TRANSLATIONS

TRANSLATIONS

The last page in the series from the link 'te pito o te henua':

"As I looked at the computer screen, everything clicked. Gemini had to be the copulating peccaries and Orion the turtle. The three stars on its back in the cartouche at Bonampak' were placed in the exact position of Orion's belt.

But more important, the Maize God [First Father] was reborn from the cracked carapace of a turtle, and we had a text that said that the first image of the turtle was seen at the Creation. The two anthropomorphic figures between the peccaries and the turtle had to be the personifications of Saturn and Mars. And we already knew many examples of other planets, such as Venus and Jupiter, that were represented by anthropomorphic figures. We seemed to have two more here.

Not until much later did it hit me that August 6, the date of the zenith passage at Bonampak', was only seven days before the Creation day of August 13. Matt Looper provided the confirmation by calling my attention to a picture from the Madrid Codex, another of the four Maya books. It shows a turtle with a triangle of stones on its back.

The turtle in the codex is shown suspended from cords tying it to the skyband because Orion hangs below the ecliptic. Clearly Orion was the turtle from which the Maize God rose in his resurrection.

The Milky Way above the turtle had to be the Maize God appearing in his tree form as he does on the Tablet of the Foliated Cross at Palenque. The image of the first turtle really is in the sky.

The identification of Gemini as copulating peccaries made sense in another curious way. For years we have seen pots that have these odd modeled peccary heads as their feet. All of these pots have the sea painted or drawn on their bottoms and an extraordinary one in the Dallas Museum of Arts shows the sun god paddling a canoe across this sea.

I realized that his must be the sun riding the ecliptic across the Peccaries of Gemini." (Maya Cosmos)

The Maya seem to have used different glyph types for the 'stars' (including planets). Gemini has (according to the picture above) a double set of Venus glyphs. The three stars on the carapace of the turtle (the belt stars of Orion) have a another design which I will comment upon below. Saturn has a glyph which at first glance looks like that of Venus, however, its colours are reversed: white pupils against a black background.

The 'mist' at the front end of the sun god canoe may be vapour from the hot water resulting when the sun 'canoe' (following the ecliptic) turns lower and meets the water of the Otherworld.

The Otherworld is dark as the deeps of the ocean. A footnote from Maya Cosmos:

"... A sensation of swimming is documented for trance states among many peoples across the world. Most specifically, a segment on A&E's Footsteps of Man featuring David Lewis-William's work with the Bush-men of Kalahari shows them making swimming motions as they lie in the sand after collapsing in deep trance. These sensations have been reported by many other groups around the world and seem to be part of the physiological response many human beings have during trance experiencees ..."

To faint (swoon) is in the Swedish language 'svimma', while to swim is 'simma'. The concept of faint means weak. In the dark light is faint. The life signs are weak in someone who has fainted. Winter and night are faint states. Vaivai = weak.

The pattern in the 3 glyphs for the turtle stars looks like the pattern in the 2 glyphs for Mars. From this fact and the double Venus signs for Gemini we should conclude that number is a quality necessary for 'reading glyphs'.

The 3 stones of the hearth together with the 2 belt stars outside the triangular hearth makes 5 (rima) and should associate to fire.

When the pattern of 5 is like that seen in the glyphs for Mars and the belt stars, i.e. a square with a central great 'star', it is the form which according to Maya Cosmos has been named quincunx:

"... the triune aspect of the Spanish God would have made as much sense to the Maya farmer as to his king because all Yukatek Maya understood the fourfold nature of divinity. This concept remains at the center of their religion today.

Hunabk'u, the Oneness God of the Spanish, also made sense to Precolumbian village shamans and kings because all Yukatek Maya understood, and understands today, that at the center of the fourfold cosmos is the one."

The quincunx pattern is shown also in the ecliptic band (in the hanging turtle picture above). In the shell of the turtle another similar 4 + 1 pattern is repeated as the meshes (mata) in a net. The irregular border lines in the mata suggest a net.

The triple stars, each with a quincunx sign, measures 3 * 5 = 15 together, and the oval of the turtle shell probably signifies full moon.

In the picture with Saturn it should be noticed how Saturn and the Turtle belong together. Not only does Saturn point at the Turtle, but at bottom left in both cartouches a 'limb' is stretching out over the border lines.

These two 'limbs' have a similar Y-form, a grip on the cartouches. The Turtle 'Y-limb' also has an eye and forms one of the fore-paws. We have lots to learn.

The last page of the hakaturou 'chapter':

The hakaturou glyhs come in several variants, e.g.:


Kb4-7	Ha6-6	Aa1-5	Eb8-25

All three examples appear to be connected with change from one 'season' to another.

Kb4-7 probably depicts a gnomon with the straight 'throat' being the staff while the 'head' could represent the sun.

Ha6-6 (the variant which I have chosen as representative for the hakaturou glyph type) maybe alludes to how Maui according to myth fished up a whole island, with houses, people and all. A new season is like a new land and the fish-hook shape of this variant of hakaturou should have some meaning. In addition the brothers of Maui ate from the fish before the gods had got their portion - a sacriledge (turou). Metoro could have thought about that when he said hakaturou.

Aa1-5 (one of four such glyphs following each other) may represent the four corners of the 'earth'. The sign in form of a 'knee' probably indicates the efforts to raise the sky 'roof' to let in the light of spring summer.

Eb8-25 maybe depicts the old and new years looking at each other at winter solstice. Bb6-17 has similar double-heads looking at each other:

I had to draw the line somewhere, but there is - for example - nothing said about the 'broken neck' sign:


Pb9-32	Pb9-33	Pb9-34	Pb9-35	Pb9-36	Pb9


Ab8-55	Ab8-56	Ab8-57	Ab8-58	Ab8-59	Ab8-60

Instead of a 'joint' at left (back side) as in Aa1-5 this 'joint' is in front and high. We remember the 3 kinds of tuli (or 4 counting also the bird):

... When the baby is born a golden plover flies over and alights upon the reef. (Kua fanau lā te pepe kae lele mai te tuli oi tū mai i te papa). And so the woman thus names various parts of the child beginning with the name 'the plover' (tuli): neck (tuliulu), elbow (tulilima), knee (tulivae).

2 knees, 2 elbows and 1 neck makes 5 (rima). Adding the bird (kuhane?) we reach 6 (like the number of stars in Matariki, Tauono).