Lambadi (Banjara)
names 26objects 16ISO 639-3 lmn
Spoken in Banjara tandas of Vidarbha, Maharashtra (villages in the Nagpur–Amravati–Yavatmal region).
tribal 19 · borrowed 7
See the Lambadi (Banjara) sky on the chart →
The sky in Lambadi (Banjara)
| Name | Object | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medi | Canis Major | Connected by the Banjaras with the processing of the harvest. Reported in one village only. | tribal |
| Seshar Tara | Comets | 'a smoking star', or a star with a tail Read as an omen, good or bad according to the village. Reported in five of six villages. | tribal |
| Agneya | Directions taken from the sky | Agni's quarter One of six villages. | borrowed |
| Dakshin | Directions taken from the sky | One of six villages. | borrowed |
| Dharau; Ishan | Directions taken from the sky | One of six villages. | tribal |
| Dongari | Directions taken from the sky | 'the hills' One of six villages. | tribal |
| Pashim | Directions taken from the sky | One of six villages. | borrowed |
| Suryatal | Directions taken from the sky | 'the Sun's direction' — where the Sun rises One of six villages gave the full set of quarters. | tribal |
| Vani tara | Figures with no secure modern identification | Named at Phulumari as one of three directional stars: Dhruv for north, Porya for east, and Vani tara overhead. | tribal |
| Tara tutgo | Meteors and shooting stars | 'a broken star' / 'a falling star' Usually a bad omen. Reported in five of six villages. | tribal |
| Halni / Halini / Harini | Orion | 'a doe, a deer' Reported in all six villages. | tribal |
| Kamedi | Taurus | 'a dove' Seen close to Halni, the deer. Reported in one village. The sighting of Taurus in the east is used in two villages to predict the monsoon. | tribal |
| Mardaar wat | The Milky Way | 'the path of the dead', also given as 'the path of animals' The Banjaras hold that the dead travel the Milky Way. Reported in four of six villages. | tribal |
| Pandi | The Milky Way | 'the path of the animals' At Katarwadi, with the orientation given as north-south. | tribal |
| Chanda | The Moon | — | borrowed |
| Chandani | The Moon | moonlight | borrowed |
| tala; khala | The Moon | 'broken'; 'complete' — the two states of the ring At Kasola the rule is read off the shape of the ring: a broken halo, tala, means better rains; a complete one, khala, means little rain. Four of six villages knew a halo rule of some kind. | tribal |
| yadi | The Moon | 'the old lady' — she sits under a banyan tree in the face of the Moon, spinning cotton yarn Three of the six villages in Table 1. At Katarwadi the figure is given in full: a banyan tree with an old lady beside it spinning; at Chinchkhed the informants say only that there is a tree on the Moon. | tribal |
| Shirser Jhumko / Jhumko tara | The Pleiades | 'the jewel worn on the forehead' — a jhumkā is a hanging ear- or head-ornament Reported in four of six villages. | tribal |
| Dan / Dado | The Sun | — | tribal |
| Dhruv Tara / Dhruv | The pole star | At Katarwadi the pole star is Dhruv tara, which the recorders mark as the modern-language word; at Phulumari Dhruv is one of three stars used to fix direction, showing north, beside Porya the morning star showing east and Vani tara at the zenith. | borrowed |
| Indra-dhanush | The rainbow | 'Indra's bow' One of six villages. Read as the sign that the current spell of rain has ended. | borrowed |
| Jamakhat / Yamakhat | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | 'the cot of the dead' Reported in all six villages surveyed — the most universally held sky-figure the paper records for the Banjaras. | tribal |
| Shubham; Sukachi Chandi | Venus as evening star | 'the auspicious one'; 'the glow of Shukra' At Katarwadi the evening star is Shubham, an auspicious star; at Kasola it is Sukachi Chandi, a glow that brings happiness and is used to tell the time. At Palaitanda it is said to demand the sacrifice of a wheat chapatti. | tribal |
| Subtara | Venus as evening star | A good omen. Reported in four of six villages. | tribal |
| Porya Tara | Venus as morning star | Reported in all six villages. | tribal |
Sources
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, Kishore Menon and Harini Calamur, 'The astronomy of two Indian tribes: the Banjaras and the Kolams', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 17(1), 65-84 (2014), Table 1, p. 69 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, Kishore Menon and Harini Calamur, 'The astronomy of two Indian tribes: the Banjaras and the Kolams', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 17(1), 65-84 (2014), Appendix 1.1.2 (Phulumari), p. 78 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, Kishore Menon and Harini Calamur, 'The astronomy of two Indian tribes: the Banjaras and the Kolams', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 17(1), 65-84 (2014), Appendix 1.1.3 (Katarwadi), p. 78 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, Kishore Menon and Harini Calamur, 'The astronomy of two Indian tribes: the Banjaras and the Kolams', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 17(1), 65-84 (2014), Table 1 row 19, p. 69, and Appendix 1.1.4 (Kasola), p. 79 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, Kishore Menon and Harini Calamur, 'The astronomy of two Indian tribes: the Banjaras and the Kolams', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 17(1), 65-84 (2014), Table 1 row 3, p. 69, and Appendix 1.1.3 (Katarwadi), p. 78 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, Kishore Menon and Harini Calamur, 'The astronomy of two Indian tribes: the Banjaras and the Kolams', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 17(1), 65-84 (2014), Appendix 1.1.2 (Phulumari) and 1.1.3 (Katarwadi), p. 78 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, Kishore Menon and Harini Calamur, 'The astronomy of two Indian tribes: the Banjaras and the Kolams', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 17(1), 65-84 (2014), Table 1 row 26, p. 69, and Appendix 1.1.4 (Kasola), p. 79 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, Kishore Menon and Harini Calamur, 'The astronomy of two Indian tribes: the Banjaras and the Kolams', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 17(1), 65-84 (2014), Appendix 1.1.3 (Katarwadi) and 1.1.4 (Kasola), pp. 78-79 link