7. The name Metallah made me immediately think of metals, but I could at first see no connection with what Allen had written: ... The Arabians translated our title [Triangulum] as Al Muthallath, variously seen in Western usage as Almutallath, Almutaleh, Almutlato, Mutlat, Mutlaton, Mutlathum, Mutlathun, and Mutlatun, with probably still other similarly degenerated forms of the original ... Now, though, after having read about the Apin (plough) constellation and contemplated the hands of Pachamama, the connection has become clear - a metal is also the result of hard work digging in the ground: "metal ... any member of the class of substances represented by gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, tin ... L. metallum mine, quarry, metal ..." (C. T. Onions, The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology.) Next question is why the old Apin plough has been changed into a pair of triangles. One way to answer is to say that when Mother Earth is ploughed (her fields turned over) it resembles how a square of earth can be divided by the plough into a pair of triangles: A square has 4 corners. In a square each corner is measuring 90º, which makes a total of 360º. (This is true also if the square is oriented to be a rhomb.) If a square (or a rhomb) is divided by a diagonal into 2 halves - similar to how a circle can be sectioned into a cap and a cup (or to how an egg can be cracked into halves) - then, of course, each triangle will 'carry' 180º. Each corner in a symmetric triangle thus measures 180 / 3 = 60º. In order to unite Sky and Earth again at the end of the year, to return them to the primeval state of 'close embrace' (cfr at Da Capo) .. They were Ranginui, the Sky Father, and Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother, both sealed together in a close embrace. Crushed between the weight of their bodies were their many children, whose oppression deepened. They yearned to be free; they fought their parents and each other to break loose. Tuumatauenga, virile god of war, thrust and shouted; Tangaroa of the oceans whirled and surged; Tawhirirangimaatea ; Haumiatiketike and Rongomatane, of wild foods and cultivated crops tried their best but were not successful; and Ruamoko, god of earthquakes, yet to be born, struggled in the confinement of his mother's womb ... Of them all, Taane Mahuta, the god of the forests, was the most determined; he set his sturdy feet upon his father's chest, and braced his upper back and shoulders against the bosom of his mother. He pushed; and they parted. So the world; as the Maori understand it; came into being ... it is obvious that this 'squaring of the circle' must be at day number 360. In a cosmos the number of days in a year has to agree with the number of degrees in a square. The children who strived to escape the close embrace were 7 in number:
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