Ca3-12	Ca7-24	Ca9-9	Cb6-6	Cb6-22	Cb14-8

Our investigation has so far provided us with evidence suggesting koti means a place for the beginning of a new season of light. The 'bird' has here broken through his 'egg-shell' (excepting at Ca7-24 where his confinement is still intact):

... 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 ...

The egg toth enabling a chicken to burst out into the open is the only tooth a bird ever will have, and this poweful tool seems to be lost afterwards.

"All successful human action is preceded by right knowledge. Therefore this (knowledge will be here) investigated ... if the subject matter were of no use, no work could be devoted to an enquiry (pratipatti = bstan-pa), just as no reasonable man would ever undertake an enquiry about the teeth of a crow ..." (F. Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic).

18	Hairy Head	η Tauri (Alcyone)	Cockerel	May 16 (136)
19	Net	ε Tauri (Ain)	Crow	May 25 (145)

Possibly this can cast some light on the peculiar event when Itzam-Yeh lost his beautiful shining tooth - after which he no more would be able to break through, no more would be able to alight in the top of the Tree (Rakau):

... This pot depicts one of the Hero Twins (One-Ahaw in the Classic texts and One-Hunaphu in the K'iche' Popol Vuh) and a great bird who is trying to land in a huge ceiba tree heavy with fruit. This mythical bird is Itzam-Yeh, Classic prototype of Wuqub-Kaqix, 'Seven-Macaw', of Popol Vuh fame. In that story, in the time before the sky was lifted up to make room for the light, the vainglorious Seven-Macaw imagined himself to be the sun. Offended by his pride, the Hero Twins humbled him by breaking his beautiful shining tooth with a pellet from their blowgun ...

It could imply his beautiful shining tooth would anyhow return in the next great cycle. At present Dubhe (α) is far from the north pole. In the diagram below the observer is located at the north pole (90º N) with α Ursae Minoris (Polaris) in the zenith. The position in time is AD 1842-03-21 18.00 when Auriga and Orion were in the south:

Gemini was in the southeast (SE) and Leo was due east (E). To the right of Auriga we can see Perseus and further up Cassiopeia.

Ursa Major was between Leo and Ursa Minor, with Dubhe at declination 62º 01' N. Menkalinan (β Aurigae, 44º 57') was marking the declination line for 45º N and Mintaka (the Belt, δ Orionis, 00º 20' S) the declination line for 0º. Only the right arm of Virgo was visible, at 45º (NE).

Where is the Itzam-Yeh bird? Our constellation lines are not necessarliy the same as those of other peoples, and a quick look at the perceptions of the Chinese is sobering:

Although we can recognize the green-marked constellations as our own zodiac the polar region has far more stars than we are accustomed to see, and Ursa Major is not evident. But we could try to gradually include fainter stars:

This seems to be of no help. Then we can compare with the ancient Babylonian view:

No bird can be seen at the central position at the top. But far down below Gemini (Great Twins) there was a perching bird (possibly corresponding to the Red Bird of the Chinese).

In the year 3149 BC (28 May) Itzam-Yeh was defeated. Let's look at where Ursa Major was at that ancient time:

Here it becomes clear that Dubhe could hardly have been the tooth of Itzam-Yeh. Instead his tooth ought to refer to the Fox star Al-cor (The Heart, 3.99):

... In the inscriptions of Dendera, published by Dümichen, the goddess Hathor is called 'lady of every joy'. For once, Dümichen adds: Literally ... 'the lady of every heart circuit'. This is not to say that the Egyptians had discovered the circulation of the blood. But the determinative sign for 'heart' often figures as the plumb bob at the end of a plumb line coming from a well-known astronomical or surveying device, the merkhet. 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'. And this may lead in quite another direction. The Arabs preserved a name for Canopus - besides calling the star Kalb at-tai-man ('heart of the south') ... Suhail el-wezn, 'Canopus Ponderosus', the heavy-weighing Canopus, a name promptly declared meaningless by the experts, but which could well have belonged to an archaic system in which Canopus was the weight at the end of the plumb line, as befitted its important position as a heavy star at the South Pole of the 'waters below'. Here is a chain of inferences which might or might not be valid, but it is allowable to test it, and no inference at all would come from the 'lady of every joy'. The line seems to state that Hathor (= Hat Hor, 'House of Horus') 'rules' the revolution of a specific celestial body - whether or not Canopus is alluded to - or, if we can trust the translation 'every', the revolution of all celestial bodies. As concerns the identity of the ruling lady, the greater possibility speaks for Sirius, but Venus cannot be excluded; in Mexico, too, Venus is called 'heart of the earth'. The reader is invited to imagine for himself what many thousands of such pseudo-primitive or poetic interpretations must lead to: a disfigured interpretation of Egyptian intellectual life ...

... The Arabs in the desert regarded it as a test of penetrating vision; and they were accustomed to oppose 'Suhel' to 'Suha' (Canopus to Alcor) as occupying respectively the highest and lowest posts in the celestial family. So that Vidit Alcor, et non lunam plenum, came to be a proverbial description of one keenly alive to trifles, but dull of apprehension for broad facts ...

From Canopus (*95) to Alcor (*202) there were 107 right ascension days, equal to for instance the difference between 471 (= 3 * 314 / 2) and 364 (= 91 weeks).

Itzam-Yeh was defeated and instead the place at the top of the world (the Tooth) had been taken over by Thuban (α Draconis, 3.67):

... Snorri Sterluson explains why 'Frodi's grist' is a kenning for gold. Frodi ruled during a peaceful and productive period, contemporaneous with Augustus's Pax Romana and the birth of Christ; hence the kenning. There were neither thieves nor robbers during this period, 'so that a gold ring lay long on Jalang's heath'. Snorri continues his account with the legend of the mill beyond what is told in the song: The girls' grinding produced an army hostile to Frodi. On the very day of the girls' predictions, the sea-king, Musing (Son of the Mouse), landed on the Danish shore, killed Frodi, and took away Grotti and the women on his ship. The girls were bidden to grind out salt on the mill. At midnight they asked for further instructions. 'Keep grinding', he told them. Then they ground with such vigor that the ship sank. Water poured into the eye of the mill, creating the maelstroem of the sea. Therefore the sea was salt. Incidentally, the mill was given a kenning, Serpent's Couch ...

... Thuban had been the star at the North Pole when the great Egyptian pyramids where built.

... The star could be seen, both by day and night, from the bottom of the central passage of the Great Pyramid of Cheops (Knum Khufu) at Ghizeh, in 30° of north latitude, as also from the similar points in five other like structures; and the same fact is asserted by Sir John Herschel as to the two pyramids at Abousseir ...

... Proclus informs us that the fox star nibbles continuously at the thong of the yoke which holds together heaven and earth; German folklore adds that when the fox succeeds, the world will come to its end. This fox star is no other than Alcor, the small star g near zeta Ursae Majoris (in India Arundati, the common wife of the Seven Rishis, alpha-eta Ursae) ...

5

Heart

σ Scorpii

Fox

Nov 23 (327)