That is a fascinating observation that I never considered. I never took a course in astronomy. My interests are more aligned with with the philosophy of language. And I had a thought that some people might appreciate — one that is probably well-understood by most astronomers. I grew up around many people asking a seemingly sensible question: “What were those ancient humans smoking when they named these constellations? Ursa Major doesn’t look like a bear. Draco doesn’t look like a dragon. Scorpio doesn’t look like a scorpion. And don’t even get me started on Capricorn!”
Finally, a couple of months ago, I had a realization that has probably been long understood by many people: The reason that ancient humans named constellations was not because they looked up into the sky and thought to themselves. “Wow, that configuration of stars had a striking resemblance to Castor and Pollux from the story that I was told when I was a child!” They named the constellations simply because they needed a name for that point in the sky. They just needed to call them something… just like we need we names for our streets. How many people say, “Well, I’ve driven down Cygnus Lane a million times and have never once seen a swan. What a terrible name for that road!”
For a while, I worked for a civil engineering firm that designed subdivisions. They were responsible for laying out the shape of the plots of land and the streets for the developers… and also for naming the streets. Their proposed street names have to be approved by the county, but I can tell you this much: They aren’t thinking all that hard about what to name those streets.
(Incidentally, my parents now happen to live in a town named Star, where all of the streets are named after stars and constellations. That was partly responsible for me getting a clue about all of this.)
To be fair, the star patterns do have vague shapes that inspire their name (in Orion the shape of a man with a club and a shield is quite recognizable). But of course pareidolia was applied out of necessity as you say; it was mnemonics probably as much as a good bit of storytelling fun. I would also add another possible mechanism: passing through multiple cultures. Maybe you inherited the constellation name from a previous culture, and mapped their God or hero of choice with one of yours because that makes it more familiar. But maybe some part of the analogy was lost in the mapping. Do it enough times and name and constellation may seem now associated in a completely arbitrary way.
That is a fascinating observation that I never considered. I never took a course in astronomy. My interests are more aligned with with the philosophy of language. And I had a thought that some people might appreciate — one that is probably well-understood by most astronomers. I grew up around many people asking a seemingly sensible question: “What were those ancient humans smoking when they named these constellations? Ursa Major doesn’t look like a bear. Draco doesn’t look like a dragon. Scorpio doesn’t look like a scorpion. And don’t even get me started on Capricorn!”
Finally, a couple of months ago, I had a realization that has probably been long understood by many people: The reason that ancient humans named constellations was not because they looked up into the sky and thought to themselves. “Wow, that configuration of stars had a striking resemblance to Castor and Pollux from the story that I was told when I was a child!” They named the constellations simply because they needed a name for that point in the sky. They just needed to call them something… just like we need we names for our streets. How many people say, “Well, I’ve driven down Cygnus Lane a million times and have never once seen a swan. What a terrible name for that road!”
For a while, I worked for a civil engineering firm that designed subdivisions. They were responsible for laying out the shape of the plots of land and the streets for the developers… and also for naming the streets. Their proposed street names have to be approved by the county, but I can tell you this much: They aren’t thinking all that hard about what to name those streets.
(Incidentally, my parents now happen to live in a town named Star, where all of the streets are named after stars and constellations. That was partly responsible for me getting a clue about all of this.)
To be fair, the star patterns do have vague shapes that inspire their name (in Orion the shape of a man with a club and a shield is quite recognizable). But of course pareidolia was applied out of necessity as you say; it was mnemonics probably as much as a good bit of storytelling fun. I would also add another possible mechanism: passing through multiple cultures. Maybe you inherited the constellation name from a previous culture, and mapped their God or hero of choice with one of yours because that makes it more familiar. But maybe some part of the analogy was lost in the mapping. Do it enough times and name and constellation may seem now associated in a completely arbitrary way.