LONG before other civilisations had named the celestial bodies in the night sky, the indigenous people of Africa had not only given them names but had also built an astronomical knowledge system which they incorporated into their social, cultural and religious life.
Their socio-cultural astronomical knowledge system assists in navigation up to this day.
The BaTonga people as well as the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert still enjoy the wonderful spectacle of the stars from the sky.
They have passed this down in oral form from one generation to another as a living system of knowledge which they still cherish and enjoy.
The astronomical knowledge system they constructed is different from that of modern-day physicists and astronomers.
It is not based on the hypothetical-deductive system that physicists and astronomers use and validate by observation and experiment; rather it is a knowledge system based on other knowledge traditions — traditions that do not require or are not amenable to falsification of its tenets because it is socio-cultural astronomy.
However, when Europeans made first contact they labelled the BaTonga a primitive people.
Later in the 19th and early 20th centuries, ethnologists, anthropologists and scholars found that the BaTonga, in fact, had a complex socio-cultural religious system which was used to conduct their daily lives and the life cycle of birth, growth and death.
They were aware of many stars in their sky and the myths associated with them.
Within this system, astronomy had a role to play that was not only utilitarian but also associated with their cosmological view of the universe, their mythology as well as the morals and customs of their society.
The knowledge of the stars was important to them, especially in their night journeys and informed of their positions denoting particular seasons of the year.
Their universe is not the universe of the inanimate matter, dark energy, dark matter or accelerating expansion.
In the BaTonga astronomy, the origin of the universe goes back to a time called the ‘Dreaming’.
According to research from some physicists, the central meaning of the Dreaming is that of a sacred, heroic time long ago when man and nature came to be as they are; but neither ‘time’ nor ‘history’ is involved in this meaning.
The Dreaming, according to physicists, is not only an ancient era of creation but continues even today in the spiritual lives of the BaTonga people.
By watching the movement of the stars, they discerned for themselves that certain stars neither rise nor set.
The BaTonga people use the celestial objects in the sky as a moral book to inform their people of how to conduct themselves.
The rules they enact on land are transposed into the sky for all to read.
There are stars that served to illustrate a story about what happens to people who are adulterers.
According to folklore, a man stole the wife of another man and hid her in a tree.
The husband set fire to the tree and the flames carried the adulterer into the sky where he is easily seen and pointed out as the red star which is still burning.
It serves as a constant reminder to anyone who is contemplating adultery.
The BaTonga associate the appearance of certain stars at different times of the year with the seasons and seasonal food cycles.
When they see certain stars in the sky, they know it is time to plant, harvest or go fishing.
The appearance in the dawn sky in late autumn of the stars that form the cluster called the Pleiades informs the BaTonga that the tiger fish are spawning and breeding and provides a signal to them to raid their nesting areas for eggs and fingerlings.
In the BaTonga tradition, a careful watch was kept for the southern star and others about the end of May.
BaTonga chiefs awarded a cow for the earliest sighting.
On the day of the sighting, the chief would call his medicine-men together.
Throwing their bones (hakata), the traditional medicine men would judge whether the new season would be good or bad.
The BaTonga and Bushmen have a rule for finding direction at night; if you want to travel west, keep the Southern Cross on your left hand and the Pleiades on the right.
The morning star is associated with diligence.
Travellers, who sleep out in the open would see it and know it was time to resume their journey.
Young women and girls also wake up during this time to start doing their daily chores.
Girls are often named after Venus, with the hope that they too will be diligent when they grow up.
Venus is so bright that it can at times be seen in broad daylight.
BaTonga boys, out in the bush herding cattle, would try to spot it as part of the challenge to becoming true herdsmen.
The appearance of the Southern Cross also heralds the coming of winter and browning of the veld.
When it appeared before sunrise, the BaTonga knew it was time to start breeding their sheep and goats.
The first person to see the star in the morning sky (in May, heralding winter) would climb a hill and blow the Nyele (an antelope or black sable horn) and he would receive a cow as a prize.
Then there is a bright star that lies in a rather star-poor region and is prominent in the summer sky.
It is called Ndemara, ‘The Sweetheart Star’, by the Shona and ‘The Kiss Me Star’, by the BaTonga.
The visibility of this star is supposed to indicate the time for lovers to part before their parents found them out.
The Pleiades also have another interpretation among the BaTonga people.
These are a prominent cluster of stars, of which usually six or seven bright stars can be seen together.
To many pastoralists and the BaTonga, the first visibility of the Pleiades in morning twilight (in August or early September) announced the start of the planting season and usually also marked the beginning of the year.
According to folklore, Pleiades are considered to be a group of girls or young women.
Among the BaTonga, tales of the Pleiades cluster of stars represents young women who are fleeing from the unwelcome attention of men.
Unlike the stories about the Pleiades in other cultures, among the BaTonga community, the stories regarding these stars have some restrictions imposed on them.
Some of the stories are common knowledge, while others are only known to men and others are only known to women or told to only those who need to know.
In the case of the stories only known to women, they fall under the umbrella of ‘secret women’s business’.
These stories of the night sky have been handed down orally for years from one generation to another.
In most cultures, meteors or shooting stars are regarded as signs of important earthly events.
The BaTonga elders say the stars knew when they die and a falling star announces the death of one of them.
Other interpretations of meteors are neither good nor bad.
The Karanga would shout when they saw a meteor, thinking that a god or ancient chief was shooting across the sky.
Comets were also seen as important signs of earthly events.
The BaTonga considered comets to be the embodiment of important gods.
They are also associated with bad luck, calamity, wars and death.
There was also a strong belief that comets predicted the death of a chief.