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Description
You look at it…
And it looks “wrong”.
Too clear in a way.
Not like the somewhat abstract constellations of the 88.
Constellations with a requirement of some imagination to make them out as what they are.
(I think I highlighted the phoenix earlier for being exceptionally clear in its imaging)

These however, may seem almost “alien” in comparison.
There is something about the way in which they are charted out.
About how many stars are included.
About how clear an imagery they make out.
These Tupi constellations.

I make all these observations of course from the angle of a westerner.

As explorers mapped out the southern hemisphere, one of the things they marked down were constellations.
Not the old ones already there, mind you.
Rather they marked down their own images that they had found in the southern sky.
In that way, while most of the northern constellations based in some sort of mythology, in the southern hemisphere can be found a large collection of birds and other species discovered in these same explorations, as well as a veritable tool shed of objects. Most of them used in map reading.

One could discuss what this said about north western attitudes of the time.
As if only the “highly civilised European” was able to look up at the sky and connect dots together.
Or was it maybe that the explorers didn’t care about the possibility of already existing constellations?

The thing is…
The night sky of this southern hemisphere already had its constellations.
Because of course it had.

Just like to the explorers constellations seemed an important part of the discovery, the human knack for pattern recognition remains as hyper active the globe over.
The way in which it is done however, seems to be bound by the cultural traditions of the people doing it.

The ancient Chinese made copious amounts of tiny constellations sometimes consisting of as little as two or three stars.
The Incas found images in the darker patches in the Milky Way, that is not in the stars, but the relative absence of them.

Both of these are uniquely different from the conventions of the 88, often found on star maps today.
From a western perspective they too would look “wrong”.
Just like the constellations of the Tupi With their “too many” stars.

Description
You look at it…
And it looks “wrong”.
Too clear in a way.
Not like the somewhat abstract constellations of the 88.
Constellations with a requirement of some imagination to make them out as what they are.
(I think I highlighted the phoenix earlier for being exceptionally clear in its imaging)

These however, may seem almost “alien” in comparison.
There is something about the way in which they are charted out.
About how many stars are included.
About how clear an imagery they make out.
These Tupi constellations.

I make all these observations of course from the angle of a westerner.

As explorers mapped out the southern hemisphere, one of the things they marked down were constellations.
Not the old ones already there, mind you.
Rather they marked down their own images that they had found in the southern sky.
In that way, while most of the northern constellations based in some sort of mythology, in the southern hemisphere can be found a large collection of birds and other species discovered in these same explorations, as well as a veritable tool shed of objects. Most of them used in map reading.

One could discuss what this said about north western attitudes of the time.
As if only the “highly civilised European” was able to look up at the sky and connect dots together.
Or was it maybe that the explorers didn’t care about the possibility of already existing constellations?

The thing is…
The night sky of this southern hemisphere already had its constellations.
Because of course it had.

Just like to the explorers constellations seemed an important part of the discovery, the human knack for pattern recognition remains as hyper active the globe over.
The way in which it is done however, seems to be bound by the cultural traditions of the people doing it.

The ancient Chinese made copious amounts of tiny constellations sometimes consisting of as little as two or three stars.
The Incas found images in the darker patches in the Milky Way, that is not in the stars, but the relative absence of them.

Both of these are uniquely different from the conventions of the 88, often found on star maps today.
From a western perspective they too would look “wrong”.
Just like the constellations of the Tupi With their “too many” stars.