Sirius its constellation, Canis Major (Greater Dog). The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt and the "dog days" of summer for the ancient Greeks, while to the Polynesians in the Southern Hemisphere the star marked winter and was an important reference for their navigation around the Pacific Ocean. The brightest star in the night sky, Sirius is recorded in the earliest astronomical records. Its displacement from the ecliptic causes this heliacal rising to be remarkably regular compared to other stars, with a period of almost exactly 365.25 days holding it constant relative to the
Sirius four Galilean moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. This has been the subject of controversy and speculation. Doubts have been raised about the validity of Griaule and Dieterlein's work. In a 1991 article in "Current Anthropology" anthropologist Walter van Beek concluded after his research among the Dogon that, "Though they do speak about "sigu tolo" [which is what Griaule claimed the Dogon called Sirius] they disagree completely with each other as to which star is meant; for some it is an invisible star that should rise to announce the "sigu" [festival], for another it is Venus that, through