Northern lights, gods and values

they say that once a shaman inuit, playing a drum as is ritual, went into trance and his soul began to wander by the aurora borealis, that download of crazy colored lights that fascinates those who see it. There, he met with a few beams of light that were spirits playing with a ball, which in turn turned out to be the skull of a seal... And the story continues. there Are many legends of the inuit on the northern lights.

The western, however, is time that we conclude through science that this phenomenon of the night sky was nothing more than flashes of intense and frequent, which produce solar particles hitting the earth's atmosphere. The end-point. Perhaps our science is superior. But maybe we can learn something from one culture that coexists in equilibrium with the sky, the harsh polar climate and the nature.

The word inuit means ‘the people’. They reject that you call them with the term eskimo (‘eaters of flesh’) that they consider derogatory. The relationship of the inuit with the sky is very special. From Greenland and peoples, canadians and americans who live, the stars are seen with special force and the northern lights take to the sky with a mysterious air, and charming.

From the terrace of the Observatori Fabra in barcelona, on Tibidabo mountain in Barcelona, however, the lights of the city laid out with vehemence, and sometimes with the naked eye, it is difficult to make out the big Dipper. But in the Dinner with the Stars, organized by Sternalia and promoted by the Obra Social ”la Caixa”, in addition to taste new flavors at one of the best views of the city, we learn about the sky and beyond of the hand of the wise as the cultural anthropologist Francesc Bailón, that today we account the particularities of the world of inuit.

For the inuit, an eclipse means the violation of the god Malina on the part of the god of the Moon

While doing so, the full moon shines towering over the city —with more force even than the thousands of watts of homes and street lamps— and warns us of the eclipse in a few days is going to dye of blood. The audience mumbles surprised when Bailon account, for the inuit, an eclipse means the rape of the goddess Malina, representative of the Sun, for part of Anningan, the Moon god...

The science, again, contraargumenta eclipses are phenomena of light that occur when the Sun and the Moon are aligned in a certain way. However, as it happens to the privileged few who have seen an aurora borealis, when we observe an eclipse we can not avoid to feel hugged by some mystical, inexplicable.

the culture Of the inuit come to us some myths that Bailon denies as, for example, that there are so many names to define the color white as you think, nor the tradition of giving to the wives, and that even the majority of them live in igloos. Hunters on horseback between ancient tradition and the spread of the cultures of their conquerors, the inuit today are mobile, are studying university careers and many are christians (so the mythology that we were talking about lives for some just as an anecdote).

But if we think that there is no relation between the gaze science of the stars and the world inuit, we were wrong deeply. Five of the 55 satellites surrounding Saturn, for example, have names of your mythology: Ijiraq, Sedna, Paaliaq, Kiviuq and Tarneq.

Living much further away from the poles, the westerners have done much more for derretirlos that they

As a wonderful dessert for this dinner, a nice walk we discover the history of the Observatori Fabra. First, let us see for a few seconds —for some, the only ones of our lives— to Saturn through a telescope with more than a century old. After we explain that with another of the telescopes of the house, the astronomer and first director of the centre, Josep Comas i Solà, discovered the atmosphere of Titan in 1908, the largest satellite of Saturn. Their observations were so advanced in the technology of their time could not be confirmed until 1944! Who knows if the astronomer of barcelona had something of a magician, shaman, as the inuit, who somehow was connected by the ringed planet.

once you have assimilated this class express inuit culture, we may think that maybe they don't have a knowledge as advanced as the star as that developed by our civilization through science. That maybe I had reason, a few years ago, the council of elders inuit when he warned NASA that the Earth's axis was shifting, and that's why you were melting the poles. And maybe the inuit people do not know that, living much further away from these poles, the westerners have done much more for derretirlos that they...

The inuit have no word to designate the selfishness. Always think of the community

there must be some reason that the inuit do not have a word to designate the selfishness. They always think in the collective. to Keep the peace between his own, is another of its values objectives. And, although traditionally, it is the allocation of tasks according to gender (men hunted and the women prepared food and skins), according to Bailon does not exist today a society with so much female participation in politics of Greenland.

in Addition, their simple lifestyle, based on hunting and fishing, and is thought to live harmoniously with nature. So, regardless of whether we understand the world through the myths or science, maybe now we should think of us that can help us to relate better to the universe is to try to, some day, to have values as strong, pure and unbreakable as those of the inuit people.

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