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Rain God Gets His Own Planet |
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By Humberto Márquez*
"It is a reminder of our existence," say Venezuela's Wayúu Indians, whose god Juyá is represented in name by a recently discovered planet.
CARACAS - A planet in the Milky Way discovered by astronomers at a Venezuelan observatory will bear the name Huya (Juyá), the rain god of the Wayúu Indians, who live on the arid Guajira Peninsula in northern Venezuela and Colombia.
The Wayúu hope that their god, from his new vantage point in the company of Neptune and Pluto, will work some miracle to alleviate the thirst their lands have suffered for several generations.
Juyá measures some 600 km in diameter and is composed of rock and ice. It is part of what is known as the Kuiper Belt of celestial bodies located beyond Neptune.
Larger than the asteroids in its group, it is a tiny planet, barely a quarter the size of the distant Pluto.
It was discovered "the night of March 14-15 in 2000 by researcher Ignacio Ferrín, using the Schmidt telescope with a 100-cm lens, at the University of the Andes Astronomy Research Center," the team's spokesman, Johnny Cova, told Tierramérica.
"It was named Object 2000-EB173, until recently when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) accepted its new name," said Cova.
It takes Juyá 243 years to complete its orbit around the Sun, a path that is a tight ellipse. The possibility of life on the little planet has been ruled out, as its surface temperature is 180 degrees below zero Celsius, according to Ferrín.
The planet was formed by a rain of rocks, as occurred with Earth, says the scientist. He pursued a name that would represent the place from where the planet was discovered -- Venezuela -- and its native peoples, while also evoking the idea of rain.
He turned to the Wayúu because they are the largest indigenous group in the country.
From among more than 20 names considered by astronomers, anthropologists and Wayúu leaders, headed by Jorge Pocaterra, the name Juyá was chosen. Juyá -- god of the rain, a warrior, hunter, seducer and inhabitant of the place beyond the sun. To facilitate its pronunciation in English, the spelling was altered to "Huya".
"It is a new recognition for a peoples and a reminder to the world about our existence and our demands," Wayúu leader Noelí Pocaterra, vice-president of the Venezuelan parliament, said in a conversation with Tierramérica.
The Wayúu, also known as "Guajiros" after the land where they live, are the most numerous of the 31 indigenous nations of Venezuela: some 200,000 out of a total 511,000 Indians in this country of 24 million people. Another 150,000 Wayúu live on the Colombian side of the border. Their language is of the Arawak family.
The Wayúu are goat herders, weavers, fisherfolk, salt miners and merchants -- and there are known to be smugglers among them.
In the sun-beaten Guajira, there is a dire need for development. "The lack of water is the biggest problem. Whether through rain, the construction of lagoons or the activation of desalinization plants, we hope that Juyá, god of the rains now recognized the world over, will perform the miracle of water," said Pocaterra.
* Humberto Márquez is an IPS correspondent.
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