The Cosmic Hunt is an old and widely distributed family of cognate myths. They are stories about a large animal that is pursued by hunters, is wounded, and is transformed into a
constellation. Variants of the Cosmic Hunt are common in cultures of Northern Eurasia and the Americas, and include the story of
Callisto Callisto most commonly refers to:
* Callisto (mythology), a nymph
*Callisto (moon), a moon of Jupiter
Callisto may also refer to:
Art and entertainment
*'' Callisto series'', a sequence of novels by Lin Carter
*''Callisto'', a novel by Torsten ...
in classical sources.
The prey animal is either a
bear
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the N ...
or an
ungulate
Ungulates ( ) are members of the diverse clade Ungulata which primarily consists of large mammals with hooves. These include odd-toed ungulates such as horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs; and even-toed ungulates such as cattle, pigs, giraff ...
, and the constellation it is transformed into is typically the four stars of the bowl in the
Big Dipper
The Big Dipper ( US, Canada) or the Plough ( UK, Ireland) is a large asterism consisting of seven bright stars of the constellation Ursa Major; six of them are of second magnitude and one, Megrez (δ), of third magnitude. Four define a "bowl ...
asterism of
Ursa Major
Ursa Major (; also known as the Great Bear) is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater (or larger) bear," referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa ...
. In some variants blood or grease may fall from the wounded animal; in an
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
version the blood causes leaves to change color in autumn.
Sometimes the hunters are also placed in the firmament, represented by the stars of the Big Dipper's handle.
The original prototype of the myth must have been invented at least 15,000 years ago for it to have diffused across the
Bering land bridge
Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip o ...
.
It has been suggested to provide evidence for
punctuated equilibrium
In evolutionary biology, punctuated equilibrium (also called punctuated equilibria) is a theory that proposes that once a species appears in the fossil record, the population will become stable, showing little evolutionary change for most of i ...
as a system for myth evolution.
References
Further reading
*
* (2009, 2012). �
Seven brothers and the cosmic hunt: European sky in the past��. In: Kronberg, Kõiva and Kuperjanov (eds.). ''Universumit Uudistades Paar Sammukest XXVI''. Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumi Aastaraamat.artu: Eesti kirjandusmuuseum. pp. 31–69. DOI: 10.7592/PS/26-3berezkin
*{{cite journal, last1=Ernits, first1=Enn, title=On the Cosmic Hunt in North Eurasian Rock Art, journal=Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, volume=44, date=2010, issue=44, pages=61–76, url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43337051, accessdate=14 December 2016, doi=10.7592/FEJF2010.44.ernits, doi-access=free
* Vieira, Vincent. “The Constellation of Orion and the Cosmic Hunt in Equatorial Africa”. In: ''Anthropos'' 104, no. 2 (2009): 558–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40467194.
Comparative mythology
Astronomical myths
Big Dipper