TRANSLATIONS

TRANSLATIONS

5. The horizon in the west is where sun disappears in the late afternoon. In the morning when sun appears in the east he is like an newborn baby, at noon he is standing tall, and in the afternoon he shrinks - he is growing old. His disappearance in the west was called 'the biting of the sun' (Chikin) by the Maya:

"The manik, with the tzab, or serpent's rattles as prefix, runs across Madrid tz. 22 , the figures in the pictures all holding the rattle; it runs across the hunting scenes of Madrid tz. 61, 62, and finally appears in all four clauses of tz. 175, the so-called 'baptism' tzolkin. It seems impossible, with all this, to avoid assigning the value of grasping or receiving. But in the final confirmation, we have the direct evidence of the signs for East and West. For the East we have the glyph Ahau-Kin, the Lord Sun, the Lord of Day; for the West we have Manik-Kin, exactly corresponding to the term Chikin, the biting or eating of the Sun, seizing it in the mouth." (Gates)

The pictures (from Gates) show east, north, west, and south; respectively (the lower two glyphs) 'Lord' (Ahau) and 'grasp' (Manik). Manik was the 7th day sign of the 20 and Ahau the last.

I imagine the Lord was the sun and that in Likin (east) we see him (in the top, inverted Ahau, sign) depicted in triplicate: viz. as morning, noon, and evening sun. The 20th day sign, Ahau, therefore is showing the upside down situation, with noon sun at the very bottom.

When sun goes down at the horizon in the west it is a sign of the arrival of darkness. Saturday is the 7th and last day in the week and has connotations of earth - it is the day when sun goes down 'into the earth', I think. He is received 'by mother earth' who lies in the west waiting (as when Hine nui te Po was waiting for Maui).

In order to 'come alive again' in the morning the day after, the fire of the sun must be rekindled. I imagine these Maya pictures tell about the process, in which at bottom the 'grasping hand' returns the 'fire':

(Gates: Dresden tzolkin 15)

I do not suggest the rima glyph type means 'west' or 'grasping hand'. I do suggest rima (the normal variant chosen by me to represent the glyph type) illustrates an open and empty hand, which may have the basic meaning of 'zero'. All fingers are seen, none is remaining. The phases of the day (and similar) are over, nothing remains.

My idea of Saturday being a kind of Manik day is confirmed, I think, by the following important 8th day, Lamat:

The 2nd of the variants for Lamat is exhibiting a cross over between the morning sign (in Likin) and the midnight sign (Ahau). The 'tree' holding sun up at noon is toppling over (right) and another sun is rising (left) - the view as seen from a point north of the equator. Sunday is the day when the old (last week) sun is leaving and a new sun will come, taking charge of the new week.

The 1st of the variants for Lamat shows the 4 cardinal points and directions. The new sun will receive assistance from the 4 Bacabs in raising the sky roof.

The 3rd Lamat sign contains a quincunx cartouche alluding to the turtle which swims in Orion (or Gemini, or both) and which is needed to alight the new fire:

The 4th Lamat sign makes us think of Venus. But she inhabits Friday.

"One of the most interesting early identifications was Förstemann's decipherment of the glyger for the planet Venus. On pages 46-50 of the Dresden he noted the repetition, five times, of the numbers 236, 90, 250, and 8, totalling 584 days. An accompanying table in the codex shows the dates of these critical points of the Venus cycle, starting from a base 1 Ahau 18 Kayab and re-entering at 1 Ahau 18 Kayab after 104 years, or sixty-five revolutions of Venus, with a small variation.

Here I suddenly realized why the Maya have manipulated the length of the Venus phases - it was 236 for the morning star period which was sought for. Instead of the rather meaningless 263 they shifted the number to 236. At the same time they changed the evening star period from 263 to 250 (5 times 5) and extended the black period between morning and evening star from 50 to 90, a more appropriate number for black (while 50 falsely announces light). Only the black period between evening and morning star was left intact, 8 being the perfect number.

36 is short for 360 (the sun year) and then 336 (which can be read as thrice 36 - as in 3 wives of the sun) is 364 (the moon year) minus 18. 336 = 2 * 168.

Förstemann recognized 584 days as a remarkably close approximation to a Venus year, with inferior conjunction calculated as 8 days, and identified a glyger which recurred in all the columns associated with this calculation as the name for Venus. In all these calculations, this glyph has the prefix which has been identified as chac 'red, great', and a Yucatec name for Venus is Chac Ek 'Great Star'. Thompson (1950, p. 218) shows that Great Star is a common Maya designation of Venus in several different languages, although the particular words meaning 'great' are different, as are the particular words meaning 'star'.

It would seem fairly obvious that, if the glyger for Venus consisted of the 'great' glyph and another glyph, and the name for Venus is Great Star, then the second glyph should mean simply 'star', probably Yucatec ek 'star' or kanal 'star'. Strangely enough, however, the second glyph, has, instead, been taken to mean 'Venus', wherever it occurs.

It is possible that Venus was considered 'the star' par excellence (if no prefixes are present). Thompson (1950, p. 229) notes that 'Venus glyphs in the inscriptions are not reviewed in detail because there is full evidence that no pattern of significance will emerge whatever correlation is used.' This seems easily understandable, if glyphs which do not refer to Venus at all, but rather to other planets of constellations, have been included in the calculation." (Kelley)

The 4th Lamat sign is not necessarily Venus, but it may be the sun.

The 5th Lamat sign is complex and hardly possible to interpret. The strange 'eyebrows and nose' sign which together with the two 'owl-eyes' represent 'Great Star' possibly are shown twice at right (though twisted a quarter). The twisting sign could mean something similar to that in the 2nd Lamat sign.

The connotation 'red' (chac) is not a characteristic of Venus, it ought rather to refer to Mars. But with chac meaning also 'great' chac ek probably refers to the sun. The new fire is sun, not Venus and not Mars. A fire is red and sun is a fire, therefore sun is red - which can be verified especially in the early morning.

Here we should once again reflect on Metoro's words at A1-41:


Aa1-37	Aa1-38	Aa1-39	Aa1-40	Aa1-41	Aa1-42	Aa1-43
e ia toa tauuru - ehu	e ia toa tauuru - ehu	e ia toa tauuru - no te uru nuku	e ia toa tauuru	e tauru papagete	e ia toa tauuruuru raaraa

The 'feathered mauga' at right may illustrate the Great Fire. The time is immediately before midnight, and the fire for the new day must be alighted.

Papa

1. Underground rock; motionless; rocky sea bottom; large flat stone; figuratively: tagata papa important man, author of great works. 2. Wooden plank currently used much like a surf-board in the sport called garu; it was formerly called papa gaatu mo te garu, because it was made from dry totora leaves woven into the shape of a plank. 3. To line up things side by side on a flat surface, for instance, to line up fish on top of a flat stone. Vanaga.

Shoulderblade. Papapapa, a chill, to shiver, to tremble, to shudder. Churchill.

The first part in papagete means a hard flat surface (like a shoulderblade or the shell of a turtle), and I guess it is a suitable place on which to light a new fire. The second part, gete, means 'to urge on' (similar to Rei I imagine). Hawaiian neke is 'to scratch' or to make a sound as when scratching on a rough board (similar to when you light a match I think):

Gete

M.: Whakangete, to urge on a horse. Ngetengete, to make a clicking sound with the tongue. to click with the tongue, as to a horse; to chirrup. To express surprise or sorrow. Cf. ketekete, to express surprise or regret. H.: neke, an indistinct sound, as scratching on a rough board; to make the noise of scratching; to scratch. Cf. ekeeke, to be in pain; displeasure, arising from an offence; the feeling which one has when that which he prizes is spoken against or injured. T.: ete, to flinch; eteete, to be shocked disgusted, or ashamed. Cf. paete, to be made angry. To.: cf. ketekete, to chirrup; kekete, to chirp; to chatter. Text Centre.

Before letting go of this thread of argumentation, we should notice how the Mayan glyphs for south (Nohol) and north (Xaman) together visually express a triangle with its base in the north and its apex in the south:

The apex of a triangle is its 'head', and surely enough we can see in Nohol how the apex is inhabited by a sign which looks like the sun. In Xaman the two 'legs' of the triangle represent the opposite end of the figure - 'feet' in the north and 'head' in the south. The glyph type vae possibly refers to north.