7. South of the equator the heliacal rising of Regulus happens about 96 days before Antares gives the definite sign of the arrival of summer. This does not mean Regulus is rising heliacally a quarter before spring equinox, because we have found that the calendar is one thing and the heliacal risings another thing:
The Beehive (Praesaepe) - the center of Cancer - should be 'the cradle of Sun,' and ca 22 days later Regulus - a diminutive of Rex (King) - emerges. 22 + 96 = 118. As I recall it the Maya Indians said there were 2 turtles, one below Orion and the other close to Gemini. If this should be true, then the Milky Way separates them. The 'turtle' close to Gemini ought to be Cancer (the Crab). Here the rebirth of Sun should occur, whereas the turtle below Orion ought to be the end station of the old Sun, where he is being 'cooked': ... Certain Polynesian customs can more easily be understood by us if they are seen as a straight reversal of things we do ourselves. The Maori custom of weeping over friends or relatives when they return, rather than when they go away, is one example, which has a logic not impossible to grasp. A similar straight reversal is found in regard to food. The Polynesian notion of the lowest thing, the most devoid of sacredness, was cooked food: not what comes out of the body, but what goes into it ... All these are instances of the Polynesian curse involving food - the strongest obscenity they had, and one of immense releasing power. If it seems meaningless to us, that is presumably because we are incapable of imagining the ultimate act itself - the eating of another person's flesh. That it had such force for the Polynesians was surely just because he could imagine doing that ... (Cfr at 26) When north of the equator Sun is 'being swallowed' (cfr the Hawaiian custom of swallowing an eye at winter solstice, another 'drum' season) he should at the same time reappear south of the equator, I think. From the 10th right ascension hour to the 11th there is half a month. From the cradle of Sun (when he still is inside the 'turtle') to his exit as Regulus there are 22 days. Early in my rongorongo studies I thought the Polynesians would see our well-known constellations upside down and that this would cause them to create another 'sky-scape' totally different from our own: But we have seen that the ancient 'map' from north of the equator certainly was remembered and not abolished: (I have copied this picture from Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked. Introduction to a Science of Mythology: 1. His map was drawn to illustrate the constellations as the natives of South America saw them.) The map above is useful. It gives an overview where we can see that Regulus is on the ecliptic path and where there are no ecliptic stars of any magnitude between Gemini and Leo - where Cancer can be imagined as the 'sacred box' (naos) with the new 'Sun child' inside. In the map it looks as if there was only about a month from Regulus to equinox (where the ecliptic crosses the horizontal straight line). We know the current distance is about 87 - 61.7 = 25 days:
In the G text spring equinox is probably meant to be at Ga5-4--5, 70 days before Antares:
At left in Ga5-5 are 'mata' signs and we should notice that mata can mean 'uncooked':
Probably the sign at left means 'in the past', and indeed when Sun reappears both the Milky Way and his time inside is in the past: |