Creighton Hosts Talk on Lakota Cosmic Events
Creighton University is hosting a special presentation of “The Spirit and the Sky: Lakota Visions of the Cosmos” on Monday, Sept. 28, 7- 9 p.m., at the Hixson-Lied Building, room 244, near 28th and Burt streets.
Speaker Mark Hollabaugh, Ph.D., professor of physics and astronomy at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minn., will share his knowledge about the 19th century Lakota Nation and how the tribe responded to and documented significant cosmic events. These events included solar and lunar eclipses, meteors and meteor showers, comets and the aurora borealis.
He will also discuss the Native American sun dance and its influence astronomically, the link between the phenomena of night lights, and the Lakota belief in Wakan Tanka, "the great spirit."
Hollabaugh has taught at Normandale since 1998 and is the author of “How to Succeed in Physics” and other publications. His interests include ethnoastronomy (the anthropological study of sky watching in contemporary societies), archeoastronomy (the study of how indigenous groups understood and used the sky phenomena, and its role in culture), and the history and culture of Native American populations.
This event is free to the public. For more information, contact the Rev. Ray Bucko, S.J., professor of anthropology, at email@example.com or 402.280.3587.