Cosmic Queries – Native Skywatchers with Dr. Annette Lee

What does the night’s sky look like for Indigenous peoples? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Negin Farsad take a deep dive into the constellation map of Indigenous skies with professor Annette Lee.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and this is Cosmic Queries edition, which I love. You love it too, because you all send us questions all the time. And I got with me Negin Fassad. Negin, welcome back.

• 0:32Negin Farsad?

  Hi, Neil. It's so good to be here.

• 0:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hi, oh, welcome back. And you're still at it? You're still host of Fake the Nation, one of the best podcast titles ever.

• 0:41Negin Farsad?

  Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, we're still going hard at Fake the Nation.

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fake the Nation, and I think you even extended me an invitation to return. I gotta check my calendar.

• 0:51Negin Farsad?

  Yes, let's see what happens there.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And on the Cartoon Network, you're like, are you hosting a comedy festival? Did I read that right?

• 1:02Negin Farsad?

  I'm a part of the Adult Swim Comedy Festival, and I'm just gonna be doing some stand-up, and it's gonna be really fun.

• 1:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool, cool. And I always thought it was odd that your profession is defined by whether you're standing or sitting. Is this sit-down comedy? Is this lay-down comedy? Like, what? No other profession are we all talking about, you know, whether your legs are straight or not. This is weird.

• 1:27Negin Farsad?

  Yeah, this is one of the many ways that comedians define themselves, just by various forms of ligament and joint movement.

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm gonna be a stand-up astrophysicist. There you go. I have a colleague, Professor Annette Lee. Annette, welcome to StarTalk, Cosmic Queries.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Hello, happy to be here.

• 1:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, there you go. And so your expertise, well, you not only sort of have the astrophysics chops, but you also have a deep appreciation for art and culture, and not just any culture, but sort of indigenous cultures and their historical relationship and current relationship to the night sky. Have I encapsulated that accurately enough?

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Yes, and I also just want to say that it's important for me to say a little introduction, which is mitakue oyasan to all my relations, everyone here in this circle. I greet you with a good heart. My name's Annette Lee. I am mixed-race Lakota. And I am here on the land we call Meni Sota Makochi, which is the land where the water reflects the sky.

• 2:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are professor of astronomy in the Department of Physics at St. Cloud State University.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And where is that?

• 2:52Speaker 02

  About an hour north of Minneapolis.

• 2:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Because St. Cloud sounds like that's not of this earth.

• 2:59Negin Farsad?

  Was really set up for you.

• 3:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There she is, sitting on a cloud, sitting on a cloud. So I find that to be a beautiful tradition to recognize the relationship of Indigenous peoples to the land that you are occupying at any given time and place. And I've been able to see some of that and even participate in some of it in recent years during travels to Australia and to New Zealand. And even I was at an Indigenous, we designated part of the Grand Canyon, where we were filming part of Cosmos. And it was just a, it's such a beautiful tradition. So thanks for bringing that to Startalk.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, so with that, I just want to say that this is the original territory of the Dakota and later Ojibwe people. So these are my communities. And it's really important to acknowledge both that history and this present relationship. And I think the thing that you're talking about is one of the most important points because like as astronomers, it's all about like looking at the stars and there are so many amazing, you know, physical properties and mysteries as well that we do in the research area, you know, black holes, whatever. But in our Indigenous knowledge systems, it's this idea that we are related to earth and sky. And we even in Lakota have a word for it. It's kapemene. And compemini is as it is above, it is below.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  So it has to do with everything in the sky is reflected or mirrored on the earth. And most importantly, we are a part of that because we come from the stars. We carry earth and sky within us. As our bones are made of earth, our physical atoms, and then our spirits come from the stars. So this idea of earth and sky and our participation is embedded in so much of what we're talking about here. It's just, not just in Lakota and First Nations teachings, but also throughout all Indigenous people. So when you said you were in Maori territory or in Australia Aboriginal lands, it's exactly that. I've even heard this concept is in the Bible.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  So it's like throughout human history and throughout time, this idea that there's this relationship between the above and below and our participation, that's the key part, our participation in this cosmic mirroring. So, back to you.

• 5:27Negin Farsad?

  Annette, just...

• 5:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, that's our show right there. We're done. Negin, there's nothing you and I could say. Let's go have a beer now because this is... The earth and sky, we're part of it, it's part of us. We're... Negin, we're done. We should just shut up.

• 5:46Negin Farsad?

  I feel like, I feel like I just took ketamine. You know what I mean? Just once you were speaking, I was just transported into another dimension. Also, Annette, you're really blowing my mind because I thought the first person to like look at the stars and notice some stuff was some white guy in Europe. So you're telling me that might not be accurate from my teachings in elementary school?

• 6:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so Negin, you can add a chapter to your "How to Make White People Laugh"? Tell them, "No, you weren't the first."

• 6:19Negin Farsad?

  Apparently not the first, guys. Isn't that hilarious? You thought you were the first and you weren't?

• 6:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Annette, what does it mean precisely when I learned that you are director and founder of Native Skywatchers? What is that?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  So, back in 2007, I started an organization where indigenous led grassroots. And it's all about revitalizing our indigenous connection to the sky, which is sky and earth and our participation in it. And it started out with just our local Ojibwe and Dakota Lakota community knowledge holders and elders. And it was actually fueled by this amazing thing. So I'm also a planetarium director. And I would be doing planetarium shows and just by nature, I'd be pointing out like, well, there's Leo the lion, but there's also the Ojibwe lion, Mashi Bejew.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  And it'd be like, isn't it cool that the Greek lion's head is the Ojibwe lion's tail? Like, what are the chances that anyone would see a lion anyways in that pattern of stars that looks like a backwards question mark? So I was pointing out these Ojibwe and Dakota Lakota connections.

• 7:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Were we just being polite, saying that it's their tail rather than it's their butt?

• 7:40Speaker 02

  No, because Mashi Bejew is called the Great Panther, but it's also called Curly Tail. And it's also like the cat, the mountain lion, which are indigenous.

• 7:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they just did turn the head into a butt?

• 7:53Speaker 02

  It's a tail, it's a really important part. And there's all these stories about, anyway. But now we know where Neil's head is. You can bring that in. I have young kids that are boys, so they're always talking about butt and farts and all that. Anyway, I was in the planetarium and I'm just, you know, in the element, you know, you're in the dark, you're feeling the magic of the planetarium and pointing out these stars. And then afterwards, this teacher, she was from a nearby reservation, so clearly, you know, at least half her class was visibly native. And she ran up to me after the show and was like, where did you get this? How do you find, how do I get any resources? How do I find out anything about this? There's nothing available.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  And yet, she told me the Minnesota State's science standards had had, one of their benchmarks was to bring in how How people from all cultures have participated in science and in particular.

• 8:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right for the plucking right there.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Right, exactly. And so then with some NASA support, we were able to do our first series of educator workshops. And we created star maps and then curriculum and planet spheres and videos.

• 9:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  NASA is very, NASA is very good at funding programs that train educators. Because that's the greatest leverage point you have in the, in the whole system of learning. So it's really delighted to hear that they, they took a role in this as well. So, sorry, I interrupted, go on.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Oh, well, no, it was great because at the time, embarrassingly, I didn't even know about these state standards. And so when she told me this, I said, well, this is what I do. This is my community. This is my work and, you know, come to the workshop. And, and so really it was kind of like that, what do you call that? That perfect moment, like being the perfect place, perfect person in the perfect place, the perfect time.

• 9:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The planets align. Say it, okay?

• 9:48Speaker 02

  And that's where we started. And then since then, we've.

• 9:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, just I'm gonna make it clear. So Negin, because she's an actual astrophysicist, she knows the planets aligning is a meaningless reference. So I had to like pry it out of her and make her say it.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  I didn't want to say it. Oh, I see. Okay.

• 10:05Negin Farsad?

  That was astrophysicist's inside jokes.

• 10:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's a subtext there. She was not gonna say it until I made her say it, okay?

• 10:14Speaker 02

  I'm happy to step outside the box. No problem. Anytime. So, yeah, we just kind of went on from there and then now it's exploded. With, we have international partners and relationships and not just our Ojibwe, like local Ojibwe in Dakota La Cota, but we do that as well as national work. We work, right now we have a cohort for, with Hawaiian at the volcano school, with Maya, with African American,

• 10:46Speaker 02

  down in Mexico, the Kam Kek. It goes on and on. The Australian Aboriginal, I have Maori collaborators. So we are so excited to be global.

• 10:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep, excellent. So, so what started as just a simple encounter became now this movement, which I think is brilliant and beautiful. So now, I, I noticed from your resume, you also have an MFA in fine arts. Is that correct?

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Yes, definitely. Um, I'm really proud.

• 11:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how does that fold into your, your, your, your, your efforts here? Did you criticize the drawings of constellations? I could do better.

• 11:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can do better than stick figures.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  I do have a really high bar when it comes to visuals. But um, where it comes together is that I, I have been a practicing visual artist for, I mean, I can remember um, being in art shows and, and winning awards for art in, in grade school. Um, I've always loved art, but just like I've always loved math and astronomy. People ask me what came first and I said, well, that, you know, you could say both because I was just born like this. Like, I always love the stars. I always loved sitting under the stars. And I always loved like the analytics, the math, doing math. And I always in science and I've always loved doing art.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  And so basically, um, to me, where it comes together is um, we've been doing a tremendous amount of video projec- productions and digital media. Um, and this has really taken off because as with COVID, um, we got another NASA grant and this project was called Two-Eyed Seeing. And this was just last year. And let me explain, this is called Edowaptemunk. Edowaptemunk is the Mekkoma word for two-eyed seeing. And this comes from my colleagues uh, over in Nova Scotia, Carolyn Ackwood and her elders. And basically it means to see with the best in one eye with the indigenous way of knowing.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  And to see with the best in the other eye, the, with the Western science way of knowing. But the key part, to see with both eyes for the benefit of all.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  They call it the gift of multiple perspectives.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn.

• 13:08Negin Farsad?

  I have an astigmatism in one eye. Where does that leave me?

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, we leave you out. You're not invited to that party.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  That means it's like slightly off-centered? I think there's a place for that because everyone should be slightly off-centered.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, no, Negin, the world is messed up enough. We can't have you and your astigmatism defining anything that comes out of here.

• 13:29Negin Farsad?

  Yeah, no, I would be, I'm the one drawing those stick figures.

• 13:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's another beautiful concept. Thanks for sharing that. I just want to remind people this is a cosmic queries. And we took this topic out to our Patreon members who get exclusive access to this question and answer session. So, and they get their questions. Everyone gets to hear it, but they get to ask the questions. So Negin, what, you have a first question for us?

• 13:54Negin Farsad?

  Yes, Daniel Kulikowski, who's a fellow Minnesotan, says, "I'm wondering what your views are on the current state of light pollution around the world and any negative impacts it has on people's feelings and perceptions about the night sky."

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, well, that's a big topic. Let us take a break. And when we come back, we're going to find out what Annette has to say about pollution. Because in astronomy, light pollution is equivalent in the damage that it does to our access to the universe as air pollution is in its damage to our lungs. Is that too far? Did I go too far around that?

• 14:33Negin Farsad?

  Not at all. Not far enough.

• 14:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not far enough. See, Negin, what can we do? What are we gonna do with it? This is her show. She's gonna be...

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Annette, we're gonna come right back to you right after this break.

• 15:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk, Cosmic Aquarius. We're talking about what the universe looks like to Indigenous people. And it looks a little different from what you've probably been taught in school. And we've got one of the world's experts on that, Professor Annette Lee at St. Cloud. So, Noggin, we left off with a question about light pollution. And who's that from, again?

• 15:37Negin Farsad?

  That's right. Daniel Kulikowski was asking about your views on the current state of light pollution around the world and if there's any negative impacts on people's feelings and perceptions about the night sky.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good. What do you have, Annette?

• 15:48Speaker 02

  So, yeah, with light pollution, I'm gonna start there. I'm gonna say, yes, I am very concerned about light pollution. I've done a lot of work with the International Dark Sky Association. And the idea is that, from an Indigenous practice and way of life, the sky and our connection with the sky, it's an essential. It's not an option. It's not an accessory. It's the place where we come from. The stars are not just physical, distant, abstract balls of plasma or gas. Those are our relatives, our oldest living relatives.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  And, you know, we even have, in Lakota, there's teachings that the stars are the breath of the spirits, you know? So, it's not, it's about like a family reunion. It's blocking that level of connection. And I want to say that so much of my work, it does have to do with the crisis in STEM education and bringing in more pathways for our Black and Brown Indigenous students. But it's also about wellness. Because we have a problem, right? If students don't have a reason for living, if they're in so much pain and crisis and trauma that they're literally giving up on life, and I'm talking about the youth suicide

• 17:11Speaker 02

  statistics, which are sky-high here in Minnesota. No pun intended, but the rate is like three times higher for our Native youth. And, you know, these are my kids, right? And this is... Our youth suicide rate is higher in Minnesota for native kids than it is

• 17:32Speaker 02

  across the nation for native kids. It's really high. There's disparities in the education system. Minnesota is always first, second, or third in the disparity in graduation rates between majority kids and minority kids. So, back to the pollution. You thought it was about just pollution, but it's all connected. And the idea is that we have this teaching where we come from the stars. And this moment of our lifetime is just a blink. We're here in our material form, you know, but our original form is a spiritual form from the stars. And so, we come here with purpose, right?

• 18:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me ask you, is it only light pollution? Because suppose Negin does a stand-up thing and it comes on at night, and I'm watching her instead of going out and looking up in the sky. Isn't every distraction that exists in modern living that distracts us in the evening, isn't that tantamount to light pollution? You know, we have HBO and Disney Plus and Netflix and all these things. I come home and my first thought is let me binge something, or let me watch a movie, or let me watch Negin doing a stand-up, not a sit-down, a stand-up. Aren't you also competing with all the rest of these cultural forces?

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. We are very distracted. We have very short attention spans. We're looking for the next fun thing. But there's something really important and fundamental about our connection to the stars. And that there should be a place for that. There should be a kind of protection for that. I know that with the International Dark Sky Association, we've, you know, created this protected areas because we talk about the extinction, like the night sky is going extinct. And so, you know, here in Minnesota, it's a luxury because we can drive, you know, five, 10 minutes and really see dark skies. We can really see the Andromeda Galaxy. We can really see the northern lights, right?

• 19:37Speaker 02

  I mean, you're in New York City. Wow, I really feel bad for you. But you have the planetarium, right?

• 19:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we just, we just, we just, we just

• 19:47Negin Farsad?

  We don't have stars.

• 19:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the planetarium dome and put up the fake Aurora and the fake.

• 19:54Negin Farsad?

  Can I just say in defense of myself, though, that my stand-up is not the enemy of the cosmos? If anything, it's Squid Game. So let's just like, you know, note where popular culture is right now.

• 20:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go on, just blame something else instead of yourself. Okay.

• 20:12Negin Farsad?

  But you know, Annette, I actually, I grew up in the desert of Southern California in a town called Palm Springs. And they have very strict light pollution laws. So I live in New York City now where in my estimation, we don't have stars. But in Palm Springs, we have a ton of stars. I grew up with seeing a lot of scars, stars, because they were very serious about light pollution and keeping

• 20:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With your astigmatism. They were astigmatism.

• 20:36Negin Farsad?

  With my astigmatism, and I'd often see them, there's, there's two, there's two of everything, if you look at it through my, through my eyes.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, let's get another question.

• 20:46Negin Farsad?

  Uh, okay. So Jay Hunt asks, I was wondering how indigenous tribes' constellations, identification, and sky tracking has changed over the centuries? What are some of the more famous constellations that have made it into the modern lexicon?

• 21:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, interesting.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  So the changes over the ages, I think one of the biggest things to say about that is the idea of

• 21:10Speaker 02

  loss. We've lost a lot of our star knowledge and our cultural knowledge and our languages because of colonization. In the star maps that we created, you know, working with elders and other primary sources, there's a lot of like blank spaces. And my, in a new elder, Wilford Buck, he talks about the idea that, you know, before colonization, that map would have been filled up.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  Just like what we think of now as the Greek map, it would have been dense. You know, every single star and even the dimmer stars, there's constellations. But now we look at our constellations and there's, there's some spaces. And that's part of that loss. So I think the first thing about-

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Annette, you're bumming us out here.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  How it's changed. Well, it's not all bad, but because, you know, it's not all gone. It's not too far gone. We have hope. We have, we still have, you know, Wilford's Oz, you know, it would be like, we still have that 15% left and we're rebuilding it, you know? But the 85% was lost due to colonization. So anyways, I think that's like what comes to my mind in just, you know, a really honest way, that even though a lot of people in history class and all, we learn that colonization, you know, back in the 1400s, the 1500s, the first most important thing is that we are still living, living in the wake of that history and that event.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  So where we are today has everything to do with what happened, you know, 500 years ago. There's, there's no denying that. And I think it's extremely important to acknowledge that. So that's why we're trying to build it back. Um, I'm working right now with Mi'kmaq elders and knowledge holders, and we're in the process of creating their star map. So like I said, there's a lot of hope here too. I don't want to be like all negative, but also we have to be honest, you know, that, that this is happening and it's a part of where we are today. So back to the question, one of the things I go to is the Big Dipper, because the Big Dipper is so popular, you know, it's something that everyone in here in the northern hemisphere kind of knows, those seven bright stars.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  And so like, for example, um, we think of Ursa Major, um, through the so-called Greek, um, uh, constellations or asterisms, the nicknames for the stars, you know, the Big Dipper. And, um, we also have a lot of teachings there, like one from the Innu is a bear as well, but it faces in the opposite direction. So just like I was saying, like with the curly tail and the Ojibwe mountain lion, we have the same lion with the Greek, where the Greek leo the lion is. We have other teachings with the bear. Um, and the bear for us is more to do with, um, like a medicine. Um, and also the bear has to do with, um, it's one of the only animals that's two-legged.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  So there's a really important story that has to do with like people because we're two-legged, right? So there's like the winged ones, the ones that crawl, there's the four-legged, you know, like mammals and, you know, dogs and, but then there's the two-legged. And so we're the two-legged, but see, the bear is kind of one of those animals that's also sometimes two-legged. But this is the key point. The, the two-legged represent and bring wisdom. So the bear has wisdom and we as humans have wisdom. So that's kind of like what we bring like to the whole circle. And I think that's really important because it's because we have our wisdom and we have our strong, critical minds that we can get out of, um, you know,

• 24:51Speaker 02

  these situations that we're in right now, that there is so much hope, you know, that we can create a better future. And that's why we're here talking about it, right? So ultimately it is totally an optimistic and, um, let's, let's create something better for our kids, you know, let's, let's address some of the crisis. Yeah, go ahead.

• 25:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting you say this. I have a stupid observation to share with you. If you go to circus acts and you see dogs performing, the dog that is typically walking on two legs more than other breeds of dogs is the poodle. You ever notice that? That the poodle is walking on his two hind legs more often than other breeds of dogs. And they say that the poodle is the smartest among the dogs. So you were talking about wisdom among the two-legged walkers. I just was wondering.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  I haven't had any interaction with poodles or circus like that, but I think that's a brilliant connection. Wow.

• 25:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, poodles do not chase their tail. That is, this is a non thing for poodles.

• 25:48Negin Farsad?

  My, my thought about the, the bears is that there are a crossover category on the two-legged and the four-legged, sort of like when Justin Bieber started singing in Spanish and he became a crossover hit artist.

• 26:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's, that's probably a better analogy than my poodle.

• 26:07Negin Farsad?

  Although I would say Neil, we both sort of failed.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and one other thing, Negin, maybe you don't know this, but the Greek rendering of Ursa Major is a big chubby bear with a big bushy tail, but bears don't have tails. They don't have big bushy tails. So it's it's it's an anatomically forced addition to the species simply because they were connecting the dots.

• 26:32Negin Farsad?

  Ooh, it's like early animation. You know, they're just like exaggerating, making it up.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I mean, they do have tails, but they're nubby stubby things that are barely even visible in the dense density of their hair. So yeah, Annette, what do you what do natives do with with the bears' existence or nonexistence of a tail?

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Um, you know, that's a good question. I haven't heard any, you know, cute stories about the um, I know in the planetarium, there's a typical story about how the bear uh, got the lake, its tail frozen in the lake. Um, then there's the other funny story about how uh,

• 27:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, just to be, just to finish that, it it I think it was given some food and it turned around. It got a fish out of the lake and then it took too long to eat it and the tail froze in the lake. And then it stepped away and the tail broke off. And so the early bears have tails, but the later ones don't. And so, and that's a really tall tale.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Azus came um, swooping down to save the bears from Hera. And so he grabbed the bears by the only thing he could, their short tails, and swung them around to get enough momentum to, you know, whiz them up into the cosmos. And then that stretched out their tails. So anyways, those are those silly planetarium um, tales that we tell about the bears' tails. Um, many of those constellations that we think of as the Greek mainstream type constellations actually were borrowed from the Babylonians. So you probably know that, Neil. I don't know if you've come across that, but especially the Zodiac constellation.

• 28:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Babylonians are deep in there. And somehow, there's a, there's a, there's some kind of smokescreen where the real influence of ancient, you know, the ancient peoples of Babylon don't make it through. And we just, it stops at Greece. But half of that is, that's right.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  From my understanding, it has to do with, you know, the Greeks, the Babylonians, and Egyptians, right there along the Mediterranean Sea. So there was a lot of, you know, sharing and mixing and warring and everything. But yeah, you're right, that it actually ended up just being labeled. Now, we think of it, oh, that comes from the Greek tradition. But there's so much more to the story. And I think that that's really important.

• 28:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think the Babylonians gave us base sixty, which is what, which is the whole foundation of our timekeeping.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, the time, the clock. Yeah, sixty seconds, sixty minutes and an hour. And then also, the Egyptians brought in the idea of the twelve, the twelve-hour days, with the sun going across and then down into the underworld. So there's a lot of like cultural stories and, and knowledges here embedded, even in just, we can just scratch the surface. And then there's, it's so much more interesting than, you know, what we originally think of as just coming from one culture.

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, of course.

• 29:22Speaker 02

  Okay, back to you again.

• 29:23Negin Farsad?

  Also, I think the Egyptians, I think the Egyptians also gave us beer, so you could get drunk and look at stars.

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right? Okay.

• 29:31Negin Farsad?

  Just give credit where credit is due. Okay, so Matt Harefield has a question that requires a little bit of visualization. If the moon was not tidally locked with the earth and instead rotated at some observable rate, making it more obviously a three-dimensional object, how do you think that would have changed the way ancient humans perceived the cosmos?

• 29:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that implies that people thought the moon was just a flat disc.

• 30:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it always just showed one side. I hadn't thought about that. Annette, what does your research tell you about the moon?

• 30:05Speaker 02

  Whoa, that's a deep question. Let me think. Well, the moon, I guess off the top of my head, the thing is, I don't feel that it would change a great deal. The indigenous teachings that I'm familiar with, and you know, I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but because the teachings with the moon, it's all about relationships. And in a way, it doesn't matter. Like, it's almost like, that's like a technicality. Like, you know, if it's 2D or 3D or whatever, I mean, okay, yeah, that's cool, that's interesting, but that's more like a geometrical fact.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  I think what's more important is that the grandmother moon is seen as a relative, a close relative, as helping us, as connected with timekeeping and connected with what we call Turtle Island. So here in North America, you know, this is Turtle Island. There's a lot of stories about this being connected with the turtle. And the turtle has 28 large sections on the back, so that's connected with the moon. And so the turtle also is important, having to do with like the beginning of life, which also connects with the moon. You know, we think the idea of having a large moon close in

• 31:29Speaker 02

  was helpful for the, you know, helping to like nurture life. And also that it created the tides. So the tides helped the life that was existing on the earth for so long, only in the ocean, came out of the ocean onto the land, right? And it just happened more recently. But this has had to do with the tides, and the moon is one of the main sources of the tides. So these are like deeper connections that have to do with the turtle, the moon, the life on earth. And I think that that is a way more important. The moon also has to do with heartbeat. Because of the changing phases of light and darks makes, if you watch it in fast motion, it feels and looks just like a heartbeat.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  So it has to do with our, our human heartbeat too and the drum.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would add that it would be hard to explain a flat disk model, given the curve of the shadowing as the moon goes through its crescent phase. You know, spheres will give you that, that kind of light pattern on it, um, not flat disks. So, um, yeah, interesting, interesting there. We gotta take another break. And when we do, Annette, with your permission, can we go into a lightning round? Uh, in

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 32:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It means you have to answer questions in five seconds.

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It enables us to get through more questions than we otherwise would. Cause it's quite luxurious to give the full hammer of your breadth of knowledge to each of these questions.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Okay, lightning. Yeah, I'm going with the flow. I'll, I'll try it out. I've never done lightning.

• 33:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's different. And Negin, you have lightning questions lined up?

• 33:10Negin Farsad?

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. All right. Well, we come back.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  How's he like that?

• 33:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Negin will send lightning bolts in Annette's direction on Start Talking Cosmic Queries.

• 33:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, Start Talking Cosmic Queries. We're talking about what the sky looks like to people who are not white.

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do I characterize that correctly? We have a special guest here who is a world expert on this very topic, Annette Lee from St. Cloud University, just north of Minneapolis. So we're in the middle of some Cosmic Queries with her and Negin Farsad is now going to take us into the lightning rod with her. But before we do that, just because this is our last segment, Negin, tell us how we find you on social, on social media.

• 34:08Negin Farsad?

  Ooh, you can find me at Negin Farsad on Instagram, on Twitter, even on TikTok.

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All three.

• 34:15Negin Farsad?

  N-A-G-I-N-F-R-S-A-D. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Guys, don't worry. I don't dance on it. So

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all right.

• 34:22Negin Farsad?

  I saved you from that.

• 34:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how about, Annette, how do we find you on the, in the social universe?

• 34:27Speaker 02

  I don't even know what TikTok is, so.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, just try email, [email protected].

• 34:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. All right. Is there a website?

• 34:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, the website, the website, nativeskywatchers.org, nativeskywatchers.com. Oh, we got lots of cool projects that'll make up for not being on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and all that.

• 34:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's where we'll find your, all your activities. Very excellent. Okay. Negin, throw some lightning bolts at Annette. See how many of these questions you can get through.

• 34:56Negin Farsad?

  Here we go. Donna Palmieri asks, are there any astronomical discoveries made by Western scientists that indigenous people of North America had already known? So when it was announced, the indigenous community was like, oh yeah, we knew that a while ago. Where you been?

• 35:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 35:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the best example of this?

• 35:14Speaker 02

  Some people notice the sun, how it goes from east to west and higher and lower. And there's a beautiful pattern with the sun, if you watch it throughout the year. But what about the moon? Did you ever notice the moon has a pattern of where it rises, where it sets, how low, how high? And so this moon's rising and setting pattern is really another beautiful dance that is done in relation to the sun. Well, so anyways, it's kind of complicated, but basically I remember learning about it. And then one day I was talking to an Ojibwe elder and he was like, oh yeah, um, short shadows, uh, walking home, snowshoeing. Short shadows. So what he was talking about is in the middle of winter, when they're snowshoeing across a frozen lake,

• 36:00Speaker 02

  okay, like up in Canada, and at midnight, the moon's out. But the moon has a really high path across the sky in the middle of winter because it's opposite the sun. So the sun is low in the winter, the moon is really high. Are you still with me?

• 36:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm all there. Go on.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  And the moon is really high, so when you're walking on your snowshoes across a frozen lake and it's 40 below. Then there's going to be a really short shadow because the moon is basically directly overhead or close to it. So something that most like whatever mainstream or Western sciences folks don't even know about the path of the moon and the height of the moon in a seasonal pattern. It's not necessarily even taught in typical Astro 101 classes or, you know, any level. But this was like a everyday common like, you know, yeah, like duh, yeah, short shadows in the winter, right?

• 36:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this is the benefit of simply paying attention to what's going on in the sky and what's going on around you. Right, right. Okay, so now we have to dock 90 seconds for your next question.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Here we go. I only said I would give it a try, but thanks for helping me.

• 37:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, give her another one.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Try.

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Slap her with another one, go.

• 37:17Negin Farsad?

  Robert Bratcher asks, how has science education changed over the last decade and how will it continue to change to keep children and teens interested in what they're learning, furthering their thirst for scientific discovery in all aspects of the science fields?

• 37:29Speaker 02

  So how has it changed? Okay, so it's changed by what used to be the lecture model, the standard model, as the teacher is like all-knowing and the students as blank slates. Well, all the research shows that doesn't work, right? And so this idea of active learning, and then my research and other folks in the area of astronomy education and research, the idea that we can bring culture and our humanity back into learning science and we can have students learn more science and be more engaged. And then the other idea is this idea of like STEM identity and science identity, that it's not enough just to know the facts or to be good enough to know the facts because

• 38:11Speaker 02

  we have half of those kids are dropping out at the college level out of STEM. What we need to do is to create a welcoming community.

• 38:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you say dropping out, you mean switching majors.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  They're switchers.

• 38:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To something else.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  They're switchers.

• 38:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, switchers.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Right, so they're dropping out of STEM.

• 38:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they're not dropping out of school, it's switching.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Their focus.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  We have a recruitment problem, and then on top of that, we have a retention problem, because they're switching. Even the A and B students are switching out of STEM. And so we talk about the psychology, a lot of the research now in STEM education has to do with the psychology, like, hey, well, why would they be dropping out? It's because they don't feel a sense of community. It's because they don't see themselves as a STEM professional. And so creating opportunities and professional pathways where they can be like rubbing elbows with NASA scientists or, you know, world-class, working on world-class telescopes at the high school, or even elementary level.

• 39:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's becoming more of a holistic experience as an educator and as a student?

• 39:08Speaker 02

  In a word, holistic, and also bringing in more of our humanity, like, that we don't have, if we're gonna do science, we don't have to be robots, we don't have to be machines. I mean, we can multitask, right, Najee? We're good at multitasking. So we can, we don't have to like pretend like we don't have hearts, or we're not, you know, we don't have bias, we could just say, yeah, but we're gonna practice the methods of science as best we can, but still admit that we're still human beings and there's still culture happening as a part of this.

• 39:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got it, got it. All right. You still failed the 10 second rule there, but go on. Najee, she's getting a little better, maybe.

• 39:49Negin Farsad?

  Okay, this next one, you have to say a negative three seconds. That's how you do that. Robert Weaver asks, what is your favorite observation of the night sky that can be seen without the assistance of a telescope?

• 40:04Negin Farsad?

  I like that one.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Oh, I love looking at the night sky without a telescope. There's so many, how many, how am I gonna fit this in a negative three seconds?

• 40:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you just want to give the best thing.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  Ah, the Pleiades. Um, the Pleiades is known as the Baganagijic. Try to say that, Baganagijic.

• 40:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Baganagijic, yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  It'd be a Jibway word for, um, the hole in the sky. So it's a kind of a doorway, a s- a star doorway between the w- the physical plane and the spiritual plane, Baganagijic. Um, so I can just leave you hanging there, but I love to see the Pleiades. And I'm sure you know, if you look to the side-

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, Aboriginal art in, in Australia.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 40:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've looked, I looked at a lot of what they portrayed, and the Pleiades are in practically every illustration-

• 40:48Speaker 02

  And Maori, and Maori. Yeah, throughout human history, that's probably the number one go-to where all the cultures have some amazing teachings related to the Pleiades. And then when you, I love to look to the side, and then you can use your averted vision, your, uh, your rods instead of your cones, and then you see it just pop. You have to do that, right? Najin, you've done that, right? It pops.

• 41:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's got astigmatism. We're not talking to her.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  It's rods and cones. It doesn't matter if your eye's off-center. You can, you can still do it. You just, you just look, instead of looking directly at it, you look to the side, and you're using your rods instead of your cones, and it just gets brighter. It's total magic. You gotta try it.

• 41:29Negin Farsad?

  I feel, I feel so, uh, I feel so naked that you, you're referring to my rods and cones.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  I feel bonded with you because I think I have a slight astigmatism-

• 41:40Negin Farsad?

  This is a little bit of an R-rated podcast, suddenly.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  I think I have that too, a little bit, in one eye, so I don't, I don't feel like that's a, a deal-breaker at all. There's so much magic and, uh, cool stuff when we look at the sky, you know, and that's one of the things I love. You can do it with the Andromeda Galaxy, too.

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. In fact, just to, just to be formal about that, the Andromeda Galaxy is the single farthest object visible to the unaided human eye in the sky. It's two million light-years away, so it's the farthest object. But, cool. Najin, keep them coming.

• 42:12Negin Farsad?

  Okay, here we go. Adventure asks, uh, please tell me your thoughts-

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That way, that's the person's name?

• 42:16Speaker 02

  Is that allowed?

• 42:18Negin Farsad?

  Adventure, spelled with a Y instead of an E. Um, please tell me your thoughts on the commonalities and differences in cosmology, astrology, astrophysics, and astronomy. And yes, line dancers love StarTalk, too. We even have a line dance called Mars Needs Women.

• 42:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Answer that in five seconds.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, the commonalities and differences between all of these things. Holy.

• 42:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I'm gonna recast that question.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Please.

• 42:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just gonna recast it. Annette, you studied cultures, indigenous cultures, that are hugely geographically separated. Presumably, they each have an origin story for the universe, or for their culture, for people, for the earth. Is there something that you can cite that they all have in common? And something that is especially different about them?

• 43:12Speaker 02

  Whoa, in five seconds?

• 43:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll give you 10 seconds.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Okay, one thing that's common is the idea that

• 43:23Speaker 02

  the earth is very old and that humans are very new. And that there's like this been different versions of life on earth. Like in science, we have just, you know, the here was humanity, you know, evolution, right? But in indigenous knowledges, there's basically the story is a lot more interesting and complex. That there were different versions of humans being on earth and then destruction happening. Where it started anew. Like in Lakota, like I was talking about the bear, the matto is the bear. And this idea that humans, humans kind of got out of balance.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  And then their earth did this like resetting where it shook and there was disaster and flooding and fires. And then we got another chance. And so this is our second chance. So anyways, it's that idea that the earth is much older and much more to the story than just one one version of humanity, I guess is the short answer.

• 44:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I guess the biblical correspondence to that would be Noah's flood.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People existed before that and after it. And so there's, you know, anti-Diluvian and post-Diluvian stories about humans.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there's a lot of teachings I can think of too, like it has to do with, you know, before we got to the time we're in now and like the relationship between humans and animals. Like one thing that's really cool is that idea that humans and animals could talk to each other. Not in the non-verbal language like we think of today, like horse whispering or something like that, but like they literally talk to each other. But then things got out of balance and things got too chaotic. And so then there was this period of like destruction and then started anew with like new, um, new rules and regulations and, and order.

• 45:12Negin Farsad?

  My, I have to say, my Pomeranian and I had a really nice chat this morning. So, uh, it was mostly about treats, um, but I feel like he still does some talking.

• 45:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have a Pomeranian?

• 45:24Negin Farsad?

  Let your elders know, I have a Pomeranian.

• 45:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You never told me that, okay?

• 45:28Negin Farsad?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'd have a different relationship had I known that from the beginning.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  That's a small dog, right?

• 45:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it's so, it's, it's more hair than body and it's about this, it's no bigger than like half of a basketball and...

• 45:45Negin Farsad?

  I have one of the larger ones. He's ten pounds, ten pounds.

• 45:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Pomeranian is embarrassingly cute. That's, it's, it's just, it's too, it's, no animal should be that cute and it is and it knows it. And so it's, it's some, I just think if I were a wolf, I would just feel so bad that they took my DNA and made that thing out.

• 46:10Negin Farsad?

  If I, if I looked into the night sky, I think I would see many Pomeranians. Like I would probably mostly see Pomeranians in the night sky.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  That's so funny.

• 46:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pomeranian major and Pomeranian minor, right?

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Neil talked about a poodle and Negin talked about a Pomeranian. I used to have a wolf dog.

• 46:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wolf Dog, see that's a little better. That's a little more true to the roots.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  And that's.

• 46:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's slip in one more question.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 46:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Annette, and you gotta give me only 10 seconds, Annette.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Okay, I'll try.

• 46:41Negin Farsad?

  Yeah, here we go. Georgetowner asks, how did the indigenous peoples of North America create kivas that capture the rising sun on the spring and fall equinox? An example being Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.

• 46:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, somebody's been around, somebody's doing some homework. All right, Annette, what do you have to say about that?

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Holy smokes, well, like, down in the southwest, those are my collaborators, Nancy Maryboy and David Begay. They are the go-to to talk to. They're Navajo-Dinay, and they can talk about the pueblo and the Dinay connections and the Chaco Canyon. I mean, so.

• 47:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And by the way, so in your website, the Skywatcher website, do we have reference to all of your other collaborators there and some of their work as well?

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, you can see that in the Two Eyed Seeing Project. You can see the video recordings, live stream. And we had our indigenous knowledge holders working with students, indigenous students, and their teachers, and they created content related to, you know, this indigenous astronomy and NASA science and what was most meaningful to them. So I would highly recommend you go and check that out. You might spend a little more time than you were thinking in that, because there's a lot of content.

• 47:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As it should be. If you did the site right, that's what should be happening to people, right? They'll get lost in it, lost in a very good way. So we've got to call it quits there. Annette, it's been great to have you on this and to meet a fellow planetarian. And we'll find some other excuse to get you back on, and we'll talk planetarium smack.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  Don't forget poodles and pomeranium.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  Okay, thanks a lot.

• 48:20Negin Farsad?

  Changing the show to Dog Talk is what we're changing it to.

• 48:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there you go.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  I've never laughed so much on a livestream, a radio show. Thanks. It was fun.

• 48:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Negin, always good to have you as a co-host. My gosh.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Thanks so much for having me, Neil.

• 48:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the Cartoon Network. And I look forward to that.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  Yes, thanks, Neil.

• 48:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we're good here. So again, thanks again. I enjoyed this show. There's so much to learn and know about peoples of the world that aren't always the ones that are in your face telling you what they think you should know. It takes a little effort and it's richly rewarded. And I'm glad we have folks, Annette, folks like you who are just in there getting the job done and taking names. So thanks for what you do, what you bring to the world, and for being a guest on StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. You're a personal astrophysicist. And as always, I give you to keep looking up.