LETTER TO THE EDITOR

 DID  THE  MAORI  KNOW  ABOUT  THE  RING  OF  JUPITER?

Sir,
        Discussing the origin of the anomalously high astronomical knowledge of the Dogon [1], it would be very important to search for and, if found, to analyze similar anomalies in mythologies of other peoples whose levels of cultural development are comparable to that of the Dogon. In this connection I would like to draw the readers' attention to a strange astronomical conception discovered among the Maori, the native inhabitants of New Zealand, by the ethnologist E.Best (1856-1931). They call one of the planets that can be seen with the naked eye Parearau [2, pp. 43-44]. The structure of this word is rather intriguing: the word pare denotes a fillet or head-band, and arau means "entangled". "Her band quite surrounds her, hence she is called Parearau", — say the Maori of this heavenly body, considering it a companion or wife of Kopu—Venus. There is also another interesting statement: "That green-eyed star is Parearau; that is the reason why she wears her circlet." As E.Best indicates, one should see here a reference to the mourning-cap or head-band formerly worn by widows of Maoriland.

        So, which of the planets of the Solar system was designated by the Maori as Parearau? E.Best gives us a straight answer to this question: "Four old natives in different localities of the Bay of Plenty applied the name to Jupiter."

        However, in Best's time it seemed absurd to describe Jupiter as a planet surrounded by a circlet. Probably, for this reason alone a certain Stowell, whose words were cited by Best, believed that Parearau was nothing but Saturn with its rings [2, p. 43]. Not rejecting this interpretation on principle, Best put forward another one: the word Parearau might designate the cloud belts on Jupiter. This opinion was later supported by R.Collyns, a New Zealander and author of several Ancient Astronaut books [3, p. 145].

        Today we can however re-evaluate these data. What is of prime importance, we can no more "fear" the idea of Jupiter surrounded by a circlet. Jupiter's ring was discovered by the Voyager-1 space probe in 1979. Therefore there are at present no reasons to doubt the identification of Parearau with this planet. Judging from Best's book, the Maori were quite sure of that. For a mythological-poetical mentality it would be quite natural to consider Jupiter—the third brightest heavenly luminary in the night sky after the Moon and Venus—as the "green-eyed" wife of the latter. (The gender assignment of the planets is here opposite to the "European" one.) On the other hand, when speaking of Jupiter as Parearau (lit.: "entangled by a fillet"), the Maori meant a ring rather than belts. Head gear is a separate object, external in relation to the "head" (= the planetary body). One can suppose that if the Maori had wished to describe (in their system of notions) Jupiter's cloud belts, they would have compared them to their own custom of decorating the face with colored patterns!

        Now, everything seems to point to the fact that the Maori did know about the ring of Jupiter. This knowledge is, however, more anomalous than their supposed knowledge of Saturn's rings, and even more anomalous than many components of the Dogon astronomical lore.

        Specifically, this fact cannot be explained away by the two hypotheses that were suggested to cope with the "Dogon problem"—the hypothesis of a primitive telescope [4] and that of a European missionary enlightening this African people about modern astronomy [5]. The Maori could not have seen the ring of Jupiter even if they had invented a telescope—simply because the ring cannot be observed from the Earth. As we know, it was discovered using spacecraft. To learn about the ring from a civilized traveller (say, from a missionary) would have been equally impossible. E.Best completed his field explorations as early as 1911, devoting the next two decades to analyzing the collected data and writing his monographs. At that period, science had no idea of Jupiter's ring, even a hypothetical one. (A little-known fact: the existence of the ring was predicted by the Ukrainian astronomer S.K.Vsekhsvyatskiy, based on repeated observations of a thin dark strip on the equator of Jupiter. Vsekhsvyatskiy interpreted this strip as the shadow of Jupiter's ring. But this happened only in the early 1960-s [6].)

        All this suggests that the Maori could have obtained knowledge of this ring only from another civilization, one that surpassed mankind at least in the field of astronomy. Of course, to verify this hypothesis, we need weighty additional data proving that the New Zealand aborigines did in fact have contact with aliens. But the sole possible alternative explanation would be the hypothesis of a purely accidental coincidence between the mythological notion of Parearau, and our present-day knowledge of Jupiter. Such a possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, but to prove this supposition, it would be necessary to show the way in which the idea of Jupiter as "entangled" could have arisen in Maori mythology. In short, the enigma of Parearau can be solved only by a detailed professional investigation. Please consider this letter as an appeal for such an investigation.

References

        1. Moffett I.P. Ancient E.T. Contact Source of Dogon Astronomical Knowledge? — RIAP Bulletin, 1997, Vol. 3, No. 3-4, pp. 4-11.
        2. Best E. Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori. Wellington, 1955. (Dominion Museum Monograph No. 3).
        3. Collyns R. Did Spacemen Colonize the Earth? London: Pelham Books, 1974.
        4. Vasilyev V. Kosmicheskoye Oko Dogonov (The Space Eye of the Dogons). — Vokrug Sveta, Moscow, 1978, No. 5, p. 31.
        5. Roxburgh I.W., Williams I.P. The Dogon Tribe and Sirius. — The Observatory, 1975, Vol. 95, No. 1008, p. 215.
        6. Vsekhsvyatskiy S.K. On Possible Existence of a Ring of Comets and Meteorites around Jupiter. — Astronomicheskiy Zhurnal, Moscow, 1962, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 290-302.
 

— Yuriy N. Morozov, Ph.D.

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