Decolonising celestial knowledge: How Indigenous astronomy reveals systemic erasure of land-sky relationships

Indigenous astronomy is not merely a cultural practice but a holistic knowledge system that encodes ecological relationships, seasonal cycles, and ethical obligations to land and sky. Systems like the Aboriginal Australian 'Songlines' map celestial pathways that correspond to water sources, food resources, and ceremonial sites, demonstrating a non-dualistic understanding of cosmos and environment. This knowledge is transmitted through oral traditions, art, and land-based pedagogy, often disrupted by colonial education systems that labelled such knowledge as 'superstition.' Modern attempts to 'preserve' Indigenous astronomy risk freezing it into museum pieces rather than supporting its living, adaptive practice.

The suppression of Indigenous astronomy began with colonial bans on Indigenous ceremonies and land management practices, including the 1830s 'Protection' policies in Australia that criminalised star knowledge as part of 'savage' traditions. European astronomers like William Herschel and later institutions systematically excluded Indigenous star lore from 'scientific' astronomy, despite relying on Indigenous guides for navigation and mapping. The 19th-century 'scientific racism' of figures like Samuel George Morton dismissed Indigenous cosmologies as 'childlike,' a legacy that persists in modern academia's gatekeeping of Indigenous knowledge.

Mesoamerican cultures like the Maya developed precise calendrical systems based on Venus cycles, which were later co-opted by Spanish colonisers to justify conversion but are now being reclaimed by Indigenous scholars. Inuit qaggiq (communal gatherings) integrate star navigation with ice conditions, a practice that has helped communities adapt to climate change for millennia. The Aboriginal 'Seven Sisters' story (Pleiades) is mirrored in Greek mythology and African traditions, suggesting shared human attempts to encode celestial patterns across cultures, though Western astronomy often erases these parallels.

Indigenous astronomical observations often align with modern astrophysical data, such as the Aboriginal tracking of the Pleiades' heliacal rising to predict seasonal changes, which correlates with climate records. Western astronomy's reliance on Indigenous star knowledge for navigation (e.g., Polynesian wayfinding) highlights the extractive nature of 'scientific' discovery without proper attribution. However, modern astronomy's light pollution and land degradation (e.g., telescope construction on sacred sites) directly threaten Indigenous celestial practices, creating a paradox where Western science both exploits and undermines these systems.

Indigenous star knowledge is encoded in rock art, song, dance, and textile patterns, where celestial bodies are not distant objects but active participants in human and non-human relationships. The Aboriginal 'Dreaming' stories describe the sky as a living archive of ancestral law, where stars are ancestors who continue to guide and teach. In contrast, Western astronomy often reduces the sky to a 'resource' for measurement, stripping it of spiritual and ethical dimensions that Indigenous cultures preserve. Artistic expressions like Navajo star maps or Māori whakapapa (genealogies) of stars serve as both mnemonic devices and spiritual contracts with the cosmos.

Indigenous astronomy offers a framework for climate adaptation by integrating celestial cycles with land-based observations, such as the Aboriginal use of star positions to predict monsoons or the Inuit tracking of star visibility to gauge sea-ice thickness. The loss of Indigenous star knowledge due to urbanisation and climate change could erase critical adaptive strategies for future generations. Conversely, modern astronomy's light pollution and land degradation pose existential threats to these systems, necessitating policy interventions like dark-sky preserves and Indigenous-led land management.

Indigenous women, who often held key roles in astronomical knowledge transmission, are frequently sidelined in mainstream narratives that centre male elders or Western scientists. The erasure of Indigenous astronomers from academic institutions reflects broader patterns of epistemic violence, where non-Western knowledge is either exoticised or dismissed as 'unscientific.' Marginalised communities, such as those in the Global South or remote Arctic regions, face disproportionate barriers to practicing and transmitting their celestial knowledge due to resource extraction and climate displacement.