Indigenous Calendars

Bringing Indigenous astronomy and calendrical knowledge to the next generation

It is often repeated that time is money, in the Western culture.  Ancient Hopi knowledge was perpetuated by our ancestors, not to accumulate money but to provide for a sustainable way of life. Technology, in our 600 years of living in the same physical environment cultivating and providing sustenance for our children, has included irrigation, moisture retaining structures such as windbreaks, dams, and careful seed selection to maximize the most productive responses from our environmental conditions.

The study of ancient Indigenous calendars and the calculation of time indicates that the focus was and is on human interactions with the cosmos and all that are thought to occupy the cosmic spaces. It was an awareness of the cosmos beyond our reach and simultaneously of our feet planted on earth.  Calendars calculated space and time, with movement as an essential component, or third dimension. Among the ancient practical applications of the calendar knowledge was the accumulated experiences to determine the time to engage the natural world for sustenance: a time to plant, harvest, a time to access the tides, a time to harvest plants and wildlife and to process the bounty for continued community existence.  

Today, this knowledge is not being conveyed to youth as they move to urban centers for employment and lose faith in the belief that the earth can provide a rich physical and spiritual life.  

We can continue to utilize the rich store of indigenous tribal knowledge about calendars and cosmic mapping to anticipate existence beyond what money can buy. We are creating a database from the accumulated knowledge about calendars from Indigenous communities around the world, with the goal of sustainability deriving from ancient knowledge. We envision the use of technology (VR and an interactive Dome experience) to create a prototype based on Hopi knowledge to test the limits of experiencing the ancient knowledge by placing the participant in a technologically recreated time and space environment. With this prototype in place, we will engage other Indigenous communities, who wish to use the same technological architecture to teach their calendars and cosmic knowledge.

This project will create change in relation to community re-evaluation of technology as a tool, and how we can design and use these tools for our purposes, to our benefit.  Our primary barrier is accessing seed funds for research and development of the idea.

We are at the research stage, reaching out to possible collaborators. Currently we have an advisory board of Indigenous time-keepers (website available this year) to manage intellectual property rights issues. We are in active communication with individuals—who have various degrees of participation and experience with our content and technology—from the University of New Mexico and the University of Missouri as well the Institute of American Indian Arts.

We want to create a learning environment for young people where they can see, understand, add to and carry on the knowledge of heavenly bodies. This involves new application of existing technologies. We combine existing ancestral technologies—the knowledge held by Hopi timekeepers and calendar keepers—with new media technologies including virtual reality (VR) and 3D animation for dome or planetarium presentation.  These new media technologies create immersive experiences that engage young viewers, turning their attention to the night sky through sensory engagement and a sense of wonder. 

The idea is innovative as follows: 1) Quantifying Indigenous knowledge in a database created by those with experience utilizing that information over the years, 2) The information about data will be private or shared as desired by contributors, with the option of sharing knowledge on the platform with similar interest groups, 3) Access to this information exceeds the normal practices of gifting, travel, trade, and transmitting knowledge through storytelling and ritual practices. Information quality will accumulate from feedback into the database by farmers, ranchers, fisherman, hunters and those engaged with what the earth and cosmos provides.

VR is portable with headsets and can be set up in remote communities, while the dome presentation can be located in urban hubs and available to a wider public.  The project will be installed at a special site to encourage young and old people to come and experience it; ideally the site would be at a solar observation point that simulates the present sun-watching posts. 

The Hopi population is estimated to be approximately 12,000 living full or part time on the reservation. Currently we are serving our population and the neighboring Navajo community with advocacy work on rights to the water in the Southwest. With the historic drought year in 2018, when no one brought in the usual harvest, the Hopi appealed to ceremony to bring the rains and reached beyond to weather forecasts and scientific research to understand the present conditions and plan for the future. Every Hopi was affected by this existential moment of 2018 when our crops failed.

This project will impact increasing numbers of people both generationally and internationally.  As we encourage the next generation to go out at night and look at the sky, vital Indigenous heritage is carried forward.  Another dimension of the project is that the prototype that we create will be adaptable for other Indigenous nations, a blueprint with mechanics that are open access.  We are tapping into an international Indigenous research network, which will enable this format to impact Indigenous communities globally, as widely as possible.  

We have held international meetings of the Indigenous time keepers network in 2013, 2015, and last month.Through these discussions have agreed on plans about how and what kinds of knowledge to share.  We are at a more formal planning stage and look forward to producing the project’s first short audio-visual pilot as a test in the coming year.

The SOLVE program can help facilitate our idea by enhancing research, production, and development through meetings, exchanges, expertise, and consultation with their network of people and projects. The immediate goal is to vet the idea and the efficacy of the model through testing, reflecting, sharing, and synthesizing.

We are working with Black Mesa Trust, Kykotsmovi, AZ; the University of Missouri, Columbia, MO; the Center for Social Sustainable Systems, Albuquerque, NM; the American Indian Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM; the Council of Otomi, Mexico; El Centro de la Raza at the University of New Mexico; the Council of Mam Mayas de Guatemala; and the Council of Atlixco, Mexico.  All are involved in evaluating issues of rights and the most accessible, expedient and cost effective measures to provide the experience anticipated by our selected technology. We are also working with several Indigenous programmers and computer animators.  

We would like to engage Indigenous scientists working within their cultural constructs as well as western-trained scientists, in the disciplines of astronomy, geography, health, and global environments.