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Orion

the Hunter

Brightest star
Rigel
Best seen
December to March, in the evening
Where
Seen from almost everywhere on Earth; it lies on the celestial equator.
Abbreviation
Ori

How to find Orion

Look for three bright stars in a short straight row: Orion's Belt. Above it, the orange star Betelgeuse marks a shoulder; below it, blue-white Rigel marks a knee. Follow the Belt down and to the left and you reach Sirius, the brightest star of the night sky.

The story

In Greek myth Orion was a giant hunter. One story says he boasted he could kill every animal on Earth, and a scorpion was sent to stop him; that is why Orion sets in the west as Scorpius rises in the east, and the two are never in the sky together.

Worth knowing

Below the Belt hangs the Sword, and in its middle the Orion Nebula, a cloud where new stars are forming, faintly visible to the eye on a dark night.

Orion in twelve cultures

The Yolŋu canoe, Julpan

The Yolŋu of northern Australia see a canoe in these stars. They call it Julpan.

Three brothers went out fishing. One of them ate a sawfish, a fish their law forbade.

The Sun-woman sent a waterspout. It lifted the three brothers and their canoe into the sky.

Up there the three brothers are the Belt. The Orion Nebula is the fish, and Betelgeuse and Rigel are the two ends of the canoe.

This is a short telling. The story belongs to the Yolŋu.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_astronomy

Around the world

Mesopotamian (Babylonian)

Babylonian star lists call Orion "the True Shepherd of Anu", the chief god of the heavens. It was sacred to messenger gods who carried word between the gods.

Ancient Egyptian

In Egypt these stars were the god Sah. Orion rises just before Sirius, whose return began the Egyptian year, so Sah was paired with Sopdet, the goddess of Sirius. Later Sah was identified with Osiris and Sopdet with Isis. In the Pyramid Texts, a dead pharaoh takes the form of Sah in the afterlife.

Arabic

Arab sky-watchers saw a female figure, al-Jawza'. Betelgeuse comes from yad al-Jawza', "the hand of al-Jawza'". Later, after the Greek picture was adopted, Orion was also called al-Jabbar, "the giant".

Chinese and Indian

In China Orion was Shen, "three", for the Belt stars, and gave its name to one of the 28 lunar mansions. The Shang-era form of the character shows three stars over a man's head. In India the constellation is Mriga, "the deer". The Aitareya Brahmana, a text attached to the Rigveda, tells how the god Prajapati, in the form of a deer, was struck by an arrow and flew up into the sky.

Lakota and other Native American peoples

To the Lakota, the Belt is the spine of a bison. Orion's great rectangle is its ribs, the Pleiades its head and Sirius its tail. Another Lakota story sees the lower half of Orion as a chief's hand, torn off by the Thunder People. A young warrior called Fallen Star brought it back. The Ojibwe call Orion Mesabi, "big man". The Seri of Mexico see the Belt as three animals, a mule deer, a pronghorn and a bighorn sheep, chased by a hunter.

Aboriginal Australian (Yolŋu)

The Yolŋu of northern Australia see a canoe, Julpan. Three brothers went fishing and one ate a sawfish their law forbade. The Sun-woman sent a waterspout that lifted the brothers and their canoe into the sky. The Belt is the brothers, the Orion Nebula is the fish, and Betelgeuse and Rigel are the two ends of the canoe.

Finnish, Hungarian and Scandinavian

Finns call the Belt and the stars below it Väinämöinen's scythe. In old Hungarian tradition Orion is an archer or a reaper, and in recently rediscovered myths it is Nimród, the great hunter. In Scandinavia the Belt was the distaff of the goddess Frigg or Freyja.

Folk beliefs and customs

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Pictures and star positions

Each picture is a work from Wikimedia Commons, in the public domain or CC0, set over star positions from the HYG Database v4.0 (astronexus), CC BY-SA 4.0.