Face of Nation : Kamilaroi woman and Monash University student astrophysicist Krystal De Napoli said that many early discoveries in Australian Indigenous astronomy preceded modern science by thousands of years.
“Places like Egypt and Greece are often quoted as being where scientific thought began, but amazing things were discovered here too,” she said.
“One of my favourites is variable stars — we’ve known about them in Western astronomy for maybe 200 years, and yet when we look into Indigenous oral traditions there are descriptions of variable stars going back thousands of years.
“With variable stars there are subtle changes in their brightness over days and years, so it’s something that takes a considerable amount of observation to determine their existence.
“Indigenous astronomers were able to see this change, and not only see this change, but describe it in a way that has the relative dimming of the different stars described over time. He shared some of the traditional stories of the skies.
“We’re standing under the Ancestors Camp in the Magellanic Clouds, see them there, sitting around their campfires,” Mr Thorpe said.
The Magellanic Clouds are a satellite galaxy orbiting the Milky Way. There are conflicting reports about when the Magellanic Clouds were first recorded in history.
Mr Thorpe pointed to the Fishing Line, also known as Scorpius, on the other side of the Southern Cross, it is a hook flicking into a dark part of our galaxy.
“That’s where the good fishing must be!” he joked. “It’s like the ancestors have painted the images in the stars,” Mr Thorpe said.
“Our markings are like our writing, like if you understand the alphabet. “When I look up at the stars I read them and read our stories.
“In our paintings and nature and the stars, if you can read them, you can read the deeper meaning of them.” Wayne Thorpe talked about the role of the night sky in preserving his culture.
Unlike on the land, where ancient land can be cleared and cultural trees chopped down, “it’s a little bit harder to chop the stars down”, he said. Ms De Napoli said some of the oldest observatories in the world are in Australia.
“Here on Kulin Nation land in Wathaurong country we have the Wurdi Youang stone arrangement, a traditional Aboriginal observatory,” she said.
“The Wurdi Youang stone arrangement is similar to Stonehenge, we can use it to track certain astronomical features throughout the time of the year. Reconnecting with his Indigenous culture through astronomy is an ongoing journey of discovery for Wayne Thorpe.
“We’re still learning, still restoring our culture, restoring our connection to these things,” he said. “Learning the essence of them, the dreaming of it all … and it gives us hope for ourselves, our lives, our families and our future.”
