STAR TRAILS - Navajo sheds new light on the night sky by offering readers a different perspective from which to view the stars and constellations. The star lore of the Navajo people preserved the knowledge of the night sky discovered by their ancestors over countless centuries. These stories explained the importance of specific stars and groups of stars, the orderly movement of celestial bodies, and the chaotic placement of the multitude of other stars that decorate the heavens at night. STAR TRAILS - Navajo connects readers with the Navajo perspective by combining these stories with detailed star charts and viewing guides that can be used to locate the Navajo star figures in the sky.
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About the Author
Don Childrey is a husband, father of two girls, an IT functional development analyst with the NC Department of Transportation, an author, and an avid outdoor adventurer. He studied aerospace and civil engineering in college and earned his Professional Engineering license while working as an engineer for NCDOT. His love of the outdoors was encouraged as a child and continued to develop through his years as a Boy Scout, a volunteer maintainer of the Appalachian Trail and founder of UMBA, a mountain bike trail maintenance association.
He published his first book, the Uwharrie Lakes Region Trail Guide, in 1998. This 302 page book provides detailed coverage of more than 133 miles of hiking and biking trails around the Uwharrie National Forest in central North Carolina. Over 3,000 copies of this book have been sold to date. While enjoying countless nights afield on hiking, paddling, and biking trips, he was able to indulge his interest in the night sky. STAR TRAILS - Navajo is the result of his research into the star lore of the Navajo people of the American Southwest.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Star Trails: Navajo,
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This review is from: Star Trails: Navajo (Paperback)
Don Childrey's Star Trails: Navajo is an eye-opener-literally and figuratively. Not only does the book help us to see the stars in new ways, but it also provides a wealth of detail about how Native Americans understood, explained, and populated the night sky.Most of us are at least vaguely familiar with the Greek constellations and can recount some information about Orion or the Big Dipper, but how many of us know anything at all about the equally fascinating myths and legends that emerged on our own continent? Read this book, and your night sky will be changed forever. You'll look up to find Rabbit Tracks, the Coyote Star, and Man with Feet Apart. They are excellent company, and we owe Childrey a debt for preserving them and bringing them to our attention. His words and illustrations link us to the Pathway of Departed Spirits-whether they be the ancient Navaho dreamers or the author's own departed friend, Bill Medlin, to whom the book is dedicated. It's a book that will appeal to both casual stargazers and hard-core enthusiasts.
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Navajo Sky,
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This review is from: Star Trails: Navajo (Paperback)
Coming from Australia, precious little has been written about the night sky view of Aboriginal Australians. Therefore, it is great to see that in North America some effort has been made to address the lack of literature about the various indigenous views of the constellations. In Star Trails: Navajo by Don Childrey the author explains clearly how the Navajo Peoples viewed the nightly movement of stars overhead. I enjoyed the personal touch that Childrey adds to the book about his boyhood ponderings of the heavens and his clear respect for Navajo culture. Additionally, star maps that accompany the various stories and Childrey's great ability to make comparisons between how other cultures also see these regions of the night sky make for good light reading. Furthermore, for those that would like to have a view into how other cultures see the sky differently to the traditional 88 constellations used by astronomers today, this book offers a good insight into Navajo lore.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Star Trails: Navajo,
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This review is from: Star Trails: Navajo (Paperback)
Since I live in a rural area, I use this as a reference book at night.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Early Native Americans watched the skies and learned a lot about the heavenly bodies without the aid of telescopes or binoculars. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Black God, North Fire, First Slim One, Father Sky, Holy People, Revolving Female, Native American, Revolving Male, First Big One, Awaits the Dawn, Big Dipper, Ursa Major, Earth Surface People, Little Dipper, Man With Feet Apart, Planet Visibility Chart, First Man, Harvest Moon, Mother Earth, North America, Winter Solstice, Little Bear, North Carolina New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Early Native Americans watched the skies and learned a lot about the heavenly bodies without the aid of telescopes or binoculars. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Black God, North Fire, First Slim One, Father Sky, Holy People, Revolving Female, Native American, Revolving Male, First Big One, Awaits the Dawn, Big Dipper, Ursa Major, Earth Surface People, Little Dipper, Man With Feet Apart, Planet Visibility Chart, First Man, Harvest Moon, Mother Earth, North America, Winter Solstice, Little Bear, North Carolina New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 13
books:
See all 13 books this book cites
- American Star by Jackie Collins in Back Matter
- Star Myths: Show Business Biographies on Film by Robert Milton Miller in Back Matter
- The American Indian: Prehistory to the Present by Arrell Morgan Gibson in Back Matter
- Star Tales (North American Indian Stories) by Gretchen Will Mayo in Back Matter
- A Field Guide to Stars and Planets (Peterson Field Guide) by Jay M. Pasachoff Professor of Astronomy in Back Matter
See all 13 books this book cites
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