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The Magellanic Clouds in the native cultures of the South and in modern science
Danilo Anton

The Magellanic Clouds are perhaps the most peculiar astronomical element of the austral skies and had diverse meanings in the cultures of the Southern lands..
The earliest references to the Magellanic Clouds come from the Khoi San culture of southern Africa which lived relatively isolated for over 100,000 years.
The Australian Aborigins also developed a variety of myths and beliefs about these stellar groups.
The Magellan's Clouds were known to the Polynesians and served as important navigation markers.
They were known by New Zealand Maories (who are also of Polynesian culture) as Nga Patari-Kaihau or as Te Reporepo and were used as predictors of winds.

The Andean and Chaco people pf South Americarecognized the Clouds and identified them as swarms of bees or Algarrobo flour.
In Western Asia the Magellanic Clouds were known in the first millennium. The first surviving mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud is by the Persian astronomer Al Sufi. In 964, in his book of fixed stars, under Argo Navis, he quotes that "others without name have claimed that under Canopus there are two stars known as the "feet of Canopus ", and beneath these there are white stars that are invisible In Iraq and Najd, and that the inhabitants of Tihama call them al-Baqar [cows]. As Ptolemy did not mention them, we do not know whether it is true or false. "

In Sri Lanka, since ancient times, these clouds have been referred to as the Maha Mera Paruwathaya which means "the great mountain", as they look like the peaks of a distant mountain range.
In Europe, the Magellanic Clouds were first observed by Italian explorers Peter Martyr d'Anghiera and Andrea Corsali in the late 15th century. Later, they were reported by Antonio Pigafetta, who accompanied the expedition of Fernando Magallanes in his circumnavigation of the world in 1519-1522.
The name Magellan referred to the Clouds did not become generalized until much later. In the 1756 star map of the French astronomer Lacaille, they are designated as le Grand Nuage and Le Petit Nuage ("The Big Cloud" and "The Little Cloud").
Magellan's Clouds: An Astronomical Mystery
The Magellanic Clouds are two smaller galaxies (10 times smaller than our galaxy: the Milky Way) that appear clearly visible to the naked eye in the night sky of the Southern Hemisphere. They are about 180,000 light years away from our own galaxy and contain several billion stars.
It has been discovered that in their march through the intergalactic station they leave a huge gas stream that encompasses the two "Clouds" (with a length of several hundred million light years. This gas stream is not seen in visible light but has been detected using state-of-the-art radio telescopes. It has also been proven (in principle) that they are not "satellites" of the Milky Way but are only "passing close" on their journey in space between galaxies.
They can be seen facing south, about 20 degrees from the South Pole and relatively close (about 15 degrees) from the star Canopus (Alpha of the Ship) which is the second brightest star in the sky (after Sirius), Also Can be observed by looking to the east of the Cruz del Sur (which has also been incorporated into the indigenous worldview: the "footprint of the ñandú" of some peoples of South America).