97. The Chinese star map has a pair of parallel straight lines where the Meso-potamians had their fertile Field. And the tip of the tail of the Chinese White Tiger coincided with Sirrah (α Andromedae):  
Algenib Pegasi (γ) rose a day later than Sirrah, but γ belonged in the Tail of the Green Serpent, and it was not the marker of a birth place like Sirrah at the Navel of the flying Horse.
The Tail of the White Tiger was like a navel string, not marking the end but the beginning. ... 'From the time I was in your womb,' Maui went on, 'I have known the names of these children of yours. Listen,' he said as he pointed to his brothers in turn. 'You are Maui mua, you are Maui roto, you are Maui taha, and you are Maui pae. And as for me, I am Maui potiki, Maui-the-last-born. And here I am.' When he had finished, Taranga had to wipe her eyes because there were tears in them, and she said: 'You are indeed my lastborn son. You are the child of my old age. When I had you, no one knew, and what you have been saying is the truth. Well, as you were formed out of my topknot you can be Maui tikitiki a Taranga.' So that became his name, meaning Maui-formed-in-the-topknot-of-Taranga. And this is very strange, because women in those days did not have topknots. The topknot was the most sacred part of a person, and only men had them ... Evidently the pair of tails (that of the Green Serpent and that of the White Tiger) served to mark where the 'Churning of the Milky Ocean' took place, where the friction caused by drawing the Serpent's Tail to and fro - we can see the necessary loop - resulted in a new celestial fire, where Land once again would rise Green and fresh from the waves.
... the tortoise cannot be burnt ... a characteristic which is confirmed objectively by ethnography, since the wolf's trick of trying to cook the tortoise while it was lying on its back is based on a method which may seem barbarous but is still current in central Brazil: the tortoise is so difficult to kill that the peasants cook it alive among the hot wood cinders, with its own shell acting as the cooking-dish; the process may last several hours, because the poor beast takes so long to die ...
... The ceremony was performed with great pomp by the same officials who procured the new fire from heaven by reflecting the sun's rays either from a metal mirror or from a crystal on dry moss. Fire thus obtained is called by the Chinese heavenly fire and its use is enjoined in sacrifices: whereas fire elicited by the friction of wood is termed by them earthly fire, and its use is prescribed for cooking and other domestic purposes ... The heavenly fire created in the 16 days from Markab to Sirrah seems to have been source brought down to earth by drilling, by using a pair of wooden sticks arranged like a cross. ... The old man gave the Raven two small sticks, like gambling sticks, one black, one multicoloured. He gave him instructions to bite them apart in a certain way and told him to spit the pieces at one another on the surface of the sea. The Raven climbed back up the pole, where he promptly did things backwards, just to see if something interesting would occur, and the pieces bounced apart. It may well be some bits were lost. But when he gathered what he could and tried again - and this time followed the instructions he had been given - the pieces stuck and rumpled and grew to become the mainland and Haida Gwaii ...
... At Alcyone, we have seen, the sky dome was depicted high above the earth turtle (the central element in Cb2-6), and the feathery eye-lashes of Mother Earth were no longer oriented downwards - she had come alive again: ... Ta'aroa sat in his heaven above the earth and conjured forth gods with his words. When he shook off his red and yellow feathers they drifted down and became trees ... ... The first god's house in the temple was the body of Ta'aroa's own person, and it became a model for all other god's houses. One day Ta'aroa let himself go into a trance and his spirit stood away in space while his body floated in the sea, then he said to his daughters: 'Oh, girls! How many canoes are there at sea?' And the daughters replied: 'It is like one, it is like one!' Then Ta'aroa's spirit said: 'Who can it be?' And they answered: 'It is thyself assuredly!' ... The element at right in Cb2-6, separated from that at left, is in principle of the marama (moon crescent) type, but as observed from the tropical belt the moon crescent looks like a canoe oriented horizontally, sailing on the dome of the night sky. Here, however, we get the impression that the right side element could be the sky dome itself ('thyself assuredly'), designed much like the Egyptian sky (pet, N1 in Gardiner's list):
The head of the Sun Falcon is here hovering above the dead body - like the Mayan turtle head above the dead Mother Earth in winter - and sending his 'red and yellow feathers' down to make life return.
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