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TRANSLATIONS
If flames go up and water sinks down, then flames must accumulate up in the sky and water down below the surface of the earth. Sun is refueled by our fires, it seems, and the rain seeps down to the water in the deep. Certainly these ideas must have been there already long before Homo Sapiens evolved, and the fire had been 'domesticated' e.g. by Sinanthropus: '... But now, with respect to the earliest employment of fire, a curious problem arises when it is realized that although the heavybrowed family of Sinanthropus crouched around its hearth as early as c. 400,000 BC and that of Neanderthal Man c. 200,000, those lusty brutes gobbled their meals of fresh meat and brains - whether human or animal - absolutely raw. For it was not until the period of the far more highly developed races of the temple caves, c. 30,000 - 10,000 BC, that the art of roasting was invented. But then, why the hearths? It has been suggested that they were used to heat the caves, and this, indeed, would seem to have been the only practical end to which they were turned. However, even if this were the case, one would still have to ask by what accident Sinanthropus could have learned that the blast of a forest, prairie, or volcanic fire could have been turned to such congenial use. A possible answer is provided by the Ainu ritual of the mountain bear ceremonially entertained during his night-long conversation with the goddess of the hearth; for the fire in that context was not a mere device for the provision of heat but the actual presence of a divinity. The earliest hearths, too, could have been shrines, where fire was cherished in and for itself in the way of a holy image or primitve fetish. The practical value of such a living presence, then, would have been discovered in due time. The suggestion is rendered the more likely, furthermore, when it is considered that throughout the world the hearth fire remains to this day a sacred as well as secular institution. In many lands, at the time of marriage, the kindling of the hearth in the new home is a crucial rite, and the domestic cult comes to focus in the preservation of its flame. Perpetual flames and votive lights are known practically everywhere in the developed religious cults. The vestal fire of Rome, with its attendant priestesses, was neither for cooking nor for the provision of heat. And we have already learned of the holy fire made and extinguished at the times of the installation and murder of the god-king ...' As to the water, even my dogs know that water is to be find in low places. Though, accumulation cannot proceed without some outlet, e.g. by my dogs drinking up water in the puddles. There must be circulation, as Ogotemmêli explained: ... 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' ... Early I guessed that GD16 expressed the concept of vai ora (the living water of Tane - the sungod), e.g. at the beginning of Sunday:
I have counted the 4 'corners' of GD16. We now have reached a better understanding of the concept, I believe. Obviously GD16 in P is qualitatively different from GD16 in H. There are two main varieties of GD16 - with double circumference and single. The eye was in ancient Egypt depicted in the same form as a canoe (GD48, vaka) - although GD48 should be turned around 45°:
The eye is using light ('fire') to see, but from the eye also tears sometimes flows. The eye is therefore a good symbol for the sun in the sky. Both the eye and the sun are deeply involved in the mysteries of fire and water. GD16 with a single perimeter (as in Sunday according to H) presumably is expressing the vaka (canoe) concept (not the celestial eye). The sun ('Moses') arrives by canoe to land in the marshes of the delta with his fire intact. Moses is the sungod, cfr Shamash in Babylonia. In H (but not in P) we can read that he then is ascending. The 3rd glyph is leaning like the was sceptres in the Egyptian picture:
The bee in the center with wings outstretched may be likened to GD11 (manu rere), the 4th glyph. The meaning may be 'zenith' or the highest phase. In the 5th glyph GD54 (moe) the phase of descending is expressed. Vultures normally exhibit a bent neck. The Raw and the Cooked: "... the heroine of M175, who is congruous with the rainbow when she appears in human form - as mistress of water - proves in the end to be a wasp or a moro-moro bee: a word of Quechua origin, in which language the word muru-muru means 'multicolored', a fact that is itself not without significance. Like the frog in M177, the bee makes no distinction between the folds formed by joints and orifices but obtains the opposite result: the frog imagines that someone will be able to 'pierce' the folds formed by his joints; the bee is a victim of the opposite illusion when it tries to block up the orifices of another creature. Like the rainbow, the frog is connected with water; and the heroine of M162 is described from the outset in terms of her thirst and in relation to drought, since she is deprived of water. If we continue to apply the same transformational rules, we can deduce from them that the bee or wasp of M175, which behaves in the opposite way from the frog in M162, possesses an 'arid' connotation ..." "... If vermin denotes 'a world of rottenness', then venomous insects must denote the 'burned world' ... ... Now the aim of the Great Fast was to relieve mankind of the threat of a burned world, and its end is heralded by the appearance of the wasps, which are therefore messengers of this world, but in a twofold capacity as 'singers' (granted to men who sing or chant) and as givers of miniature arrows, which are their stings, changed from their natural form, which is hostile to mankind, into a cultural form which is at the service of mankind. This may well be symbolic of the taming or domestication of the burned world ..." The 'canoe' also is a symbol of life (cfr Noah's ark): '... The wife of Hotu Matu'a who gives birth to a little son (sun) is Vakai, a word reminding us about vaka = canoe ...' The double-rimmed GD16, on the other hand, may depict the fusion of GD12 with GD75
GD12 obviously is the sun (fire) while GD75 normally was called vai (water) by Metoro. Only 4 flames are visible, which perhaps indicates that the sun is yet not in the sky but connected to the earth. Number 2 (female) appears to be 'conjugated' with number 6 (sun) resulting in 4 (the surface of the earth). |
