Symbols, Myths, and Legends: The Pleiades
Elihu Vedder (1836–1923)
Oil on Canvas
Myths, legends, stories of creation, destruction, morality, and more have been used since humanity’s first steps on the planet to resolve our understanding, teach and entertain. One such superb visual depiction of The Pleiades, painted by the American artist Elihu Vedder (1836–1923) in 1885, is a magnificent rendering of a story that has fascinated the imaginations and souls of humans for thousands of years. While the majority of these stories are just tales, people have handed them down through the ages. But a few have roots in real observable cosmological occurrences in our solar system, providing a warning of potential dangers of life or helping to shape a culture and society by the story it tells.
The Pleiades also called the Seven Sisters, today, astronomers refer to the group as M45, is a star cluster visible from virtually every part of our planet. It can be seen from farther south than the southernmost tip of South America and as far north as the North Pole. It looks like a tiny cluster of easily recognizable stars, and its brightness gives no wonder why it has been the stuff stories are made of from cultures worldwide.
The painting refers to the Greek myth, where the Pleiades were the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas — forced to hold up the sky for all eternity and was consequently unable to protect his daughters. The Pleiades were named: Maia, Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Taygete, Electra, and Merope. Orion saw the seven sisters and set off to capture them. But with divine intervention, Zeus transformed the sisters into stars to prevent the sisters from being captured and raped by the hunter Orion. Another version of the story tells how one of the sisters fell in love with a mortal and went into hiding, which is why we only see six stars on some nights. Thus for millennia, the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades, immortalized in the famous Pleiades star cluster, have been objects of wonder and fascination worldwide. Tales of the Seven Sisters have been shared by word of mouth, in poetry, art, music, and even architecture, by Greeks, Aborigines, Chinese, Native Americans, Egyptians, Persians, Indians, Polynesians, and more.
From Native American myths, we discover a similar story. In Wyoming stands Mateo Tipi — or Devil’s Tower as it was widely popularized — a 1,200 ft tall rock formation. As the story goes, the Kiowa tribe moved south for the winter, and they stopped to camp near a stream where there were many grizzly bears. Among the tribe were seven young Indian girls who played further along the creek when suddenly a giant bear began to chase them. The frightened girls leaped onto a small rock to escape and asked the Great Spirit to protect them. The Great Spirit heard the girls’ cries and made the rock grow upwards. As the rock grew, the girls rose with it, leaving the bears helpless to reach them. So the bears began to claw away at the rock, creating deep scratch marks and making it grow even taller, eventually pushing the seven little girls into the stars, where they shine down on us every night.
Another Native American myth comes from the Blackfoot tribes of Montana, where the stars were known as The Orphan Boys. Rejected by their tribe, the boys were befriended by a pack of wolves. Saddened by their lonely lives on earth, the boys asked the Great Spirit to let them play together in the sky. The Great Spirit then decided to punish the tribe for their cruelty to the boys. Every night, they would be forced to listen to the howling of the wolves, who pined for their lost friends.
Aboriginal tribes from the Northern Territories call the Seven Sisters the ‘Yunggarmurra Water Girls’. They are regarded as the beholders of beauty and possess the magic of love. In India, the Pleiades are known as Krittika, the wives of the seven wise men named Seven Sages. In Japanese culture, the Pleiades are known as ‘Subaru’ which means ‘unity’. In a modern-day tribute, the automobile company Subaru decided to depict only six stars in their company logo because only six are visible to the naked eye.
In each, it is often the youth that is turned into the star cluster. But there is some truth-telling stories such as the Pleiades as they are connected to real events for humanity. Before modern-day Halloween there was the Celtic holiday of Samhain, the rise of the Pleiades signaled its arrival. For others, the sight of the Pleiades, before the winter solstice, signaled that it was time to slaughter livestock for the winter. Some African cultures marked the Pleiades as a signal of the harvest, and the Aztecs amazingly based their calendar on the movements of the star cluster.
The Pleiades’ myths are important because they are amongst the first stars mentioned in Chinese literature, appearing back as far as 2350BC. Hesiod in 1000BC and Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad show the earliest European literature references. Humanity has always looked up to the Pleiades star constellation for guidance. Farmers for when to sow and harvest their crops, sailors used the stars for navigation, and other cultures believe they seeded the planet and are the original seven earth mothers. There are many more star clusters through the heavens, but the Pleiades are among the best! Today, the Pleiades star cluster, whether retold as sisters, orphans, or others, remains one of the great pleasures of the winter night sky.