The Japanese archipelago is a long north-south archipelago with a difference in latitude of 20 degrees. The Ainu culture flourished in Hokkaido at the northern end of the archipelago, while the Ryukyu culture flourished in Okinawa in the south. Although the Pleiades are the most important stars for determining the seasons and the Polar Star was used as a navigational index throughout Japan including Okinawa, unique oral traditions relating to the stars of the southern hemisphere are well developed in Okinawa. This presentation will introduce the local names and legends of the Southern Cross, Centaurus, Scorpio, Sagittarius and other constellations in Okinawa (e.g. Scorpio as a fishhook operated by drunken old man, α&βCentauri concerning a sad story of a woman with four nipples, etc.). In addition, Southern Cross and Centaurus are not visible north of Okinawa today, but astronomical simulation indicates that they were visible over most of the Japanese archipelago in the ancient Jomon and Yayoi periods due to precession. In this presentation, I would briefly mention the possibility that these constellations are depicted in the engravings on the stone slabs covering the tombs of the Yayoi period in Kyushu Island, although this is still a hypothesis.

In an interdisciplinary project, pre-telescopic transmissions on star colors
have been surveyed from cultures around the world with written or purely
oral records. Some 20 stars were reported correctly as blue or white
and almost 20 correctly as red, orange, or yellow, both down to V=3.3 mag;
we thereby confirm the lab determined naked eye limit for star color detection.
Some of them were found only in reports from aboriginal communities:
E.g., Deneb and Atair were given as whitish only by Northern American
(Havasupai, Maricopa) and Southern Pacific Island nations (Tahiti, Society
Island: Pirae-tea = `white sea swallow' for Deneb). Star colors are also
transmitted from, e.g., pre-modern Hawai'i, Australia, and New Zealand. For stars
compared in color to other stars or planets, we can quantify the B-V color index.
E.g., Betelgeuse was reported as yellow by different cultures two millennia ago,
but it is now deep red - consistent with its fast evolution through the Hertzsprung
gap. We also consider the use of star colors in those cultures: identifying the
star for navigation purposes, color as important aspect in cultural narratives
transposed (or truly observed?) on sky, deification, etc.

Since the late 19th century and the first three decades of the 20th century, the establishment of borders between Brazil and countries such as Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela led to the presence of military personnel who played a dual role: providing technical assistance in the demarcation of territorial boundaries and ensuring the presence of the Brazilian state among various Indigenous populations, who were suddenly forced to occupy different countries, even though they shared the same territories.
In the extensive military documentation, consisting of reports and published books, we find the work of Colonel Amílcar A. Botelho de Magalhães, who was the Secretary of the National Indian Protection Service (SPI) and published a book titled Índios do Brasil (Indians of Brazil) in 1947. The author refers to an earlier document, presented to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ten years earlier (1937). Colonel Themistocles Paes de Souza Brazil wrote Incolas Selvículas or Inhabitants of the Jungle. This paper will focus initially on the section dedicated to what the author called "astronomy among the Indians." The text asserts that Indigenous astronomy should not be "a cause for laughter or mockery." References to the Pleiades, called Siuçy in the general Indigenous language (nhengatu), as well as the mention of the constellation Ararapari (the feathered headdress used in the Jurupari ritual), associated with the Western constellation of Orion, suggest that the author was familiar with the seminal work of Ermanno Stradelli, La Legenda del Jurupari. Some of these implications will be discussed in our presentation.