings of Dempwolff and Bagshawe. In his ethnographic survey Huntingford draws our attention to the lack of knowledge of Sandawe religious beliefs, pointing out that these have been imperfectly recorded; yet he recognizes that the moon (láb′so or !áoso) and the sun (//′akásu) occupy a central position in Sandawe religion, which he summarizes as follows:It appears that the sun and the moon are regarded as supreme beings, and that propitiatory sacrifices are made to the ancestral spirits who can do both good and evil to mankind.

European and Bantu Languages in South Africa

Africa ◽  
1939 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 308-319
Author(s):  
C. M. Doke
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe future of the Bantu languages in South Africa is a question often discussed both by Europeans interested in them and by thinking Natives who use them. The ideas and views expressed on this question are extremely varied, for the subject has its economic and political aspects as well as its natural and cultural aspects, and to-day there is a tendency, particularly among the educated and semi-educated Natives, to stress the economic and political at the expense of the other aspects.

scholarly journals Lunar

JOGED ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dewi Sinta Fajawati
Keyword(s):  
Full Moon ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Big Bang Theory ◽  
Essential Idea ◽  
Visual Reaction ◽  
Night Sky ◽  
The One

Bulan merupakan sumber inspiratif dalam penggarapan karya tari ini. Secara ilmu pengetahuan, Bulan adalah benda langit yang disebut satelit, satelit satu-satunya yang dimiliki Bumi dan tercipta secara alami. Banyak teori yang mengatakan tentang terbentuknya Bulan, salah satunya adalah teori Big bang atau dentuman besar. Pada dasarnya Bulan hanyalah sebuah Benda besar berbentuk bulat yang tidak bisa bercahaya, cahaya yang kita lihat pada malam hari merupakan refleksi dari cahaya matahari. Akan tetapi keindahannya memang tidak bisa dipungkiri, karena dia paling bercahaya diantara hamparan langit yang gelap. Cahayanya tidak selalu terang, bahkan tidak selalu bulat, terkadang hanya terlihat setengah atau terlihat seperti sabit..            Penata tari memetaforakan objek bulan yang berada di tempat yang sangat tinggi sebagai sebuah cita-cita yang ingin dicapai. Seringkali lagu anak-anak yang menjadi pengalaman auditif penata tari, menjadikan bulan sebagai objek yang ingin digapai, misal lagu ‘Ambilkan Bulan Bu’. Namun intisari yang akan dipakai dalam penggarapan koregrafinya adalah tentang fase bulan yang tercipta. Bersumber dari rangsang awal melihat bulan atau rangsang visual, penata tari menginterpretasikan fase-fase bulan yang terjadi sebagai fase kehidupan yang dijalani untuk menggapai sebuah cita-cita tersebut.            Koreografi diwujudkan dalam bentuk kelompok dengan membagi dua karate penari. Delapan penari merupakan simbolisasi Bulan, dan satu penari sebagai manusia yang bercita-cita. Dengan bentuk tari dramatik, penyajiannya dibagi menjadi 5 adegan, yaitu Introduksi Big bang, Adegan 1 Moon happen, Adegan 2 Mengejar Impian, Adegan 3 Dancing with Moon, dan Ending ‘Catch Your Dream’. The moon is the essential inspirations of this choreograph. Theoretically, the moon is a sky object which is called as satellite. The one and only naturally created satellite belongs to the planet Earth. There are many theories that explain how the moon was created. One of those theories is Big Bang theory or massive crash. Basically, the moon is just a huge circle thing which is unable to shine its glow. The light that we experience in the evening is the reflection of the sun. However, thebeauty of the moonlight is undeniable as it has the significant light within the darkest night sky. Its light is not always the strongest, even it’s not always circle (full), every so often it is seemed only the half part of it or crescent moon.            The choreographer interpreted the moon that belongs in the highest as the goals that she wants to reach. Most of the time, the children songs (lullaby) that pick the moon as the main object that is desired to be reached, for example the song “Ambilkan Bulan, Bu”. The essential idea that is explored in this choreograph is the creational phase of the moon itself. It was started by way of visual reaction when the choreographer observed the moon, she interpret the moon’s phases as the phases in human’s life which are gone through to reaching their goals. Fall and recovery, passionate, and even sometimes they give it in, are interpreted from the moonlight. The full moon which has the brightest and the most perfect light is likened as the strong spirit. The crescent moon with its soft light is interpreted as low spirit and unconfident.             This in-group-choreograph is separated into two characters with 8 female dancers that are the symbolization of the moon and the other one female dancer symbolizes a human with aspire. With dramatic dance form, this choreograph is presented into five parts, including introduction part of Big Bang, Moon Happen in part one, Chasing Dream is part two, Dancing With The Moon in part three, Catch Your Dream in the ending part.

Early Bantu Ethnography from a Philological Point of View

Africa ◽  
1930 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. J. v. Warmelo
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Compact Body ◽  
The One ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphFew of the secrets that Africa still holds from us to-day have, I think, such an absorbing interest as the problem of Bantu in its relation to the neighbouring families and types of speech. Taking the continent of Africa as a whole, we find on the one hand the huge, yet marvellously homogeneous and compact body of the Bantu languages, clear-cut in structure, simple and transparent in phonology, and, at the back of much apparent diversity, exceptionally uniform in vocabulary. On the other hand there are in Africa numerous other languages of various type, which differ so much amongst each other that they have not yet been brought under any but the very broadest of classifications. The essential points of these are as follows.

Solar Motion and Lunar Eclipses in Philolaus’ Cosmological System

Apeiron ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk L. Couprie
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Internal Logic ◽  
Wrong Side ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Solar Motion ◽  
Length Of The Day

Abstract In this paper, three problems that have hardly been noticed or even gone unnoticed in the available literature in the cosmology of Philolaus are addressed. They have to do with the interrelationships of the orbits of the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon around the Central Fire and all three of them constitute potentially insurmountable obstacles within the context of the Philolaic system. The first difficulty is Werner Ekschmitt’s claim that the Philolaic system cannot account for the length of the day (νυχϑήμερον). It is shown that this problem can be solved with the help of the distinction between the synodic day and the sidereal day. The other two problems discussed in this paper are concerned with two hitherto unnoticed deficiencies in the explanation of lunar eclipses in the Philolaic system. The Philolaic system cannot account for long-lasting lunar eclipses and according to the internal logic of the system, during lunar eclipses the Moon enters the shadow of the Earth from the wrong side. It is almost unbelievable that nobody, from the Pythagoreans themselves up to recent authors, has noticed these two serious deficiencies, and especially the latter, in the cosmology of Philolaus the Pythagorean.

scholarly journals The Antikythera Mechanism: The oldest mechanical universe in its scientific milieu

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (S260) ◽  
pp. 135-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xenophon Moussas
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
Accurate Prediction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Stationary Points ◽  
Analogue Computer ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
Celestial Sphere ◽  
Astronomical Instrument

AbstractIn this review the oldest known advanced astronomical instrument and dedicated analogue computer is presented, in context. The Antikythera Mechanism a mysterious device, assumed to be ahead of its time, probably made around 150 to 100 BCE, has been found in a 1st century BCE shipwreck near the island of Antikythera in a huge ship full of Greek treasures that were on their way to Rome. The Antikythera Mechanism is a clock-like device made of bronze gears, which looks much more advanced than its contemporary technological achievements. It is based on mathematics attributed to the Hipparchus and possibly carries knowledge and tradition that goes back to Archimedes, who according to ancient texts constructed several automata, including astronomical devices, a mechanical planetarium and a celestial sphere. The Antikythera Mechanism probably had a beautiful and expensive box; looking possibly like a very elaborate miniature Greek Temple, perhaps decorated with golden ornaments, of an elegant Hellenistic style, even perhaps with automatic statuettes, ‘daemons’, functioning as pointers that performed some of its operations. Made out of appropriately tailored trains of gears that enable to perform specialised calculations, the mechanism carries concentric scales and pointers, in one side showing the position of the Sun in the ecliptic and the sky, possibly giving the time, hour of the day or night, like a clock. The position of the Moon and its phase is also shown during the month. On the other side of the Mechanism, having probably the size of a box (main part 32×20×6 cm), are two large spiral scales with two pointers showing the time in two different very long calendars, the first one concerning the eclipses, and lasting 18 years 11 days and 8 hours, the Saros period, repeating the solar and lunar eclipses, and enabling their prediction, and the 19 year cycle of Meton, that is the period the Moon reappears in the same place of the sky, with the same phase. An additional four-year dial shows the year of all Greek Festivities, the so-called ‘games’ (Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian etc). Two additional dials give the Exeligmos, the 54 year and 34 day cycle, which provides a more accurate prediction of eclipses. It is possible that the Mechanism was also equipped with a planetary show display, as three of the planets and their motion (stationary points) are mentioned many times in the manual of the instrument, so it was also a planetarium. From the manual we have hints that the mechanism was probably also an observational instrument, as having instructions concerning a viewfinder and possibly how to orient the viewfinder to pass a sunbeam through it, probably measuring the altitude of the Sun. There are fragmented sentences that probably give instructions on how to move the pointers to set the position of the Sun, the Moon and the planets in their initial places in the ecliptic, on a specific day, or how to measure angular distances between two celestial bodies or their coordinates. This mechanism is definitely not the first one of its kind. The fact that it is accompanied with instructions means that the constructor had in its mind to be used by somebody else and one posits that he made at least another similar instrument.

ARISTOTLE ON GEOMETRIC PERFECTION IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD

Mnemosyne ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-479
Author(s):  
Theokritos Kouremenos
Keyword(s):  
Spherical Surface ◽  
Physical World ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Geometric Properties ◽  
Geometric Objects ◽  
Physical Objects

Although Aristotle is usually thought to deny the existence of physical objects with perfect geometric properties, J. Lear has argued that for Aristotle geometric properties can be perfectly instantiated in the physical world. In support of this thesis Lear has pointed mainly to de An. 403a10- 6, where Aristotle seems to admit the existence of physical objects with so perfect geometric properties that the edge of one touches the spherical surface of the other at a point. In this paper I argue that de An. 403a10- 6 does not commit Aristotle to the perfect instantiation of geometric properties in the physical world because the two objects assumed to touch each other at a point in this passage are not physical, as Lear takes it, but geometric: consequently, de An. 403a10-6 cannot be taken as evidence that geometric properties are perfectly instantiated in physical objects, from which geometric objects are abstracted. In Cael. 287b14-21, however, Aristotle notes that unlike the heaven a sphere made by a craftsman cannot be perfectly spherical and, in general, that no human artifact of whatever shape can be as geometrically perfect as the spherical heaven. This passage leaves no doubt that Aristotle denies the perfect instantiation of geometric properties in the sublunary region of his universe: some geometric properties are perfectly instantiated only in the superlunary region where the aether , the material of the heaven as well as of the celestial spheres that produce the apparent motions of each planet (the sun and the moon included), forms geometrically perfect spheres.

scholarly journals On the Geodetic Rotation of the Major Planets, the Moon and the Sun

2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-52
Author(s):  
G. Eroshkin ◽  
V. Pashkevich
Keyword(s):  
Angular Velocity ◽  
Reference Frame ◽  
Velocity Vector ◽  
Previous Investigation ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Angular Velocity Vector

On the Geodetic Rotation of the Major Planets, the Moon and the SunThe problem of the geodetic (relativistic) rotation of the major planets, the Moon and the Sun was studied in the paper by Eroshkin and Pashkevich (2007) only for the components of the angular velocity vectors of the geodetic rotation, which are orthogonal to the plane of the fixed ecliptic J2000. This research represents an extension of the previous investigation to all the other components of the angular velocity vector of the geodetic rotation, with respect to the body-centric reference frame from Seidelmann et al. (2005).

Derived Light and Eclipses in the Fifth Century

1968 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 114-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
The One ◽  
Principal Elements

In a study earlier in this volume, ‘The Relation of Anaxagoras and Empedocles’, pp. 93–113, I listed the ancient evidence to the effect that Anaxagoras first gave the correct explanation of an eclipse, and that he was followed in this by Empedocles. A more extensive examination of the evidence raises certain difficulties. For what are, or might appear to be, Anaxagoras' theories are attributed elsewhere to earlier thinkers.There are two principal elements in this contradiction, the one direct and the other indirect.1. There is a direct contradiction when Thales, Anaximenes and some Pythagoreans are said to have given the correct explanation of an eclipse, at least if we suppose the Pythagoreans in question to have been earlier than Anaxagoras.2. There has been thought to be an indirect contradiction when several thinkers before Anaxagoras are said to have derived the moon's light from the sun. For a theory of derived light for the moon has been thought, whether rightly or wrongly, to entail the correct explanation of an eclipse.In what follows I shall attempt to solve these, and some other incidental difficulties.

Buddha frees the disc of the moon (Candrasūtra)

1970 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst Waldschmidt
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Pali Canon ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Pāli Canon

The Candimā-sutta or ‘discourse on the moon’ in the Samyuttanikāya of the Pali canon based on the Indian myth according to which eclipses of the moon as well as of the sun are caused by a demon named Rāhu ‘the Seizer’, who is supposed to try to lay hold of one or the other of the two planets at certain times. The Sutta reports that on such an occasion the god dwelling in the moon takes his refuge in the Buddha who successfully shows his power and pity by directing Rāhu emphatically to set the moon at once at liberty.

Concepts of the Soul among the Akan of the Gold Coast

Africa ◽  
1951 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva L. R. Meyerowitz
Keyword(s):  
Gold Coast ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphWhen the bi-sexual deity of the cosmos Nyame Amowia, visible as the moon, gave birth to the Sun god, she gave him her kra, her eternal soul or life-giving power; hence his name, the Only Great Nyame (Nyame; ko- only; pɔn- great) generally drawn together as Nyankopɔn. The kra is also envisaged as bi-sexual; its female aspect is believed to be the substance or body of the moon and sun, i.e. fire, while its male aspect is the spirit, the essence, the spiritual, or that which is truly divine.

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