Star Points for November, 2004; by Curtis Roelle Cornucopia of Stars At this time of year as the holiday season begins we'll pause to consider all that we are thankful for. Our homes, our families, and our homeland. Our traditional view of Thanksgiving is that of a time when Native Americans sat down with foreigners to share a bountiful feast. According to the story the indigenous people served as host, sharing their abundance with pilgrims whose provisions had ran low. In late November daylight hours are dwindling and night falls early as Winter looms. After the feast did the parties go their separate ways before darkness fell? Or did they linger, as their food digested, watching the sun go down that day? Did they swap stories and share their cherished beliefs? As the first stars appeared perhaps the hosts explained some of their creation legends like this one I found on the Western Washington University Planetarium's web site: "Back when the sky was completely dark there was a chief with two sons, a younger son, One Who Walks All Over the Sky, and an older son, Walking About Early. The younger son was sad to see the sky always so dark so he made a mask out of wood and pitch (the sun) and lit it on fire. Each day he travels across the sky. At night he sleeps below the horizon and when he snores sparks fly from the mask and make the stars. The older brother became jealous. To impress their father he smeared fat and charcoal on his face (the moon) and makes his own path across the sky." The Leonid meteor shower peaks around November 17. One can imagine the quiet darkness of that Fall evening being interrupted by a dazzling meteor racing across the sky. Maybe such a sight inspired the tale of a young boy who struggles repeatedly to reach the house of his father, the sun: "...He then made a wooden box from a Cottonwood tree and sealed himself in it as it floated west down a river to find the Sun again. The box washed ashore where two rivers join. He was freed from the box by a young female rattlesnake. Together they traveled west to find the Sun. They saw a meteor fall into the sea on its way to the Sun's house. They asked it for a ride. In this way they made it to the Sun's house." Later on that festive night two beautiful naked eye star clusters rose above the trees. Both of these are in the constellation Taurus. The Pleiades (a.k.a. "Seven Sisters") and nearby it the Hyades, dominated by the red 1st magnitude star Aldebaron, the eye of the Bull. Were onions served at the feast? If so, then perchance the splendor of these rising clusters reminded the hosts of a humorous legend: "Six wives (Pleiades) ate wild onions that gave them skunk breath. The Husbands (Hyades) threw them out of their huts. When the wives went up into the sky to live, the lonely husbands followed but never caught them." Over many generations since that first Thanksgiving countless immigrating pioneer families have settled and spread throughout the country and continue doing so. Remember to be thankful not only for what you have, but also for the kindness and compassion shown by the original hosts who inhabited this majestic land we call America the beautiful.