celestial-body
North Star
A pole-marking light used for orientation. Which star holds the pole changes with the ages; the job of “north” is older than any one star.
Also known as polaris
Māori tradition
North Star appears in Māori tradition.
Matamua’s Matariki teaching keeps north-sky orientation speech among navigation neighbors. A named north-star in that Matariki context, not southern-cross and not a second polaris id.
from Rangi Matamua · Matariki: The Star of the Year, 2017
appears in · sourced · culturally specific
Mesopotamian tradition
North Star appears in Mesopotamian tradition.
MUL.APIN seats northern fixed stars and pole-neighbor marks among Mesopotamian sky list-work. A named north-star hinge in that compendium, not Matariki’s Māori year-star alone and not a compass slogan dump.
from Hermann Hunger and David Pingree · MUL.APIN, 1989 (this edition); tablets earlier
appears in · sourced · documented
North Star is historically related to Resin.
In Allen's Star Names, North Star is listed among the trade lemmas and sits with Resin.
from Richard Hinckley Allen · Star Names, 1899
historically related to · sourced · documented
sources
- Matariki: The Star of the Year · Rangi Matamua
Rangi Matamua, Matariki: The Star of the Year.
- MUL.APIN · Hermann Hunger and David Pingree
Hermann Hunger and David Pingree, MUL.APIN.
- Star Names · Richard Hinckley Allen
Richard Hinckley Allen, Star-Names and Their Meanings (1899).