At Alcyone, we have seen, the sky dome was depicted high above the earth turtle (the central element in Cb2-6), and the feathery eye-lashes of Mother Earth were no longer oriented downwards - she had come alive again: ... Ta'aroa sat in his heaven above the earth and conjured forth gods with his words. When he shook off his red and yellow feathers they drifted down and became trees ... ... The first god's house in the temple was the body of Ta'aroa's own person, and it became a model for all other god's houses. One day Ta'aroa let himself go into a trance and his spirit stood away in space while his body floated in the sea, then he said to his daughters: 'Oh, girls! How many canoes are there at sea?' And the daughters replied: 'It is like one, it is like one!' Then Ta'aroa's spirit said: 'Who can it be?' And they answered: 'It is thyself assuredly!' ... The element at right in Cb2-6, separated from that at left, is in principle of the marama (moon crescent) type, but as observed from the tropical belt the moon crescent looks like a canoe oriented horizontally, sailing on the dome of the night sky. Here, however, we get the impression that the right side element could be the sky dome itself ('thyself assuredly'), designed much like the Egyptian sky (pet, N1 in Gardiner's list):
The head of the Sun Falcon is here hovering above the dead body - like the Mayan turtle head above the dead Mother Earth in winter - and sending his 'red and yellow feathers' down to make life return.
... another Alcyone, daughter of Pleione, 'Queen of Sailing', by the oak-hero Atlas, was the mystical leader of the seven Pleiads. The heliacal rising of the Pleiads in May marked the beginning of the navigational year; their setting marked its end when (as Pliny notices in a passage about the halcyon) a remarkably cold North wind blows ...
The rain (te ua) in Cb2-4 came 2 * 27 days after 0h and it could have served as a mark for the end of winter (during which time Mother Earth and Father Sky had been tight together, in close embrace). *366 (0h) + 54 = *420 = *54. And at Cb2-4 its glyph number (420 = 7 * 60) could have suggested an end point in time for Pawahtun - the Middle-world 'turtle' between the equinoxes:
... Later on in this series of rituals, the Chorti go through a ceremony they call raising the sky. This ritual takes place at midnight on the twenty-fifth of April and continues each night until the rains arrive. In this ceremony two diviners and their wives sit on benches so that they occupy the corner positions of the cosmic square. They take their seats in the same order as the stones were placed, with the men on the eastern side and the women on the west. The ritual actions of sitting down and lifting upward are done with great precision and care, because they are directly related to the actions done by the gods at Creation. The people represent the gods of the four corners and the clouds that cover the earth. As they rise from their seats, they metaphorically lift the sky. If their lifting motion is uneven, the rains will be irregular and harmful ... Before the arrival of the wished for spring rains time could have been counted according to the positions of the stars.
At the time of rongorongo the Rear Spout (The Navel of the Horse, Sirrah, Al Surrat al Faras) had been at 0h (i.e. rising with the Sun in March 21) - a fact which could be deduced from the stars at the face of the Full Moon in night number 80 + 183 = 263 (September 20). The stars in the background of the Full Moon were those which once upon a time had risen heliacally in *JULY 14 (195), and notably this was the place for the star Alchita (Raven). Day 161 (*JUNE 10) + 13 = 174 (*JUNE 24) = 188 (*JULY 7) - 14 = 195 (*JULY 14) - 7: ... The seventh tree is the oak, the tree of Zeus, Juppiter, Hercules, The Dagda (the chief of the elder Irish gods), Thor, and all the other Thundergods, Jehovah in so far as he was 'El', and Allah. The royalty of the oak-tree needs no enlarging upon: most people are familiar with the argument of Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough, which concerns the human sacrifice of the oak-king of Nemi on Midsummer Day. The fuel of the midsummer fires is always oak, the fire of Vesta at Rome was fed with oak, and the need-fire is always kindled in an oak-log. When Gwion writes in the Câd Goddeu, 'Stout Guardian of the door, His name in every tongue', he is saying that doors are customarily made of oak as the strongest and toughest wood and that 'Duir', the Beth-Luis-Nion name for 'Oak', means 'door' in many European languages including Old Goidelic dorus, Latin foris, Greek thura, and German tür, all derived from the Sanskrit Dwr, and that Daleth, the Hebrew letter D, means 'Door' - the 'l' being originally an 'r'. Midsummer is the flowering season of the oak, which is the tree of endurance and triumph, and like the ash is said to 'court the lightning flash'. Its roots are believed to extend as deep underground as its branches rise in the air - Virgil mentions this - which makes it emblematic of a god whose law runs both in Heaven and in the Underworld ... The month, which takes its name from Juppiter the oak-god, begins on June 10th and ends of July 7th. Midway comes St. John's Day, June 24th, the day on which the oak-king was sacrificially burned alive. The Celtic year was divided into two halves with the second half beginning in July, apparently after a seven-day wake, or funeral feast, in the oak-king's honour ... At the time of rongorongo Raven was with the Full Moon when the Sun reached Sirrah at 0h, whereas at the time of Aldebaran this pair of stars ought to have been positioned 68 right ascension days earlier in the year (according to the structure of the Gregorian Sun calendar). Sirrah should have been in day *366 - 68 = *298 (*JANUARY 12) and Alchita in day *298 - 183 = *115 (*JULY 14). Raven at the Full Moon illustrated the fact that the Sun had reached the Rear Spout - thus there could not be any fresh water at Raven, all was at Sirrah.
Tradition had it that Raven was always thirsty and he personified a contrast to the abundant sweet water which came down from the sky to accumulate far down. ... the bird [Raven], being sent with a cup for water, loitered at a fig-tree till the fruit became ripe, and then returned to the god with a water-snake in his claws and a lie in his mouth, alleging the snake to have been the cause of the delay. In punishment he was forever fixed in the sky with the Cup and the Snake; and, we may infer, doomed to everlasting thirst by the guardianship of the Hydra over the Cup and its contents. From all this came other poetical names for our Corvus - Avis Ficarius, the Fig Bird; and Emansor, one who stays beyond his time; and a belief, in early folk-lore, that this alone among birds did not carry water to its young ...
115 was a key number, but presumably the Chorti ceremony for raising the sky began not at the heliacal rising but at the midnight culmination of some important star. Atlas and Alcyone, we know, culminated at midnight in December 31 and counting 115 days ahead will bring us to April 25. Alkes, the empty vessel in front of Raven, should have risen at midnight 5 days earlier, and this should have been a perfect sign for the waiting virgin earth.
... The state of the tree loomed large in their thoughts, because it came about at the same time the head of One Hunaphu was put in the fork. The Xibalbans said among themselves: 'No one is to pick the fruit, nor is anyone to go beneath the tree', they said. They restricted themselves, all of Xibalba held back. It isn't clear which is the head of One Hunaphu; now it's exactly the same as the fruit of the tree. Calabash came to be its name, and much was said about it. A maiden heard about it, and here we shall tell of her arrival. And here is the account of a maiden, the daughter of a lord named Blood Gatherer. And this is when a maiden heard of it, the daughter of a lord. Blood Gatherer is the name of her father, and Blood Moon is the name of the maiden. And when he heard the account of the fruit of the tree, her father retold it. And she was amazed at the account: I'm not acquainted with that tree they talk about. It's fruit is truly sweet! they say, I hear, she said. Next, she went all alone and arrived where the tree stood. It stood at the Place of Ball Game Sacrifice. What? Well! What's the fruit of this tree? Shouldn't this tree bear something sweet? They shouldn't die, they shouldn't be wasted. Should I pick one? said the maiden. And then the bone spoke; it was there in the fork of the tree: Why do you want a mere bone, a round thing in the branches of a tree? said the head of One Hunaphu when it spoke to the maiden. You don't want it, she was told. I do want it, said the maiden. Very well. Stretch out your right hand here, so I can see it, said the bone. Yes, said the maiden. She stretched out her right hand, up there in front of the bone. And then the bone spit out its saliva, which landed squarely in the hand of the maiden. And then she looked in her hand, she inspected it right away, but the bone's saliva wasn't in her hand. It is just a sign I have given you, my saliva, my spittle. This, my head, has nothing on it - just bone, nothing of meat. It's just the same with the head of a great lord: it's just the flesh that makes his face look good. And when he dies, people get frightened by his bones. After that, his son is like his saliva, his spittle, in his being, whether it be the son of a lord or the son of a craftsman, an orator. The father does not disappear, but goes on being fulfilled. Neither dimmed nor destroyed is the face of a lord, a warrior, craftsman, an orator. Rather, he will leave his daughters and sons. So it is that I have done likewise through you. Now go up there on the face of the earth; you will not die. Keep the word. So be it, said the head of One and Seven Hunaphu - they were of one mind when they did it ... Perhaps the wished for rains were scheduled to arrive 19 days after day 115, in May 14 (134). The clouds would at last hide the stars of the empty Crater and rain would make Mother Earth fruitful and pleased. ... It was 4 August 1968, and it was the feast day of Saint Dominic, patron of Santo Domingo Pueblo, southwest of Santa Fe. At one end of the hot, dusty plaza, a Dominican priest watched nervously as several hundred dancers arranged in two long rows pounded the earth with their moccasined feet as a mighty, collective prayer for rain, accompanied by the powerful baritone singing of a chorus and the beat of drums. As my family and I viewed this, the largest and in some ways the most impressive Native American public ceremony, a tiny cloud over the Jémez Mountains to the northwest got larger and larger, eventually filling up the sky; at last the storm broke, and the sky was crisscrossed by lightning and the pueblo resounded with peals of rolling thunder ... ... Thunder incorporates both lightning above and rain below ...
The winds would subside and all would be well. The Sun calendar tablets could then once again be used. ... The earth rises up from the sea again, and is green and beautiful and things grow without sowing. Vidar and Vali are alive, for neither the sea nor the flames of Surt have hurt them and they dwell on the Eddyfield, where once stood Asgard. There come also the sons of Thor, Modi and Magni, and bring along his hammer. There come also Balder and Hoder from the other world. All sit down and converse together. They rehearse their runes and talk of events of old days. Then they find in the grass the golden tablets that the Aesir once played with ...
The wooden clappers had worked. Or the ua club had worked. The ua type of glyph resembles the 'hair' on the ua figure:
The distance from the midnight culmination of Atlas to its heliacal rising in May 16 was 136 days. 136 - 68 (the change in position due to the precession) = 68 (*MARCH 9) = *354 (12 * 29½). I.e., at the time of Aldebaran the 3 stars (Atlas, Alcyone, Pleione) at the Hairy Head would have risen with the Sun 354 days after 0h and this could have been their position in the ancient table for the night sky.
Menkhib is the great star at the left foot of Perseus, and δ is the star at his belt:
... They walked in crowds when they arrived at Tulan, and there was no fire. Only those with Tohil had it: this was the tribe whose god was first to generate fire. How it was generated is not clear. Their fire was already burning when Jaguar Quitze and Jaguar Night first saw it: 'Alas! Fire has not yet become ours. We'll die from the cold', they said. And then Tohil spoke: 'Do not grieve. You will have your own even when the fire you're talking about has been lost', Tohil told them. 'Aren't you a true god! Our sustenance and our support! Our god!' they said when they gave thanks for what Tohil had said. 'Very well, in truth, I am your god: so be it. I am your lord: so be it,' the penitents and sacrificers were told by Tohil. And this was the warming of the tribes. They were pleased by their fire. After that a great downpour began, which cut short the fire of the tribes. And hail fell thickly on all the tribes, and their fires were put out by the hail. Their fires didn't start up again. So then Jaguar Quitze and Jaguar Night asked for their fire again: 'Tohil, we'll be finished off by the cold', they told Tohil. 'Well, do not grive', said Tohil. Then he started a fire. He pivoted inside his sandal ... ... 'My child', said Makea now in a tone of deep sorrow, 'there has been a bad omen for us. When I performed the tohi ceremony over you I missed out a part of the prayers. I remembered it too late. I am afraid this means that you are going to die.' |
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