In order to generate fire from friction 2 parts are necessary, which this Mayan picture (cfr at rima) illustrates:
When summer reaches its sunmit the spring fire has reached the phase of the 'Tree' and it must be chopped down: ... At mid-summer, at the end of a half-year reign, Hercules is made drunk with mead and led into the middle of a circle of twelve stones arranged around an oak, in front of which stands an altar-stone; the oak has been lopped until it is T-shaped. He is bound to it with willow thongs in the 'five-fold bond' which joins wrists, neck, and ankles together, beaten by his comrades till he faints, then flayed, blinded, castrated, impaled with a mistletoe stake, and finally hacked into joints on the altar-stone. His blood is caught in a basin and used for sprinkling the whole tribe to make them vigorous and fruitful. The joints are roasted at twin fires of oak-loppings, kindled with sacred fire preserved from a lightning-blasted oak or made by twirling an alder- or cornel-wood fire-drill in an oak log. The trunk is then uprooted and split into faggots which are added to the flames. The twelve merry-men rush in a wild figure-of-eight dance around the fires, singing ecstatically and tearing at the flesh with their teeth. The bloody remains are burnt in the fire, all except the genitals and the head. These are put into an alder-wood boat and floated down the river to an islet; though the head is sometimes cured with smoke and preserved for oracular use. His tanist succeeds him and reigns for the remainder of the year, when he is sacrificially killed by a new Hercules ... And then the spirit of Spring Sun moves away (atu), embodied in his genitals and head which are carried inside a 'canoe'. Maori tekau (10) can be a wordplay meaning te-kau (the time of 'swimming'). But the word can alternatively mean teka-u, where the final u refers to Moon and teka is a dart:
In Hawaiian kea means a cross, and teka should be te-ka, i.e. the fire:
Let us close with the beginning of a story from Ha'api: "Tu'i Tofua was the son of Vakafuhu. His mother was Langitaetaea, but she was only one of the many young women whom Vakafuhu had living behind the fences of his dwelling. When Tu'i Tofua grew he was given the first-born sons of all the wives for his companions, and they all used to play sika outside the enclosure of Vakafuhu. They made their sika of clean-peeled sticks and threw them in turn along the ground, they glanced them off a mound and each one tried to make the longest throw. One day while Vakafuhu was sleeping off a kava-drinking those boys were playing their game outside, and Tu'i Tofua threw his sika. Then indeed the enormous strength of Tu'i Tofua made that sika fly over the fences into his father's place. It landed where the women were and they all began to giggle, those girls, and shriek and laugh. They did this because they wanted that handsome youth to come among them, they desired him. More than his father they desired him. They fell with joy upon the sika of their master's son, and snapped it. When he came inside to get it back they called out things that made him embarrased. 'Haven't you got another long thing there, Tu'i?' those women said. 'This one's broken.' And they put their hands across their faces and they laughed ..." (Legends of the South Seas) |