193. In the Hindu nakshatra system Gemini, the Twins, was a single station:
Assuming the date for α (Castor) determined where Punarvasu (the Double-good Pair) was beginning we can see there was precisely a month from the Stag's Head to Bow and Quiver. ... In Hindu legend there was a mother goddess called Aditi, who had seven offspring. She is called 'Mother of the Gods'. Aditi, whose name means 'free, unbounded, infinity' was assigned in the ancient lists of constellations as the regent of the asterism Punarvasu. Punarvasu is dual in form and means 'The Doublegood Pair'. The singular form of this noun is used to refer to the star Pollux. It is not difficult to surmise that the other member of the Doublegood Pair was Castor. Then the constellation Punarvasu is quite equivalent to our Gemini, the Twins. In far antiquity (5800 B.C.) the spring equinoctial point was predicted by the heliacal rising of the Twins (see fig. 6.6). By 4700 B.C. the equinox lay squarely in Gemini (fig. 6.7).
This information makes it reasonable to assume that once upon a time Orion could have been the last part of the previous equinoctial year. Since then high summer had come closer and closer. Orion was also a 'change station' because its position was squarely across declination 0º:
... Men's spirits were thought to dwell in the Milky Way between incarnations. This conception has been handed down as an Orphic and Pythagorean tradition fitting into the frame of the migration of the soul. Macrobius, who has provided the broadest report on the matter, has it that souls ascend by way of Capricorn, and then, in order to be reborn, descend again through the 'Gate of Cancer'. Macrobius talks of signs; the constellations rising at the solstices in his time (and still in ours) were Gemini and Sagittarius: the 'Gate of Cancer' means Gemini. In fact, he states explicitly (I,12.5) that this 'Gate' is 'where the Zodiac and the Milky Way intersect'. Far away, the Mangaians of old (Austral Islands, Polynesia), who kept the precessional clock running instead of switching over to 'signs', claim that only at the evening of the solstitial days can spirits enter heaven, the inhabitants of the northern parts of the island at one solstice, the dwellers in the south at the other ... Considering the fact that the crossroads of ecliptic and Galaxy are crisis-resistant, that is, not concerned with the Precession, the reader may want to know why the Mangaians thought they could go to heaven only on the two solstitial days. Because, in order to 'change trains' comfortably, the constellations that serve as 'gates' to the Milky Way must 'stand' upon the 'earth', meaning that they must rise heliacally either at the equinoxes or at the solstices. The Galaxy is a very broad highway, but even so there must have been some bitter millenia when neither gate was directly available any longer, the one hanging in midair, the other having turned into a submarine entrance ... Around 71 * 83 = 5893 years before 1842 AD, i.e. around 5893 - 1842 = 4051 BC, the Belt Stars / Stars at the Girdle, would have been where the ecliptic crossed over from the southern to the northern hemisphere (as defined by 0h). The Sun would have reached Betelgeuze at the shore of the Milky Way 'river' 5 days later - or 6 days later counted from the more correct position for the equinox. Around 71 * 16 = ca 1136 years earlier, i.e. around 4051 + 1136 = 5187 BC, the White Spot at Heka would have returned to visibility after her close encounter with the Sun and thus have served as a predictor for 0h. ... The Heka triplet is where we otherwise would have expected to see a bright single star representing Orion's head (when looking from a location in the northern hemisphere) ... λ and the two stars phi furnish an easy refutation of the popular error as to the apparent magnitude of the moon's disc, Colas writing of this in the Celestial Handbook of 1892: In looking at this triangle nobody would think that the moon could be inserted in it; but as the distance from λ to φ¹ is 27', and the distance from φ¹ to φ² is 33', it is a positive fact; the moon's mean apparent diameter being 31' 7''. This illusion, prevalent in all ages, has attracted the attention of many great men; Ptolemy, Roger Bacon, Kepler, and others having treated of it. The lunar disc, seen by the naked eye of an uninstructed observer, appears, as it is frequently expressed 'about the size of a dinner-plate', but should be seen as only equal to a peppercorn ...
At the time of Betelgeuze, i.e. at the time when the Sun had risen at the 'House of the Giant' in day 168 - 88 = 80 (0h), the place for the northern autumn equinox would have been at the Full Moon (which place the Sun would reach half a year later). And when Betelgeuze was visible at the Full Moon then Zuben Elgenubi could have been observed to culminate at 21h (with Bharani at the other side of the sky).
265 (autumn equinox) - 84
(Julian spring equinox) = 181 (equal to
the distance from Aldebaran to Antares -
as observed at the time of rongorongo).
According to the Gregorian
calendar ºJune 10 (161 = *81) had been in
the day before the Sun reached
κ Orionis (the
Sword, Saiph), which was at his foot down in the
southwest (toga) corner of Orion.
... A vestige [footprint] of the practice of putting the king to death at the end of a year's reign appears to have survived in the festival called Macahity, which used to be celebrated in Hawaii during the last month of the year. About a hundred years ago a Russian voyager described the custom as follows: 'The taboo Macahity is not unlike to our festival of Christmas. It continues a whole month, during which the people amuse themselves with dances, plays, and sham-fights of every kind. The king must open this festival wherever he is. On this occasion his majesty dresses himself in his richest cloak and helmet, and is paddled in a canoe along the shore, followed sometimes by many of his subjects. He embarks early, and must finish his excursion at sunrise. The strongest and most expert of the warriors is chosen to receive him on his landing. The warrior watches the canoe along the beach; and as soon as the king lands, and has thrown off his cloak, he darts his spear at him, from a distance of about thirty paces, and the king must either catch the spear in his hand, or suffer from it: there is no jesting in the business. Having caught it, he carries it under his arm, with the sharp end downwards, into the temple or heavoo. On his entrance, the assembled multitude begin their sham-fights, and immediately the air is obscured by clouds of spears, made for the occasion with blunted ends. Hamamea (the king) has been frequently advised to abolish this ridiculous ceremony, in which he risks his life every year; but to no effect. His answer always is, that he is as able to catch a spear as any one on the island is to throw it at him. During the Macahity, all punishments are remitted throughout the country; and no person can leave the place in which he commences these holidays, let the affair be ever so important ... The Hawaiian Welo (vero, spear) was like a Sword (Saiph), i.e. an instrument for termination. ... Midsummer is the flowering season of the oak, which is the tree of endurance and triumph, and like the ash is said to 'court the lightning flash'. Its roots are believed to extend as deep underground as its branches rise in the air - Virgil mentions this - which makes it emblematic of a god whose law runs both in Heaven and in the Underworld ... The month, which takes its name from Juppiter the oak-god, begins on June 10th and ends of July 7th. Midway comes St. John's Day, June 24th, the day on which the oak-king was sacrificially burned alive. The Celtic year was divided into two halves with the second half beginning in July, apparently after a seven-day wake, or funeral feast, in the oak-king's honour ...
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