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4. The long slender 'fingers of a whip' could be drawn also on moai statues:
(Picture from Graham Hancock's Heaven's Mirror. Quest for the Lost Civilization.) This 'proves' such long fingers were not a specialised sign for women - it could evidently be used also to set the male organ into action. Furthermore, a whip could of course be used to force animals to move. Movement is a sign of life and to change the 'death' of winter solstice into the 'life' of spring a whip could be the proper tool. ... During the Ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia young men ran through the streets with thongs cut from the hide of goats which had just been sacrificed, and women who wished to conceive put themselves in their way to receive blows, apparently mostly on the hands ... And we should remember (cfr at Death of Ceasar) that Marcus Antonius did so: .. At the beginning of 44 B.C. - when Ceasar was still alive - the Senate decided to raise statues of him in all the temples and to sacrifice to him on his birthday in the month Quintilis, which in honour of him was renamed July. He was raised to the status of a god (among the other gods of the state) under the name Jupiter Julius. Marcus Antonius, who this year was consul together with Ceasar, became high priest and responsible for the ceremonies. In the middle of February, at the time of the old feast of Lupercalia, he ran around ... and whipped the Roman ladies with thongs made from goat-skin, in order to promote ... their fertility ...
To which now should be added:
"Lupercalia was a very ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral festival, observed on February 13 through 15 to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility. Lupercalia subsumed Februa, an earlier-origin spring cleansing ritual held on the same date, which gives the month of February its name. The name Lupercalia was believed in antiquity to evince some connection with the Ancient Greek festival of the Arcadian Lykaia (from Ancient Greek: λύκος - lukos, 'wolf', Latin lupus) and the worship of Lycaean Pan, assumed to be a Greek equivalent to Faunus ... Lupercus is the god of shepherds. His festival, celebrated on the anniversary of the founding of his temple on February 15, was called the Lupercalia. His priests wore goatskins. The historian Justin mentions an image of 'the Lycaean god, whom the Greeks call Pan and the Romans Lupercus,' nude save for the girdle of goatskin, which stood in the Lupercal, the cave where Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf. There, on the Ides of February (in February the ides is the 13th), a goat and a dog were sacrificed, and salt mealcakes prepared by the Vestal Virgins were burnt." (Wikipedia) The Charioteer is immersed in the Milky Way and Capella (The Goat), once the Leader, maybe had to be sacrificed in order for time to be set in motion again, for time to get up on the other side of the River. For that purpose thongs were made from the raw hide of the Goat. "The thong, like its probable predecessor the loincloth, is believed to be one of the earliest forms of human clothing and is also thought to have been worn mostly or exclusively by men. It is thought the thong was probably originally developed to protect, support, or hide the male genitals ..." (Wikipedia) ... Februa, also Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification, later incorporated into Lupercalia. The festival, which is basically one of Spring washing or cleaning (associated also with the raininess of this time of year), is old and possibly of Sabine origin. According to Ovid, Februare as a Latin word which refers to means of purification (particularly with washing or water) derives from an earlier Etruscan word referring to purging ... February is the only month which is 'cut short' and March is the first month of the year (otherwise July would not be the 5th month), when everything comes to life again. |
