Speaker: Herman Bender

By the mid-18th century, whether traveling in the eastern and upper Great Lakes area or on the Great Plains of North America, many explorers and missionaries found a people with a vast knowledge of the night sky. When asked, the indigenous people of the northern Plains and Woodlands were never shy about identifying individual stars or sharing their names, traditions and the belief system that incorporated them. They willingly discussed their names for stars, the planets, constellations, the Milky Way, Universe and how all related to their view of the cosmos based on ancient myths and oral traditions.

Herman Bender is an independent researcher and amateur astronomer with a background in geology. He is the founder and first past president of the Mid-America Geographic Foundation, Inc., and head of The Hanwakan Center for Prehistoric Astronomy, Cosmology and Cultural Landscape Studies, Inc., founded to help preserve not only actual physical sites, but the rich traditions, oral histories and stories which are incorporated into them. He is widely published, including his book Lands of the Shamans (Oxbow).

Please note later start time. This is a joint lecture with Wessex Astronomical Society (WAS)