Niger: How Nomads Navigate the Desert · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Adouma Alghoubas writes about the life of nomads in the desert of Niger [fr] :
Nomadic people do not have the technological means at their disposal to get their bearings, but what they do have is knowledge of astronomy, inherited from their ancestors. They navigate their way as they travel by looking at the stars. At first nightfall, it is the Pleiades constellation (“the ladies of the night” in Tamajeq) and Orion ( “the guide” in Tamajeq) that shows them the way East. Then, it is Venus (tezzug wulli aka “goat milking” in Tamajeq) that points them to the West.