17-1. Metoro has told us by way of a Capital letter at Eb7-13 (Erua oona mea ki te puoko) that a new story was beginning here, when the Full Moon would reach the right ascension line of Antares, named Al-kalb by the Arabians, the 'Heart', i.e. among other things the weight at the bottom of the astronomical.Merkhet device.
... Evidently, 'heart' is something very specific, as it were the 'center of gravity' ... See Aeg.Wb. 2, pp. 55f. for sign of the heart (ib) as expressing generally 'the middle, the center' ...
South of the equator Antares (the Entrance Pillar, Ana-mua) indicated a good time was ahead: ... Antares, visible in the morning sky of December-January, came to stand for summer heat; hence the saying, 'Rehua cooks (ripens) all fruit'. The generally accepted version of the Rehua myth, according to Best, is that Rehua had two wives, the stars on either side of Antares. One was Ruhi-te-rangi or Pekehawani, the personification of summer languor (ruhi), the other Whaka-onge-kai, She-who-makes-food-scarce before the new crops can be harvested ... I have suggested small circles ought to represent prominent stars to be observed in the night:
... Early I deduced Ca4-1 was a picture of the main stars in Auriga, with the 'nut' at bottom corresponding to Elnath (the Butting One, β Tauri) ...
Here such stars (presumably emblematic rather than drawings of the real objects) were ending after 80 weeks → alluding to 80 days in order to reach the Gregorian equinox in March.
Perhaps 0h in March was imagined as evolving into a Sun with a little pupil ('yolk') in the center, gradually growing to full size as a double circle ('egg shell'):. ... Long ago in the very beginning of time there dwelt within a shell an infant god whose name was Ta'aroa. He was Ta'aroa the unique one, the ancestor of all gods, the creator of the universe whose natures were myriad, whose backbone was the ridgepole of the world, whose ribs were its supporters. The shell was called Rumia, Upset. Becoming aware at last of his own existence and oppressed by a yearning loneliness Ta'aroa broke open his shell and, looking out, beheld the black limitless expanse of empty space. Hopefully, he shouted, but no voice answered him. He was alone in the vast cosmos. Within the broken Rumia he grew a new shell to shut out the primeval void. Eons passed and Ta'aroa grew to be a lad conscious of his own vigor and potentialities. Impatience grew upon him until he could bear his isolation no longer. He broke forth from his shell with energy, resolved to create beings like himself who would banish his loneliness forever. Ta'aroa's first act was to construct a firm foundation for the earth, using the strong second shell for stratum rock. The shell Rumia became his dwelling place, the overarching dome of the sky. It was a confined sky enclosing the world just forming, and in its deep and abiding night the lad attained manhood. There were no Sun, Moon, or stars and only one other living creature, the Great Octopus. The sun was held down close above the slowly evolving earth by the Great Octopus, Tumu-rai-fenua, Foundation of Heaven and Earth, who lived in the primeval waters on which the earth floated. One of his arms was to the north, one to the south, one to the east and another to the west. With these vast arms he held the sky, the shell Rumia, close down against the earth. Meanwhile on the earth itself various generations of rocks were born, one after the other; then sand appeared. Roots were born and as they spread they held the sand together and the land became firm. 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 ... Pupil¹ ... orphan who is minor and hence a ward ... one under instruction ... L. pūpillus, -illa orphan, ward ... of pūpus boy, pūpa girl ... Pupil² ... circular opening in the iris of the eye ... L. pūpilla ... secondary dim. of pūpa, girl, doll, pupil of the eye ... The application of the L. words to the pupil of the eye is based on, or parallel to, that of Gr. kórē maiden, girl, doll, pupil (the allusion being to the tiny images of persons and things that may be seen therein) ... The discussion relating to glyph line Eb7 should continue here, because Ana-mua could have been referred to by glyph number 7 * 21 = 147, a person with one leading star ('wife') on each side:
Below the upside down Hercules was Serpentarius, the Serpent Carrier, in the day after the World Tree:(Rakau).
... Most of the people in our van took advantage of the interlude to shop at the nearby stalls set up by highland Maya who had come down to Tikal to take advantage of the steady supply of tourists. However, one of our group, Harriet Gillett, a retired physician and an inveterate bird-watcher, had other interests. She noticed a nearby tree heavy with white blossoms and surrounded by a raucous sphere of birds and bees. She climbed out of the van with her binoculars around her neck, and walked over to take advantage of the unexpected opportunity the morning had provided. Our local guide, Francisco Florián, who knew the forest and its creatures in an unusually intimate way, joined her, explaining that the birds came to the tree only early in the morning. The sounds and the odd sight finally drew my attention and I too disembarked from the van and edged closer to the buzzing center of the action. I stared at the screaming birds as they fought for positions among the flowers and the hovering drone of thousands of bees. How beautiful, I thought, and then my gaze happened to settle on the trunk of the tree. It had thorns and it bulged just above the ground. It was a young ceiba tree. I already knew that the ceiba tree was the model for the sacred World Tree of the Maya, but I had never seen one in flower when I knew what I was looking at. I was really excited because normally you can't see the blossoms even if you're there when the tree is in blossom. The fully mature trees are hundreds of feet high. and the blossoms are very small. 'It's a ceiba', I chirped and began looking for a branch low enough to see one of the blossoms up close. Joyce Livingstone, a retired teacher, did the logical thing. She bent over, picked up a fallen branch, and held it out for me to see. I was too excited and full of myself to listen. She tapped my arm more insistently and still I didn't hear her. Finally, in frustration, she grabbed my wrist and raised her voice. 'Will you look at these?' she said, waving the branch, and finally I did. What I saw stunned me, for in her hand lay a perfect replica of the earflares worn by the Classic Maya kings. Suddenly I understood the full symbolism of so many of the things I had been studying for years. The kings dressed themselves as the Wakah-Chan tree, although at the time I didn't know it was also the Milky Way. The tzuk [partition] head on the trunk of the tree covered their loins. The branches with their white flowers bent down along their thighs, the double-headed ecliptic snake rested in their arms, and the great bird Itzam-Yeh stood on their head. I already knew as I stood under the young tree in Tikal that the kings were the human embodiment of the ceiba as the central axis of the world. As I stood there gazing at the flowers in Joyce's hand, I also learned that the kings embodied the ceiba at the moment it flowers to yield the sak-nik-nal, the 'white flowers', that are the souls of human beings. As the trees flowers to reproduce itself, so the kings flowered to reproduce the world ...
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