Australian Aboriginal astronomy
Aborigines traditionally used the stars to navigate to where they wanted to go. This is still the case in the remote outback, where there might not be any other signs or landmarks. They also use the Sun, the Moon and the stars to tell the time. Aboriginal calendars are usually more complex than those from Western culture. Many groups in northern Australia use a calendar with six seasons, and know what season it is by what stars can be seen during that period. In 1857, an Englishman named William Edward Stanbridge published the first written account of Aboriginal astronomy. He wrote about the Boorong people of northern Victoria, and how they used astronomy to better understand seasons. They thought of the constellation Lyra as a malleefowl (which they called Neilloan). It disappears from the southern sky in October, and this event told the Boorong that the bird's egg-laying season had begun.