References in History and Culture
The same three stars are known in Spain, Portugal and South America as "The Three Marys". They also mark the northern night sky when the sun is at its lowest point, and were a clear marker for ancient timekeeping. In the Philippines and Puerto Rico they are called the Three Kings. The stars start appearing around the holiday of Epiphany, when the Biblical Magi visited the baby Jesus, which falls on January 6.
Richard Hinckley Allen lists many folk names for the Belt of Orion. The English ones include: Jacob's Rod or Staff; Peter's Staff; the Golden Yard-arm; the L, or Ell; the Ell and Yard; the Yard-stick, and the Yard-wand; the Ellwand; Our Lady's Wand; the Magi; the Three Kings; the Three Marys; or simply the Three Stars.
The passage "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" is found in the Bible's Book of Job.
In the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", Capt. James T. Kirk tells Edith Keeler that "a hundred years or so from now", a famous novelist will write a classic using the theme "Let me help" and indicates that he will come from "a planet circling that far left star in Orion's belt," Altinak.
Read more about this topic: Orion's Belt
Famous quotes containing the words history and/or culture:
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)