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255. The cosmic Tree had a kind of 'Fork' in its top, where the Head of One Hunaphu was placed as a Sacrifice after he had lost in the Ball Game. Or as Ogotêmmeli formulated it - the Tree with its Fork was like a robber's stick:

... All was now ready for departure except that there was no fire in the smithy. The ancestor slipped into the workshop of the great Nummo, who are Heaven's smiths, and stole a piece of the sun in the form of live embers and white-hot iron. He seized it by means of a 'robber's stick' the crook of which ended in a slit, open like a mouth ...

The cosmic Tree of the Mayas was the Milky Way and when each night this great structure slowly turned itself around the scenery changed and the Tree became a Canoe which then from its horizontal orientation began to sink and lift up its stern:

Is this not the same idea as that of Argo Navis, where we can find the 'canoe' stranded at the very rock bottom, with only its great stern still visible:

There was a kind of 'Mouth' (a fork, a slit) at the top of the Tree and the Mayas saw this opening as belonging to a Crocodile:

Her open jaw was at the cross of Cygnus with W as in the Woman Cassiopeia midships, while her tail could be characterized as the opposite of a jaw, viz. a head separating Orion below from Gemini above:

To reach Cygnus in the C text we could try to count ahead (hia) beyond the death of Captain Cook at Cb10-8. Strikingly, we will immediately encounter the triplet of great pyramids on the Gizah plateau, those of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure resting on the west bank of the Nile, at the time when the Full Moon was at the Belt of Orion and the Sun had reached the Sting of the Scorpion in right ascension day 265 (= 5 days after the death of poor old Willie Watman):

... Among the other ritual coincidences, perhaps the most remarkable was the death of poor old Willie Watman, seaman A. B., on the morning of 1 February. Watman was the first person among Cook's people to die at Kealakekua: on the ceremonial day, so far as can be calculated, that the King's living god Kahoali'i would swallow the eye of the first human sacrifice of the New Year. And it was the Hawaiian chief - or by one account, the King himself - who specifically requested that old Watman be buried at Hikiau temple ...

6 Febr (365 + 37) 7 8 (404) 9 (40)
Cb10-9 Cb10-10 (632) Cb10-11 Cb10-12 (242 = 40 + 202)
ka hahaú hia - ko te rima kua oho ku hahaú - kua ka te ahi i ruga e te hau e ka oho te kihikihi o te henua

PYRAMID OF KHUFU

MINTAKA (Belt) = δ Orionis, υ Orionis (82.4), χ Aurigae (82.5), ε Columbae (82.6)

PYRAMID OF KHAFRE

Al Hak'ah-3 (White Spot) / Mrigashīrsha-5 (Stag's Head) / Turtle Head-20 (Monkey) / Mas-tab-ba-tur-tur (Little Twins)

ARNEB = α Leporis, Crab Nebula = M1 Tauri (83.0, φ¹ Orionis (83.1), HEKA = λ Orionis, Orion Nebula = M42 (83.2), HATYSA = ι Orionis (83.5), φ² Orionis (83.6), ALNILAM (String of Pearls) = ε Orionis (83.7)

PYRAMID OF MENKAURE

Three Stars-21 (Gibbon) / Shur-narkabti-sha-shūtū-6 (Star in the Bull towards the south) / ANA-IVA-9 (Pillar of exit)

HEAVENLY GATE = ζ Tauri, ν Columbae (84.0), ω Orionis (84.2),  ALNITAK (Girdle) = ζ Orionis, PHAKT (Phaet) = α Columbae (84.7) 

ο Aurigae (85.8), γ Leporis (85.9)

YANG MUN (α Lupi) 

Al Shaula-17

ALWAID (Mother Camels) = β Draconis, MAASYM (Wrist) = λ Herculis (265.1), SHAULA (Sting) = λ Scorpii (265.3), KUMA = ν Draconis (265.6), σ Arae (265.9)

 HAMAL (α Arietis)

RAS ALHAGUE = α Ophiuchi (266.1), SARGAS = θ Scorpii (266.3), μ Ophiuchi, π Arae (266.5), NAN HAE (Southern Sea) = ξ Serpentis (266.6), AL DHĪLI (The Wolf) = ω Draconis, ι Herculis (266.7) λ Arae (267.1), GIRTAB (Seizer) = κ Scorpii, ο Serpentis (267.6), DSIBAN (Wolf Pair) = ψ Draconis (267.9) KELB ALRAI (Dog of the Shepherd) = β Ophiuchi, μ Arae (268.1), KEW HO (Nine Rivers) = μ Herculis (268.6), η Pavonis (268.7), APOLLYON = ι Scorpii (268.9)

... On February 9 the Chorti Ah K'in, 'diviners', begin the agricultural year. Both the 260-day cycle and the solar year are used in setting dates for religious and agricultural ceremonies, especially when those rituals fall at the same time in both calendars. The ceremony begins when the diviners go to a sacred spring where they choose five stones with the proper shape and color. These stones will mark the five positions of the sacred cosmogram created by the ritual. When the stones are brought back to the ceremonial house, two diviners start the ritual by placing the stones on a table in a careful pattern that reproduces the schematic of the universe. At the same time, helpers under the table replace last year's diagram with the new one. They believe that by placing the cosmic diagram under the base of God at the center of the world they demonstrate that God dominates the universe. The priests place the stones in a very particular order. First the stone that corresponds to the sun in the eastern, sunrise position of summer solstice is set down; then the stone corresponding to the western, sunset position of the same solstice. This is followed by stones representing the western, sunset position of the winter solstice, then its eastern, sunrise position. Together these four stones form a square. They sit at the four corners of the square just as we saw in the Creation story from the Classic period and in the Popol Vuh. Finally, the center stone is placed to form the ancient five-point sign modern researchers called the quincunx ...

After a further 8 days, from 6 February to 14 February (All Heart's Day), the Sun reached 18h at the terminal point of Captain Cook:

10 Febr 11 12 (408) 13 2-14 (40 + 5) 15

... Nevertheless, by virtue of a series of spectacular coincidences, Cook made a near-perfect ritual exit on the night of 3 February. The timing itself was nearly perfect, since the Makahiki rituals would end 1 February (±1 day), being the 14th day of the second Hawaiian month [Kau-lua]. This helps explain Mr. King's entry for 2 February in the published Voyage: 'Terreoboo [Kalaniopu'u] and his Chiefs, had, for some days past, been very inquisitive abouth the time of our departure' - to which his private journal adds, '& seem'd well pleas'd that it was soon'. Captain Cook, responding to Hawaiian importunities to leave behind his 'son', Mr. King [sic!], had even assured Kalaniopu'u and the high priest that he would come back again the following year. Long after they had killed him, the Hawaiians continued to believe this would happen. Hence the ultimate ritual coincidence, which was meteorological: one of the fertilizing storms of winter, associated with the advent of Lono, wreaked havoc with the foremast of the Resolution, and the British were forced to return to Kealakekua for repairs on 11 February 1779 ... Mr. King remarks that there were not as many hundreds of people at their return to Kealakekua as there had been thousands when they first came in. A tabu was in effect, which was ascribed to the king's absence. By the best evidence, the British had interrupted the annual bonito-fishing rite, the transition from the Makahiki season to normal temple ceremonies. Cook was now hors cadre. And things fell apart ...

... Early on Sunday morning, 14 February 1779, Captain Cook went ashore with a party of marines to take the Hawaiian king, Kalaniopu'u, hostage against the return of the Discovery's cutter, stolen the night before in a bold maneuver - of which, however, the amiable old ruler was innocent. At the decisive moment, Cook and Kalaniopu'u, the God and the King, will confront each other as cosmic adversaries. Permit me thus an anthropological reading of the historical texts. For in all the confused Tolstoian narratives of the affray - among which the judicious Beaglehole refuses to choose - the one recurrent certainty is a dramatic structure with the properties of a ritual transformation. During the passage inland to find the king, thence seaward with his royal hostage, Cook is metamorphosed from a being of veneration to an object of hostility. When he came ashore, the common people as usual dispersed before him and prostrated face to earth; but in the end he was himself precipitated face down in the water by a chief's weapon, an iron trade dagger, to be rushed upon by a mob exulting over him, and seeming to add to their own honors by the part they could claim in his death: 'snatching the daggers from each other', reads Mr. Burney's account, 'out of eagerness to have their share in killing him'. In the final ritual inversion, Cook's body would be offered in sacrifice by the Hawaiian King ...

Cb10-13 Cb10-14 (636) Cb10-15 Cb10-16 Cb10-17 Cb10-18 (248)
te moa nui - kua vaha te hokohuki- te mata te matagi ma te rau hei te hokohuki - te moko te kava - te hokohuki te kihikihi i te rima o te tagata

Matagi. Wind, air, breeze, squall, tempest, rhumb. P Pau.: matagi, the air, wind. Mgv.: matagi, wind. Mq.: metani, metaki, wind, air. Ta.: matai, wind. Churchill.

μ Columbae, SAIPH (Sword) = κ Orionis (86.5), τ Aurigae, ζ Leporis (86.6) υ Aurigae (87.1), ν Aurigae (87.2), WEZN (Weight) = β Columbae, δ Leporis (87.7), TZE (Son) = λ Columbae (87.9) Ardra-6 (The Moist One) / ANA-VARU-8 (Pillar to sit by)

χ¹ Orionis, ξ Aurigae (88.1), BETELGEUZE (House of the Giant) = α Orionis (88.3), ξ Columbae (88.5), σ Columbae (88.7)

ZUBEN ELGENUBI (α Librae

η Leporis (89.0), PRAJA-PĀTI (Lord of Created Beings) = δ Aurigae, MENKALINAN (Shoulder of the Rein-holder) = β Aurigae, MAHASHIM (Wrist) = θ Aurigae, and γ Columbae (89.3), π Aurigae (89.4), η Columbae (89.7) μ Orionis (90.3), χ² Orionis (90.5) 6h (91.3)

ν Orionis (91.4), θ Columbae (91.5), π Columbae (91.6)

 

MULIPHEN (Oaths) = γ Ophiuchi (269.0), BASANISMUS = G Scorpii (269.5), PHERKARD (The Dim One of the Two Calves) = δ Ursae Minoris (269.9) PTOLEMY CLUSTER = M7 Scorpii (270.5), GRUMIUM (Lower Jaw) = ξ Draconis (270.9) RUKBALGETHI GENUBI (Bending Claw) = θ Herculis (271.1), ξ Herculis (271.5), ETAMIN (Head) =γ Draconis, ν Herculis (271.7), ν Ophiuchi (271.8) Cat's Eye = NGC6543 Draconis (272.2), ζ Serpentis (272.4), τ Ophiuchi (272.9)

Winnowing Basket-7 (Leopard)

18h (273.4)

NASH (Point) = γ Sagittarii (273.7), θ Arae (273.8)

ZHŌNGSHĀN = ο Herculis (274.0), π Pavonis (274.6)

... As has already been mentioned, the Delphians worshipped Dionysus once a year as the new-born child, Liknites, 'the Child in the Harvest Basket', which was a shovel-shaped basket of rush and osier used as a harvest basket, a cradle, a manger, and a winnowing-fan for tossing the grain up into the air against the wind, to separate it from the chaff. The worship of the Divine Child was established in Minoan Crete, its most famous early home in Europe. In 1903, on the site of the temple of Dictaean Zeues - the Zeus who was yearly born in Rhea's cave at Dicte near Cnossos, where Pythagoras spent 'thrice nine hallowed days' [27] of his initiation - was found a Greek hymn which seems to preserve the original Minoan formula in which the gypsum-powdered, sword-dancing Curetes, or tutors, saluted the Child at his birthday feast. In it he is hailed as 'the Cronian one' who comes yearly to Dicte mounted on a sow and escorted by a spirit-throng, and begged for peace and plenty as a reward for their joyful leaps ...

Beyond the death (sacrifice, rau hei) of Captain Cook (Lono) a tribute-canoe of offerings was set adrift for Kahiki (Tahiti), homeland of the gods, and the first star in Argo Navis (viz. Canopus, *95) was at the Sun 5 days after this basket / cradle / coracle, rising heliacally in June 24 (80 + *95) = St John's Day and half a year away from Christmas Eve.

... Gronw Pebyr, who figures as the lord of Penllyn - 'Lord of the Lake' - which was also the title of Tegid Voel, Cerridwen's husband, is really Llew's twin and tanist ... Gronw reigns during the second half of the year, after Llew's sacrificial murder; and the weary stag whom he kills and flays outside Llew's castle stands for Llew himself (a 'stag of seven fights'). This constant shift in symbolic values makes the allegory difficult for the prose-minded reader to follow, but to the poet who remembers the fate of the pastoral Hercules the sense is clear: after despatching Llew with the dart hurled at him from Bryn Kyvergyr, Gronw flays him, cuts him to pieces and distributes the pieces among his merry-men. The clue is given in the phrase 'baiting his dogs'. Math had similarly made a stag of his rival Gilvaethwy, earlier in the story. It seems likely that Llew's mediaeval successor, Red Robin Hood, was also once worshipped as a stag. His presence at the Abbot's Bromley Horn Dance would be difficult to account for otherwise, and stag's horn moss is sometimes called Robin Hood's Hatband. In May, the stag puts on his red summer coat. Llew visits the Castle of Arianrhod in a coracle of weed and sedge. The coracle is the same old harvest basket in which nearly every antique Sun-god makes his New Year voyage; and the virgin princess, his mother, is always waiting to greet him on the bank ...