However, there are not 26 but 28 Chinese stations:
The leading star (α) of Crater - the Bowl resting on the back side of the downward sloping body of Hydra - is opposed on the other side of the 'hole' (beyond which the tail of Hydra returns to its normal undulating slope) by the brightest star in Corvus, viz. Gienah (γ):
... Gienah is from Ulug Beg's Al Janāh al Ghurāb al Aiman, the Right Wing of the Raven, although on modern charts it marks the left. Algorab, given in the Alfonsine Tables to this star, is now usually applied to δ. γ is the brightest member of the constellation, and some Chinese authorities said that it alone marked their 11th sieu. It culminates on the 10th of May ... Hevelius has drawn Gienah at the right wing of Raven, which means the ancient view of the sky was from the outside of the globe, not from the inside as on modern charts. The Chinese sieu system is evidently not the same as those Chinese 'way stations' we at present are investigating. I think the Bowl represents the southern half of the sky (È) and Raven its upper part (Ç). The border line between between these halves should cross at 0h and at 12h. North of the equator the Raven ('cap') part is beginning around autumn equinox. In K the Bowl ('cup') is represented by Alkes at glyph 100:
Maybe it means the Bowl is seen upside down (Ç) south of the equator, because the Rogo figure has a mata in front. Furthermore, the preceding 'Climbing Bird' (manu kake) has a kahi in its center (with a sky pillar right side up). ... Rangitokona, prop up the heaven! // Rangitokona, prop up the morning! // The pillar stands in the empty space. The thought [memea] stands in the earth-world - // Thought stands also in the sky. The kahi stands in the earth-world - // Kahi stands also in the sky. The pillar stands, the pillar - // It ever stands, the pillar of the sky. Then for the first time was there light between the Sky and the Earth; the world existed ... Perhaps the no longer understood Moriori word memea refers to the oblique variant of tapa mea with 4 'feathers' in Kb1-9.
Ogotemmêli described a wooden cup for eating (È) and possible to wear on the head as a cap (Ç) - see at Kiore: ... The four males and the four females were couples in consequence of their lower, i.e. of their sexual parts. The four males were man and woman, and the four females were woman and man. In the case of the males it was the man, and in the case of the females it was the woman, who played the dominant role. They coupled and became pregnant each in him or herself, and so produced their offspring. But in the fullness of time an obscure instinct led the eldest of them towards the anthill which had been occupied by the Nummo. He wore on his head a head-dress and to protect him from the sun, the wooden bowl he used for his food. He put his two feet into the opening of the anthill, that is of the earth's womb, and sank in slowly as if for a parturition a tergo. The whole of him thus entered into the earth, and his head itself disappeared. But he left on the ground, as evidence of his passage into that world, the bowl which had caught on the edges of the opening. All that remained on the anthill was the round wooden bowl, still bearing traces of the food and the finger-prints of its vanished owner, symbol of his body and of his human nature, as, in the animal world, is the skin which a reptile has shed ... |
