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TRANSLATIONS
In the Gateway of the Sun the right arm of the sun (left from us seen) has a 'staff' ending at the top with a semi-circle:  I think this staff illustrates midsummer as a semi-circle, visualizing the high sky at 'noon'. The bottom end would then - probably - represent winter (black). The whole staff is like the cosmic tree oriented north-south. If the sun god is looking at us from the east, then his right hand will be towards the equator (in the north) and his left hand in the south (black all over the 'staff'). The other 'staff' has its top end in the east, I believe, where the 'jaw' is open. Its bottom end must then be in the west. The whole staff is like the ecliptic snake, oriented east-west. The 'ecliptic staff' is not depicted as a bent curve. The ecliptic disc around which the planets circle is flat, not bent. Likewise the Milky Way should not bend over at some times. The serpentine path of the sun and the other planets (wanderers) across the sky is illusory - they move in a straight path (following the laws of Einstein). Those who created the Gateway of the Sun certainly knew this. Against the starry sky the Milky Way lies still, that is obvious. Its movement depends on earth (or - if you like - the whole sky - moving). We can imagine looking at a globe of the earth oriented so longitude Greenwich 0º looks straigth - it is the closest of the longitudes to our eye. Turning the globe slightly will make the longitude line look slightly bent. We are inside the 'globe' of the sky and an imagined straight line in the sky between the north and south poles will behave in a similar way if we let time move earth (or sky). The imagined ecliptic line across the sky is more difficult to perceive as straight, because the planets move against the starry sky. The stars in the background change. The 'jaw' (at Cygnus) can never be oriented in any other way than it is - relative to the Milky Way and the stars. And the Milky Way will not turn around 360º because earth turns around its axis or circles the sun. Its orientation is not quite through the poles, but it stretches mainly in a north-south direction (all the time). It is ca 60º from the equator both in its extreme north and extreme south extensions. So why did the Pukapukans say the 'shark of winter' had its head up? There is a set of drawings in Maya Cosmos which is helpful:
The 'Cosmic Monster' (12:38 a.m.) has his open jaw towards east. At 5:38 a.m. he has his snout upwards. The ecliptic (dashed line) is parallel with the 'Cosmic Monster' at 12:38 a.m. The Paddlers (2:38 a.m.) must be explained. The part of the Milky Way which can be imagined as the Cosmic Monster can also be imagined as a canoe:
"At midnight the Milky Way was stretched across the sky from east to west in the form of the Cosmic Monster (Fig. 2:25 d). It suddenly occurred to me that this configuration could also be the canoe, and that during the four hours after midnight the Cosmic Monster canoe 'sinks' as the Milky Way turns and brings the three hearth stones of Orion to the zenith just before dawn. There was a lot of evidence to support this idea. I had published a discussion of a fabulous black erratic flint from the Dallas Museum of Art. This flint showed a crocodile canoe sinking downward with its passengers, just like the Tikal canoes. In fact, another of the Tikal bones shows a canoe with a crocodile face on its bow, replicating the mouth cleft at the western end of the Milky Way in its east-west position in the sky (Fig. 2:26a).
When I was drawing this bone, I noticed that the paddler in the picture was Itzamna, not the Old Jaguar Paddler or the Stingray Paddler from the other bones. Then the use of two different paddlers in these canoe scenes made me realize something. We have Classic-period pottery images of Itzamna riding a peccary (Fig. 2:26c). When the Milky Way is in the Cosmic Monster-canoe position, east-west across the sky, the peccary stars of Gemini are at the eastern end of the Milky Way (Fig. 2:26b). The peccaries are exactly where Itzamna sits as he wields his paddle. Also, Itzamna and the two Paddlers are three of the four stone-setters that are named in the Quirigua Creation text on Stela C. They are the makers, along with First Father, of the First-Three-Stone-Place raised up into the night sky on 4 Ahaw 8 Kumk'u. These Paddlers, then, are central actors in the celestial play of Creation. Like Itzamna, the original shaman, the Paddlers are up in the sky riding the Milky Way to the place of Creation where they will set their stones in the hearth of Orion. They propel the Milky Way canoe with its precious cargo, to the same location. I realized that the Paddlers bring the Maize God to the place of the three stones of Creation and to the turtle carapace, the belt stars of Orion, so that he can be reborn and create the new universe. He is the Wak-Chan-Ahaw who made everything happen." (Maya Cosmos) Polynesians are interested in canoes, so it may be that some parts of the Maya cosmos also is found in the Polynesian myths. At new year on Easter Island they had a 'boat festival' and at midnight a 'canoe' glyph is located: ... Miro-oone, model boat made of earth in which the 'boat festivals' used to be celebrated. Vanaga. ... on the first day of the year the natives dress in navy uniforms and performs exercises which imitate the maneuvers of ships' crews ...
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