The North Star is one of the most important stars in the northern sky to almost all peoples, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. In so-called Canada and the United States, many Indigenous peoples told stories about the North Star and their relationship with that star. One such story comes from the Paiute peoples of the so-called western United States. This story is not verified from the community but drawn from a secondary source. I want to share it anyhow because of the knowledge that seems to be embedded in it. Here are two links: https://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/WhytheNorthStarStandsStill-Paiute.html https://folkrealmstudies.weebly.com/paiute-mythology-the-legend-of-the-north-star.html.
In the short form of the story, Nah-gah, the son of the Shinoh the mountain sheep, was a great climber. Nah-gah liked to climb to the summits of all of the great mountains and did so with skill and expertise. Nah-gah climbed every day and climbed every mountain. He searched for new challenges until one day he found a mountain he never climbed before. That mountain was high and its slopes very steep. Nah-gah loved this challenge and was determined to climb to the summit of this great peak.
Nah-gah started at the base and began exploring, he searched for paths that he could take up the mountain. He searched for any nook or crack. He would try those he found, but they didn’t lead far before he had to retreat and start over. Nah-gah walked around and around the mountain until one day he found a crevice that led downwards instead of upwards. He followed the crevice and it turned into a dark narrow tunnel as the tunnel turned from downwards to upwards. He pushed forward through the tunnel but eventually began to doubt the path. Nah-gah tried to turn around to go back but found that in his struggles through the narrow tunnels, he had dislodged stones and blocked the way back. With nowhere else to go, Nah-gah continued forward and eventually saw a dot of light in front of him. In excitement, Nah-gah pushed through the opening and found himself at the summit of this great peak.
Nah-gah made it to the summit, but looking around at the steep slopes and sheer cliffs, he realized that he was trapped on the summit. Instead of fear or loneliness, Nah-gah felt pride at climbing this great mountain even though he would be there until his death.
Shinoh was missing his son and started walking across the sky searching for Nah-gah. He called out for his son and Nah-gah answered. Shinoh saw his son trapped on this great mountain and transformed him into a star that would be a guiding beacon for all beings on Earth. Shinoh made Nah-gah into the North Star.
This short version is very interesting for astronomy and not only as a reminder that the North Star is a guiding star that is stationary in the Northern sky. If we take a step back, the story speaks of Nah-gah wandering around the mountain over and over again searching for a path up the slope of the mountain. This is analogous to the motions of the stars in the night sky over one night. When we watch the northern sky the stars that are far enough north go around the North star and those south of those stars rise in the east and set in the west.
There is a second cycle in the motion of the stars in the sky. The stars in the far north go around the North star every night, but if we watch them at the same time every night we will see the stars rotate around the North Star throughout the year. In western astronomy, we note the first cycle is a result of the rotation of the Earth on its axis. The second cycle comes from the motion of the Earth around the Sun over the year.
The story, however, is telling us about another motion, that is the motion of the Nah-gah to become the North Star. Scientists know that the Earth precesses on its axis. That is, the Earth wobbles on its axis like a spinning top wobbles on its axis. When the Earth wobbles the North and South poles end up pointing to other stars. When the Egyptians were building the Pyramids, the star Thuban was the North Star for instance and Vega will be the North Star (again) in about 13,000 years. As the Earth precesses and the star is becoming the North Star, we will see it move in circles throughout the night and throughout the year. Those cycles will get smaller and smaller until the star reaches the North Celestial Pole, the point stretching from the North Pole into the sky.
This is speculation on my part, but is that what the story of Nah-gah is telling us? Nah-gah goes around the mountain in circles over and over again just like the stars going around the North Celestial pole. Eventually, Nah-gah is trapped at the summit just like the North Star. This story may well be the story of the precession of the Earth and an observational study of that phenomenon. It is a reminder that these Indigenous stories are far older than most of the discussion we are used to in Western traditional astronomy.