The Mythology of the Milky Way
Corinne Moore, Technical Business Development Associate
4.5 minute read
The Milky Way, what we now call the galaxy in which we reside, has been given many names across the centuries and cultures of humanity. As Shakespeare famously notes, “What’s in a name?,” and as it turns out, quite a lot! The many homages and tales about this gorgeous band in our night sky give a glimpse into the stories that fascinated humans long before we had advanced knowledge of what sparkles in our skies. While we are often, and rightly, looking forward to the advancements of science and technology, it’s important to remember where we all came from, and what better place to start than the stories of our ancestors? KMI’s premier orbital debris solution, Laelaps, is named after the mythological dog of Greece, who never failed to catch its quarry. That is, until he was paired against the Teumessian Fox, who was destined to never be caught. Zeus resolved this paradox by turning both to stone, resulting in the myths surrounding the constellations of Canis Major and Minor. In today’s KMI Column, we’ll be hopping into a time machine and looking at many different cultures and the stories that explained how the Milky Way came to be.
What is the Milky Way?
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy that contains 5,250 exoplanets and billions of stars, one of which is our Sun. The portion we see in our night sky is due to the shape of spiral arms and how they wrap around us. Our planet is located specifically on the Orion Arm, or Spur, between the Sagittarius and Perseus arms. The Milky Way contains so many stars that our eyes can’t see them individually without a telescope. This results in a “milky” or “cloudy” shine that inspired the legends below.
Note: Every story in this article was presented with respect to the originating countries and cultures from which they come. Any mistakes herein are unintentional and follow the nature of myths told in the oral tradition over the course of generations.
Greece and Rome
This story begins, like many do, with Zeus’s extremely loose interpretation of monogamy. He fathered a child, Heracles (known also as Hercules thanks to Disney mixing mythologies), with a mortal woman and wished for him to inherit the powers of the gods. Out of pity (although many versions say trickery), his wife, Hera, nursed the child who then bit her. As she tore him away, milk spilled into the skies, forming the Milky Way.
Egypt
Hathor, worshiped in Egypt circa 3150-30 BCE, was the goddess of motherhood and fertility, often associated with the sky. She was depicted most frequently as a cow or a woman wearing a headdress with a cow’s horns. The Milky Way was said to be her milk, forming the “Nile in the Sky.” It was to her that ancient Egyptians attributed the yearly flood of the Nile that allowed the Egyptians to have bountiful harvests of the crops that the flooded Nile watered.
North America, Cherokee
The Cherokee call the Milky Way by a different name: “Gi'li'-utsun'stanun'yi” or “where the dog ran.” The story says that over the course of a few nights, it was noticed that the stores of corn meal were dwindling and the tracks of a dog were spotted nearby. In order to catch the thief, the people of the tribe hid to catch the dog in the act. When they spotted him, they jumped out and he was so scared that he leapt into the sky, taking the bag of cornmeal with him and spilling it as he fled. These scattered grains then became known as Gi'li'-utsun'stanun'yi.
China
One of the more romantic stories involving the Milky Way comes from China and is about two lovers, one a weaver woman who lived in the heavens creating cloth from clouds and the other a lowly cowherd on Earth. They fell in love and the weaver spent much time on Earth with her beloved. One day, they decided to return to the heavens. Her father was full of rage at how long she had been away and separated the lovers by placing the Milky Way between them. The two are allowed to meet only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, at which time magpies and crows fly to the heavens and make a bridge for them to meet.
Armenia
Vahagn, a god similar to Hercules, is a dragon slaying hero in Armenian mythology. His ties to the stars come from his theft of straw and kindling from his enemy, Bel, a Babylonian tyrant who is said to have existed around the time of Noah. The Milky Way in this story is a path of dropped straw that Vahagn left behind him as he fled, earning it the name of “Trail of the Straw-Thief.”
Australia & New Zealand
The Māori have rich mythology, much of which involves the sea. The story goes that the god Tāne was responsible for putting all light into the sky. Carrying three baskets into the sky containing the sun, moon, and stars, he hung the sun and the moon with ease. As he finished arranging the largest stars into constellations, he began to haka (a traditional Māori dance) with joy, accidentally knocking over the third basket. As the stars poured out, they formed the shape of a sparkling shark. Thus, the Milky Way was called “Te Mangōroa,” or The Great Shark.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Among the Khoisan people of Sub-Saharan Africa, a tale was passed down to explain the formation of the Milky Way. Around the fire one night, a young (and some say headstrong) girl was dancing and threw ashes and embers into the night sky, thus forming the famous band of light. Other versions of the story say that she also threw pieces of root that became red and white stars. Why throw the embers in the first place? Sources say that it was to make a road in the darkness, known as “Star’s Road.”
Gazing Beyond
These myths, while all unique to their respective culture and time period, continue to fascinate and entertain the people of today and lend a unique understanding to the lives our ancestors lived. At KMI, we want our descendants to look back at our story and know that we worked hard to preserve humanity’s place among the stars. With our own star-hound, Laelaps, we intend to make sure humanity has unhindered access to LEO and beyond, a clear view of the heavens, and a continued fascination of what’s out there for generations to come.
Recommended column to read next: Roscosmos, Rocketry, and the Return