8. The division of Father Light (the 'Tree' in Thursday) into separate Sun and Serpent 'persons' is possibly a peculiarity of our own culture. We find it hard to grasp how the sky god can have 2 sides, a front side which is shining on us and a back side which connects sky with earth by means of rains. ... In South America the rainbow has a double meaning. On the one hand, as elsewhere, it announces the end of rain; on the other hand, it is considered to be responsible for diseases and various natural disasters. In its first capacity the rainbow effects a disjunction between the sky and the earth which previously were joined through the medium of rain. In the second capacity it replaces the normal beneficient conjunction by an abnormal, maleficient one - the one it brings about itself between sky and earth by taking the place of water. Moon has a waxing and a waning face, why should it be so difficult for us to use the same kind of pattern for Sun? He is waxing and then he turns his face away from us in order to visit his maid on the other side of the equator, which can be noticed by us from the arrival of the rainy season and gradually less light. '... The life-force of the earth is water. God moulded the earth with water. Blood too he made out of water. Even in a stone there is this force, for there is moisture in everything. But if Nummo is water, it also produces copper. When the sky is overcast, the sun's rays may be seen materializing on the misty horizon. These rays, excreted by the spirits, are of copper and are light. They are water too, because they uphold the earth's moisture as it rises. The Pair excrete light, because they are also light ... 'The sun's rays,' he went on, 'are fire and the Nummo's excrement. It is the rays which give the sun its strength. It is the Nummo who gives life to this star, for the sun is in some sort a star.' It was difficult to get him to explain what he meant by this obscure statement. The Nazarene made more than one fruitless effort to understand this part of the cosmogony; he could not discover any chink or crack through which to apprehend its meaning. He was moreover confronted with identifications which no European, that is, no average rational European, could admit. He felt himself humiliated, though not disagreeably so, at finding that his informant regarded fire and water as complementary, and not as opposites. The rays of light and heat draw the water up, and also cause it to descend again in the form of rain. That is all to the good. The movement created by this coming and going is a good thing. By means of the rays the Nummo draws out, and gives back the life-force. This movement indeed makes life. The old man realized that he was now at a critical point. If the Nazarene did not understand this business of coming and going, he would not understand anything else. He wanted to say that what made life was not so much force as the movement of forces. He reverted to the idea of a universal shuttle service. 'The rays drink up the little waters of the earth, the shallow pools, making them rise, and then descend again in rain.' Then, leaving aside the question of water, he summed up his argument: 'To draw up and then return what one had drawn - that is the life of the world.' It is as easy as breathing, in and out, in and out, otherwise there will be no life. But Sun has not been admitted to partake in it. He is far away and never changing. He is immortal = dead (in our culture). The 13th month does no longer exist. He cannot die. Instead his cycle is ca 365.24219 days long - an ugly number - that we have observed. In contrast the Pachamama model probably has 177 days for the 'cup' part of the year and the rest, the cap part, could also be 177 days long. 177 + 177 = 354 = 12 * 29½. However, I guess we should consider the possibility of 2 * 5 = 10 extracalendrical days, because her whole image is based on 2 feet close together (the picture covers 360º with the center of Pachamama's back in the middle):
Maybe 10 extracalendrical days could explain this sequence of glyphs:
But counting from raaraa in Gb6-20 the π glyph is Gb1-14:
And there is a straight vertical 'line of measurment' at left in Gb1-15, which could indicate poporo in Gb1-19 corresponds to the last of the 'toes' on Pachamama's 2nd foot. Her 1st foot would then correspond to:
I here will take the opportunity to define my haati glyph type (exemplified in upside down version in Gb1-16--17). From the summary below (copied from my outline glyph dictionary) we can conclude this pair of inverted haati glyphs presumably are to be understood as 'the arrival of the 2nd part of the cycle, the part which is without Sun':
Ogotemmêli: "... During his descent the ancestor still possessed the quality of a water spirit, and his body, though preserving its human appearance, owing to its being that of a regenerated man, was equipped with four flexible limbs like serpents after the pattern of the arms of the Great Nummo. The ground was rapidly approaching. The ancestor was still standing, his arms in front of him and the hammer and anvil hanging across his limbs. The shock of his final impact on the earth when he came to the end of the rainbow, scattered in a cloud of dust the animals, vegetables and men disposed on the steps. When calm was restored, the smith was still on the roof, standing erect facing towards the north, his tools still in the same position. But in the shock of landing the hammer and the anvil had broken his arms and legs at the level of elbows and knees, which he did not have before. He thus acquired the joints proper to the new human form, which was to spread over the earth and to devote itself to toil." |
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