Eclipse 2028 practical guide
Eclipses in Aboriginal and Māori Astronomy
Long before 2028, eclipses over Australia and Aotearoa were watched, explained and remembered. What survives in the written record is partial, mostly set down by outsiders, and still revealing.
The short version
A 2011 study of 50 recorded Aboriginal eclipse accounts found that many groups saw eclipses as omens, and that many also understood a solar eclipse as the Moon covering the Sun. In Māori tradition, as explained by astronomer Professor Rangi Matamua, eclipses are tied to Whiro, who seeks to kill the Moon or the Sun and plunge the world into darkness.
Fifty recorded accounts
In 2011 Duane Hamacher and Ray Norris of Macquarie University gathered 50 Aboriginal accounts of solar and lunar eclipses from the published record. Two patterns stood out. Many groups viewed eclipses negatively, associating them with bad omens, evil magic, disease, blood and death, and in many communities Elders or medicine men were believed able to control or avert an eclipse. And many groups understood the motions of the Sun, Earth and Moon, the link between lunar phases and tides, and that a solar eclipse was caused by the Moon blocking the Sun.
The authors are careful about their evidence, and so is this page. The accounts were nearly always recorded by non-Aboriginal people, often as a passing observation with little detail. They are fragments, filtered through translation, of knowledge that belongs to the communities themselves.
The Sun woman and the Moon man
Several traditions describe a solar eclipse as an encounter between the Sun and the Moon. In Euahlayi tradition from north-western New South Wales, the Sun is a woman, Yhi, who pursues the Moon man, Bahloo; sometimes she eclipses him in a jealous rage, until the spirits who hold up the sky drive her away. The Yolngu of Elcho Island in Arnhem Land described a solar eclipse as the Sun woman and Moon man coming together as husband and wife. The Wirangu of South Australia said the eclipse of 21 September 1922 was caused by the hand of a spirit man, maamu-waddi, covering the earth for the couple's privacy. In each, the Moon is understood to be what covers the Sun.
Something covering the Sun
Other groups recognised that something blocked the Sun but named a different cause. Hamacher and Norris list a large black bird, tia, in an Arrernte account; spun possum fur among the Luritja; sorcerers' cloaks in parts of south-western Western Australia; and a man covering the Sun with his hand or body in a Central Desert account. Among the Wardaman of the Northern Territory, an evil spirit swallows the Sun, and the head of the sun-clan, Djinboon, can prevent or rescue the earth from an eclipse.
The response was often active. Euahlayi medicine men chanted particular words; Ngadjuri men threw boomerangs toward each cardinal direction; Arrernte and Pitjantjatjara medicine men cast sacred stones at the darkened Sun while singing. Because the Sun always returned, these acts confirmed the medicine man's standing as protector of the community.
21 September 1922
The same eclipse that the Wallal expedition used to test Einstein was also watched by Aboriginal communities across its path. Near Erldunda in the Northern Territory, people reacted with a mixture of fear and joy, some calling out and others singing. On the far west coast of South Australia, the Wirangu explained it through maamu-waddi. Not every community feared eclipses: people at Beagle Bay in Western Australia were recorded as unafraid of them.
Dating stories by eclipses
Because eclipse dates can be calculated precisely, a story that describes one can sometimes be dated. The anthropologist Norman Tindale linked a Ngadjuri story from Parachilna in the Flinders Ranges, in which the Sun disappears after two brothers kill an old woman's dingoes, to a total eclipse he dated to 1793. Recalculating it, Hamacher and Norris found that the 1793 eclipse was partial at Parachilna, covering about 93 per cent of the Sun, and that a total eclipse passed over Parachilna on 7 October 1782, a better candidate. In 1934, Mandjindja people of the Western Desert told Tindale of a solar eclipse, Tindu korari, they had seen once and feared until it passed harmlessly; Tindale attributed it to the annular eclipse of 30 July 1916.
Whiro and the choked Moon
In Māori tradition, as Professor Rangi Matamua explained to Te Ao Māori News in 2021, an eclipsed, blood-red Moon is a marama kūtia, a full moon that comes as a warning. Eclipses belong to the realm of Whiro, the atua associated with darkness and death, whose intention is to kill the Moon or the Sun and take the world into complete darkness. Modern te reo Māori also has precise terms: Te Aka Māori Dictionary gives āraitanga kōmaru for a solar eclipse and āraitanga o te katoa o Tama-nui-te-rā, the covering of the whole of the Sun, for a total eclipse.
On 22 July 2028 that total eclipse crosses Ōtepoti Dunedin and Tāhuna Queenstown in the late afternoon, the first over the Dunedin area since 1163, long before people reached Aotearoa.
Watching on Country and whenua
Much of the 2028 path crosses land with continuing cultural significance, including places whose access is restricted. If you plan to watch from somewhere other than a public park, ask the local Aboriginal land council or the rūnanga about access and protocol as well as the landowner, and treat their answer as part of the site check.
Frequently asked questions
Did Aboriginal people understand that the Moon causes solar eclipses?
Many did. Hamacher and Norris's 2011 review found accounts, among them Euahlayi, Yolngu and Wirangu traditions, in which a solar eclipse is the Moon man and Sun woman meeting or one covering the other. Other groups described something else covering the Sun, such as a bird, a cloak or spun possum fur.
What is the Māori word for a solar eclipse?
Te Aka Māori Dictionary gives āraitanga kōmaru for a solar eclipse, and āraitanga o te katoa o Tama-nui-te-rā for a total solar eclipse. In traditional terms, Professor Rangi Matamua has described an eclipsed, reddened Moon as marama kūtia, a warning connected with Whiro.
Why do these accounts need care?
Almost all of the Aboriginal accounts were written down by non-Aboriginal colonists, missionaries and anthropologists, often in passing and through translation. They are fragments of living knowledge systems, not complete or authoritative versions of them.
This page follows the site's correction policy: factual errors are fixed and the update date above changes so the fix is visible, rather than silently edited.
Continue exploring
Read how the 1922 Wallal expedition used the same eclipse to test Einstein, how Dunedin's 1163 eclipse is dated, and how eclipse geometry is calculated.