Notes to The Rise of Morning Star
§1. THE WAR OF THE TWO FLINTS
Prologue.
1 Robert L. Hall, "Long Distance Connections of Some Long-nosed Gods," Paper Presented at the 82nd Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago (1983). Robert L. Hall, "The Cultural Background of Mississippian Symbolism," in The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Artifacts and Analysis. The Cottonlandia Conference. Ed. Patricia Galloway (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989) 239-278. Robert L. Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul: North American Indian Belief and Ritual (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997) 145-154. Robert L. Hall, "Cahokia Identity and Interaction Models of Cahokia Mississippian," in Cahokia and the Hinterlands: Middle Mississippian Cultures of the Midwest, edd. Thomas E Emerson, R Barry Lewis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999) 3-34 [31].
2 Timothy R. Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, "Star Performances and Cosmic Clutter," Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 18, #01 (2008): 78-85 [80-81]. Timothy R. Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi (New York: Viking, 2009) Chapter 2, pp. 11-24.
3 Nevertheless, great earthen mounds have been around in what is now the United States for a very long time. One dates from 3600 b. C. Timothy Pauketat, Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions (Lanham: Rowman Altamira, 2007) 63-79. Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi, 17.
4 Nancy Marie White and Richard A. Weinstein, "The Mexican Connection and the Far West of the U.S. Southeast," American Antiquity, 73, # 2 (April, 2008): 227-277.
5 On the other hand ... Hall has suggested that one of the Cherokee "Hero Twins," Selu, may derive his name from the name of the Nahuatl deity Xilonen. Robert L. Hall, "Sacrificed Foursomes and Green Corn Ceremonialism," in Mounds, Modoc, and Mesoamerica: Papers in Honor of Melvin L. Fowler, ed. S. R. Ahler. Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers, 28 (2000): 245-253; Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi, 96. This might suggest that there were Nahuatl speakers behind the prehistory of Etowah, where presumably the Cherokee picked up this name. It remains possible, however, that natives returning from an arduous pilgrimage to Mexico could have brought some knowledge of the Nahuatl language and theology from their sojourn in Tula.
The Shattering of Flint.
1 Paul Radin, "The Red Man," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook 6: 1-72 [50-55].
2 The original text in Radin's notebook adds, "So the hare picked up some of all colors, then went home ..." Radin renders this as, "With these he returned to his grandmother ..." Paul Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1948) 93-98. Paul Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books, 1956) §6, 66-67. The original text, which is entirely in English in the hand of Oliver LaMère, is found in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3851 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago IV, #1: 17-21.
3 Col. John Harris Kinzie (1803-1865), Notebook compiled at Prairie du Chien in 1826 (Chicago: Chicago Historical Society) s.v. moish´aarar. Col. Kinzie spoke Hocąk and had a consistent system of phonetic orthography, so his version is to be preferred. Other versions of the word "flint" are: mar-she-dah (Merrell), mā-sha (Jipson). Henry Merrell, "Winnebago Dictionary," in US Mss 6F, folder 1, p. 8. Merrell (1804-1876), a fur trader at Portage, created this list in the 1830s for his personal use; his manuscript was loaned to the Wisconsin Historical Society in 1899 so this 20-page typed copy could be made; the location of the original manuscript is unknown. Norton William Jipson, Story of the Winnebagoes (Chicago: The Chicago Historical Society, 1923).
4 Leyenda de los Soles, 80:7-15, in John Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs: the Codex Chimalpopoca (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1992) 141-162.
5 Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 1:17-18, in Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs: the Codex Chimalpopoca, 17-138.
6 (q.v.). Radin, "The Red Man," 50-55.
7 (q.v.). Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles, 93-98. Paul Radin, The Trickster, §6, pp. 66-67. The original Hocąk text is missing, but the English translation of Oliver LaMère is preserved in Paul Radin, "The Hare Cycle," Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3851 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Winnebago IV, #1: 17-22.
8 Martha
Warren Beckwith, "Mythology of the Oglala Dakota," The Journal of
American Folklore, 43 (1930), #170 (October-December.): 339-442 [386-389].
9 James R. Walker, The Sun Dance & Other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 16, Part 2 (New York: Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History, 1917) 193-203.
10 Gray Bull (?), "Red-Woman and Flint-like-young-man," in Robert H. Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 25, part 1 (New York: Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History, 1918) 128-133 [130-132]. There is an Arapaho story that bears significant resemblance to this Crow version. All of Light Stone's brothers have disappeared one at a time, so he, being the last, goes in search of them. Each of his brothers had been killed by an old woman, who spread ashes on their eyes, mouth, and breast. They had been killed by a spike that protruded from her back which they stepped on as they walked upon her back. When Light Stone appeared, he did as his brothers had done, but instead, he crushed her into pieces. He then burned her, and the embers jumped out of the flames, but each time he put them back in the fire until she was completely burned up. George A. Dorsey and Alfred L. Kroeber, Traditions of the Arapaho (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997 [1903]) 181-186.
11 Plenty Hawk, "1. Lodge Boy and Thrown Away," in Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, 74-85.
12 Bear's Arm, "3. The Sacred Arrow," in Martha Warren Beckwith, Mandan and Hidatsa Mythology, Publications of the Folk-Lore Foundation (Poughkeepsie: Vassar College) #10 (1930): 22-52. Cf. another version in which the brothers are Atùtish and Mahash, who are themselves raised by the brothers Long Tail and Spotted Body. Mahash rescues his brother by turning into an ant. Washington Matthews, A Folk-tale of the Hidatsa Indians, 136-143 [136-139] = The Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians, The United States Geological and Geographical Survey, Miscellaneous Publications, No. 7 (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1877) 63-70.
13 Walter W. Funmaker, The Bear in Winnebago Culture: A Study in Cosmology and Society (Master Thesis, University of Minnesota: June, 1974 [MnU-M 74-29]) 12-18, 59, 61-66. Dr. Funmaker is a member of the Winnebago tribe. His informant was Walking Soldier (1900-1977), a member of the Bear Clan. Walter Funmaker, The Winnebago Black Bear Subclan: a Defended Culture (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Minnesota: December, 1986 [MnU-D 86-361]]) 48-49. Informant: One Who Wins of the Winnebago Bear Clan. See "Bear Spirits." In the "Ponka" rite of the laying of the sacred sticks among the Osage, the circumambulation is exactly the same as that of the Hocągara. James Owen Dorsey, A Study of Siouan Cults, in the Annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Volume 11, 1889-1890 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1894) 361-544 [525, §368]. The four kinds of sacred rocks among the Osage are black, blue/green, red, and white. Dorsey, A Study of Siouan Cults, 533, §381.
14 Mary Carolyn Marino, A Dictionary of Winnebago: An Analysis and Reference Grammar of the Radin Lexical File (Ph.D. Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, December 14, 1968 [69-14,947]) s.v. Tcacįtc, "Pleiades."
15 Keith L. Bildstein, "Why White-Tailed Deer Flag Their Tails," The American Naturalist, 121, # 5 (May, 1983): 709-715.
16 Marino, s.v. tca.
Flint, One Flint, and Four Flint.
1 Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 1:17-1:20.
2 Leyenda de los Soles, 80:7-80:16.
3 Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, in History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings, translated and edited by Henry Phillips Jr. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 21 (1883): 616-651 [621].
4 Leyenda de los Soles, 78:30.
7 Paul Radin, "Wears White Feather on His Head," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook #4: 1-50 [49-50].
8 James Owen Dorsey, Winnebago-English Vocabulary and Winnebago Verbal Notes, 4800 Dorsey Papers: Winnebago (3.3.2) 321 [old no. 1226] (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, 1888) 82 pp. Norton William Jipson, Story of the Winnebagoes (Chicago: The Chicago Historical Society, 1923). This is an unpublished typescript.
9 John Obadiah Westwood, "4. Descriptions of Some New Species of Exotic Moths belonging or Allied to the Genus Saturnia," Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 21 (1853): 157-167 [157 Plate XXXII Fig. 2]. Carlos R. Beutelspacher, Las mariposas entre los antiguos Mexicanos (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989) 43-44 and Fig. 81.
10 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya,100a s.v. Itzpapalotl.
11 Kenneth L. Miner, Winnebago Field Lexicon (Kansas City: University of Kansas, June 1984) ss.vv.
12 Francis La Flesche, A Dictionary of the Osage Language, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 109 (Washington, D. C.: United States Printing Office, 1932) 39b s.v. dsióⁿ-dsioⁿ wap̣oga; 239b, s.v. "butterfly (large)."
13 Carlos Christian Hoffmann, «Las mariposas entre los antiguos mexicanos,» Cosmos (México) 1, #18 (1918): 4 pp. Charles Leonard Hogue, Latin American Insects and Entomology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 300a.
14 Hogue, Latin American Insects and Entomology, 300a. See also Antonio Melic, «De los jeroglíficos a los tebeos: los artrópodos en la cultura,» Boletín de la Sociedad Entomológica Aragonesa, #32 (2003): 325-357 [350a].
15 It seems highly likely that the paradigm is the moth rather than the owl. The two are striking counterparts, but the range of the moth is restricted to a small area in Mexico, whereas the range of the Great Horned Owl extends from the Arctic to Central America (Smith, Great Horned Owl, 2, 93-95). Therefore, if the moth were the paradigm it would have to have been replaced; whereas the reverse is not the case.
16 Dwight G. Smith, Great Horned Owl (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2002) 36.
17 The word for this clan of supernaturals is Ca-rucge, where ca would normally be understood to mean "deer," but as a homonym it also denotes the upper body, most particularly the head; so the Deer-Eaters are also the Head-Eaters, and like champions at a feast, it is the red giant's head that they eat.
18 Osvaldo Garcia-Goyco, "The Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 and the Cosmic Tree in Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, and the Amazon-Orinoco Basin," in Cave, City, and Eagle's Nest: An Interpretive Journey Through the Mapa De Cuauhtinchan No. 2, edd Davíd Carrasco and Scott Sessions (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007) 357-387 [381 Fig. 13.16].
19 Here is part of an incantation in which Itzpapalotl stands for the arrowhead.
It is he [i.e., the bow] and his reed [i.e., the arrow shaft] that my mother, Tonacacihuatl, Xochiquetzal [i.e., my wife], who is a woman, made. Itzpapalotl [i.e., the arrowhead] goes standing there [i.e., I have Itzpapalotl with me]. | Yehhuātl īhuan īācayo in ōquichihchīuh in nonān, Tōnacācihuātl, Xōchiquetzal, cihuātl. Ōmpa ihcatiuh Itzpāpālōtl. |
Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the heathen superstitions that today live among the Indians native to this New Spain, edd. James Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig. Volume 164 of Civilization of the American Indian series (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999 [1629]) 105.
20 Carlos Beutelspacher gives a useful list summarizing the attributes of Itzpapalotl:
1. She is a mother goddess.
2. Signifies motion.
3. She is the goddess of human sacrifices.
4. She is a goddess of war.
5. She is one of the representations of Venus.
6. She is a personification of the meridian hemisphere of the night sky (South).
7. She is the patron of the day-sign Cozcaquauhtli [Vulture].
8. She is the numen of the Chichimecs.
9. She is the personification of the earth.
10. She is a representation of the Moon.
11. She is the patron of the cihuateteo, or the women who died in childbirth.
12. She was the representation of the old days, or early settlement of the group that was called Chichimeca.
13. She is a companion of Mixcoatl, the Chichimec god of the chase.
14. She herself was also a huntress.
15. She is a representation of the west.
16. She is a goddess of travelers.
Carlos Beutelspacher, Las mariposas entre los antiguos Mexicanos (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989) 51.
21 Seler, Collected Works, 6:2b.
22 Heyden, "La Diosa Madre: Itzpapalotl," 4 Fig 1. She identifies the figure of Tlazoltéotl in Codex Borgia 55 as being a form of Itzpapalotl.
23 Susan Milbrath, "Gender and Roles of Lunar Deities in Postclassic Central Mexico and Their Correlations with the Maya Area," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, 25 (1995): 45-94 [69-73].
24 Milbrath, "Gender and Roles of Lunar Deities in Postclassic Central Mexico," 71-72.
25 Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996) 32.
26 Within a given year, each Flower day is an interval of the base
number (20) apart, in the following order: 1-Flower ➞ 8-Flower ➞ 2-Flower ➞ 9-Flower ➞ 3-Flower ➞ 10-Flower ➞ 4-Flower
➞ 11-Flower ➞ 5-Flower ➞ 12-Flower ➞ 6-Flower ➞ 13-Flower ➞ 7-Flower ➞ 1-Flower. These are derived by adding 7 to the coefficient of the previous Flower day. The two sequences formed by every other Flower day are in perfect numerical order. These two sequences, which can be seen to form a Moebius strip, are expressed in the table below.
Number of Days | 0 | 20 | 40 | 60 | 80 | 100 | 120 | 140 | 160 | 180 | 200 | 220 | 240 | 260 |
Order of Days | 1‑Flower | 2‑Flower | 3‑Flower | 4‑Flower | 5‑Flower | 6‑Flower | 7‑Flower | |||||||
8‑Flower | 9‑Flower | 10‑Flower | 11‑Flower | 12‑Flower | 13‑Flower | 1‑Flower |
27 Eduard Seler, Codex Vaticanus No. 3773 (Codex Vaticanus B): An Old Mexican Pictorial Manuscript in the Vatican Library, trs. Augustus Henry Keane (London and Berlin: T. and A. Constable, 1903) 178-179. See Codex Vaticanus 92.
28 It should be mentioned that in the following year, 2-Reed (727-728), which as it happens is the calendar name of Tezcatlipoca, the first Vulture day was 9-Vulture. On 9-Vulture (13 August 727) ε Tauri transited at 06:14:20 hours as the sun rose at 06:14:57 hours. Perhaps this second striking coincidence, combined with that of the Vulture day in the previous year, reinforced the conclusion that days falling under the sign of the Vulture were sacred to Itzpapalotl.
29 For Itzpapalotl under this calendar name, see Garcia-Goyco, "The Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 and the Cosmic Tree in Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, and the Amazon-Orinoco Basin," 380-382.
30 The birth date of the Sun (Tonatiuh) was 13-Reed of 13-Reed, which in the chronicle falls on 12 November 751. Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 2:49.
31 The other 4-Flint day of year 4-Flint, that of 20 Tititl (July 25, 769), reveals nothing of astronomical interest. The following is a table of about three centuries of 4-Flint of 4-Flint dates. All these dates were examined in the astronomy program Starry Night Pro Plus 6 to determine if there were any events of interest connected with them.
Day 4-Flint, Year 4-Flint |
|||
Xiuhpohualli Date |
Julian Date |
Julian Day # |
Astronomical Event |
20-Hueitozoztli | Dec. 16, 612 | 1944941 | |
20-Tititl | Sept. 2, 613 | 1945201 | |
20-Hueitozoztli | Dec. 3, 664 | 1963921 | |
20-Tititl | Aug. 20, 665 | 1964181 | |
20-Hueitozoztli | Nov. 20, 716 | 1982901 | |
20-Tititl | Aug. 7, 717 | 1983161 | |
20-Hueitozoztli | Nov. 7, 768 | 2001881 | |
20-Tititl | July 25, 769 | 2002141 | |
20-Hueitozoztli | Oct. 25, 820 | 2020861 | |
20-Tititl | July 12, 821 | 2021121 | |
20-Hueitozoztli | Oct. 12, 872 | 2039841 | |
20-Tititl | June 29, 873 | 2040101 | |
20-Hueitozoztli | Sept. 29, 924 | 2058821 | |
20-Tititl | June 16, 925 | 2059081 |
On Nov. 7, 768, γ Tauri, the apex of the Hyades triangle, achronically set at sunrise (06:45:35). None of the other dates are correlated with any astronomical event. A composite calendar date (i.e., Year 4-Flint, Day 4-Flint of 20-Hueitozoztli) is separated from the next such date by 52 years (precisely 18,980 days = 52 x 365 = 73 x 260); within a solar year, one 4-Flint day (20-Hueitozoztli) is separated from the next 4-Flint day (20-Tititl) by 260 days.
32 Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 2:54. Further on (3:4), the Annals say that Mixcoatl "took leave of them," as though he were a different person from Mixcoamazatzin. These are just two variants of a departure story, one in which he dies, and the other in which he merely disappears. The dates and astronomy are the same for both. The Annals (3:12-3:14) go on to say, "In 1 Flint [804/805] the Cuauhtitlan Chichimecs got themselves a ruler. Thus began a new Chichimec rule in Cuauhtitlan. They made Huactli their new ruler in a place called Necuameyocan." Day 1-Flint of year 1-Flint (July 16, 895) is a yearbundle of 52 years from the date of the ascension of Mixcoamazatzin in Tula. Here a ruler's coronation is calculated according to purely calendrical associations with respect to Mixcoatl, rather than to some astronomical event (or at least as far as can be told).
33 Starry Night Pro Plus 6, set at Tula.
Date | 10 November 752 |
11 November 752 |
12 November 752 |
|||
3-Motion |
4-Flint |
5-Rain |
||||
Time | Time | Δt | Time | Δt | Time | Δt |
Sun Rises | 06:47:21 | +3' 57" |
06:47:58 | -36" |
06:48:36 | -5' 10" |
Aldebaran Sets | 06:51:18 | 06:47:22 | 06:43:26 |
34 The calendar name of "Four Flint" also belongs to the male form of the moon, as it says here: "They also summoned Four Flint, the moon." Leyenda de los Soles, 77:38.
35 Scholars often mention in passing that Itzpapalotl has some (unspecified) connection to the day sign Ollin, "Motion." This may be because the standard form of the sign resembles that of a butterfly. "The butterfly was simultaneously a symbol of the soul and a sign for the concept of olin (undulant circling, rocking, oscillating or rolling movement, representing the space-time continuum, that is, the passage of time in space, marked by changes in the positions of the planets and the day-night sequences). Butterfly equaled olin because of the iconography of olin (see section on geometric designs, p. 180). It was also thus identified because of its movements. ... Butterfly-olin was also a deity unit (Itzpapalotl)." Eva Hunt, The Transformation of the Hummingbird: Cultural Roots of a Zinacantecan Mythical Poem (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977) 59, 180-183.
36 Seler, Collected Works, 5:45b.
37 Seler translates Chimalman as „der liegende Schild” ("the Recumbent Shield") or „auf einem Schild liegend” ("Lying on a Shield"). Codex Fejérváry-Mayer: An Old Mexican Picture Manuscript in the Liverpool Public Museum, elucidated by Dr. Eduard Seler (Berlin and London: Edinburgh University Press, 1901-1902) 184. This is in essential agreement with Günter Lanczkowski, who contends that it means „ruhende Schild” ("Recumbent Shield"). „Quetzalcoatl: Mythos und Geschichte,” Numen, 9, #1 (Jan., 1962): 17-36 [25-26]. The same meaning is assigned by Lehmann ("le bouclier étendu"). Walter Lehmann, "Traditions des anciens Mexicains," Journal de la Société des américanistes de Paris, 3, #2 (Oct. 15, 1906): 239-294 [265 nt 9]. "Prostrate Shield" is the translation given by Robert Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 162-163. Cf. "She Who Bears the Shield," Garcia-Goyco, "The Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 and the Cosmic Tree in Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, and the Amazon-Orinoco Basin," 175b. Andrews and Hasig analyze the word this way:
Chimalman [i.e., Chīmalman] (One-who-has-sat-like-a-shield). A compound preterit noun: embed, (CHĪMAL)-LI, "shield"; matrix, the preterit agentive noun (MAN-ϕ)-ϕ, "one who has extended over an area," from the verb (MANI), "to extend, to be; to extend over a surface; to be sitting [said of flat-bottomed objects]." In this personal name -man is not the -mān of place names such as Chālmān. The usual translation, "Shield Hand," is unlikely because the word does not end in ma from (MĀI)-TL, "hand"; the word has a final n as attested in the Leyenda de los Soles ... In classical times, she was the wife of Mixcoatl and the mother of Quetzalcoatl.
Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the heathen superstitions that today live among the Indians native to this New Spain, edd. James Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig. Volume 164 of Civilization of the American Indian series (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999 [1629]) s.v., 223. Doris Heyden has "Shield Hand" or "Shield Place" (as do perhaps most others). Diego Durán, The History of the Indies of New Spain (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994) 51 nt 1.
38 He also says of Quilaztli and Cihuacoatl (the step-mothers of Quetzalcoatl), "the feminine personage assumes different names with similar characteristics, as if they were different personalities of the same deity Itzpapalotl." Keiko Yoneda, "Glyphs and Messages in the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2: Chicomoztoc, Itzpapalotl, and 13 Flint," trs. Scott Sessions, in Cave, City, and Eagle's Nest: An Interpretive Journey Through the Mapa De Cuauhtinchan No. 2, edd Davíd Carrasco and Scott Sessions (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007) 161-203 [175]. Garcia-Goyco, views Itzpapalotl as an "avocation" of Chimalman. "The Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 and the Cosmic Tree in Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, and the Amazon-Orinoco Basin," 175 Fig. 13.
39 The Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 2:21-2:23.
40 Seler, Collected Works, 2:19 Fig. 1 (also seen in Fig. 2).
41 A standard resembling Itzpapalotl's Tree of Tamoanchan can be seen in the device mounted on a pole that is fixed to the back of a soldier in Wilfrido Du Solier, Ancient Mexican Costume, trs. Wilfrido Du Solier and John G. Roberts (Mexico City: Ediciones Mexicanos, 1950) 51 Fig. 23.
42 Here is the genealogy of Flint, Herokaga, and allied figures:
Red Woman, Red Hair, and Flint-like Young Man.
1 Timothy P. McCleary, The Stars We Know: Crow Indian Astronomy and Lifeways (Prospect Hills, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1997) 51-57.
2 Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, 132.
3 The Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 3:59-4:2, in Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs: the Codex Chimalpopoca, 28.
4 Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, 130.
5 Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, 131.
6 Seler, Collected Works, 4:202a.
7 Zelia Nuttall, "A Penitential Rite of the Ancient Mexicans," Archaeological and Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum, 1, #1 (1888-1904):
437-462 [460].
8 Sahagún says, "The stars which are in the mouth of the horn (en la boca de la bezina) these people call Citlalxonecuilli," and that they are seven bright stars that are set apart in the shape of a backward S. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, 7:13. La Becina is the Spanish name for Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper). José Manuel Pedrosa, "Bocina," in Gran enciclopedia cervantina, edd. Carlos Alvar, Florencio Sevilla Arroyo (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Cervantinos, January, 2008) s.v., 1381-1383.
9 Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, 126.
10 "Mixcoatl carries the xonecuilli, the S-shaped crooked staff, the symbol of lightning, similar to the Tlaloquê, the rain gods. Also the souls of the female dead, the Ciuapipiltin, carry it, or the serpent staff, and the sacrificial gifts for them were the bread in the form of xonecuilli, symbols of lightning, and also in the form of butterflies, symbols of fire." Seler, Collected Works, 5:55a-b; 4:145; cf. 4:162b.
11 Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, 128 nt 1.
12 Frank Bird Linderman, Pretty-Shield: Medicine Woman of the Crows (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003) 26. She relates the story a second time: "I have already told you that once my people caught her and tried to burn her. But the fire that chipped her bones when the rain fell upon them while they were very hot, did not kill her. She was afterward seen, and was finally captured a second time by my people; and this time she was drowned. I ought to tell you that there are those among us who believe that Red-woman is yet alive and on this world. But I don't. I am certain that she was drowned." (p. 27). See also, Adrienne Mayor, Fossil Legends of the First Americans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005) 285.
13 Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, 125.
14 Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, 128.
15 Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, 81.
16 Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians, 126.
17 McCleary, The Stars We Know, 67.
18 "Corn-silk and the Seven Stars," in Curtis, The North American Indian, 4:123-124.
19 McCleary, The Stars We Know, 66.
20 George Reed, jr., Dictionary of the Crow Language, Master of Science Thesis, Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, September, 1974) 72, s.v. óoshi — "cooked, ready (of food), burnt, dyed," 92, s.v. "red" — hísshi.
§2. HOCĄK STORIES FROM ETOWAH
The Georgian Buddha.
1 The Display pose is also known as the "Buddha." This particular shell gorget is from Burial 23, Mound C (Temple Mound), Etowah, Georgia. Charles C. Willoughby, "Notes on the History and Symbolism of the Muskhogeans and the People of Etowah," in Exploration of the Etowah Site in Georgia. The Etowah Papers. ed. Warren King Moorehead (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1932) 57 Fig. 29; Ga-Brt-E7 (RSPF 61420) in Jeffrey P. Brain and Philip Phillips, Shell Gorgets: Styles of the Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric Southeast (Cambridge: Peabody Museum Press, 1996) 45, 140, 418b; Lila Fundaburk and Mary Douglass Fundaburk Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands: The Southeastern Indians Art and Industries (Fairhope, Alabama: Southern Publications, 1957) Plate 30. Philip Phillips and James A. Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings: from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma. 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum Press, ca. 1975-1982) Part 1, 127a Fig. 177. Vernon James Knight and Judith A. Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," in Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography, edd. F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007) 136-151 [143 Fig. 6.5]. F. Kent Reilly III, and James F. Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld: The Human Figural Art of the Hightower Style Revisited," Visualizing the Sacred. Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World, edd. George E. Lankford, F. Kent Reilly III, and James F. Garber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010) 303. Cf. Okla-Lf-S293 from Spiro Mound, Spiro, Oklahoma, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 46, 450a. Ga-Brt-E30 (RSPF 61382) of Burial 13, Mound C, Etowah, Georgia, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 139, 419b. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127a Fig. 177. Probably the fragmentary Ga-Brt-E143 from Burial 139, Mound C, Etowah, Georgia, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 145. Ga-Brt-E95 (EMM 841) from Burial 57 of Mound C at Etowah, Georgia, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 150, 421a. Tenn-Hm-H6 from Burial 62 of Hixon Mound in Tennessee, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 47, 239, 467b. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127b Fig. 178. Madeline Kneberg and A. H. Whitford, "Shell Industry," in T. M. N. Lewis and Madeline Kneberg, The Prehistory of the Chickamauga Basin in Tennessee: A Preview. Tennessee Anthropology Papers, 2 vo1s. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1941) 1:160-171 [163 Fig. 8.3B].
Ala-Ja-R1 from Burial 6 of Mound B at Rudder, Alabama, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 44, 249. This gorget is badly worn and corroded, so it is difficult to gauge the accuracy of this representation.
From Thomas Wilson, The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and Its Migrations; with Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric Time. Smithsonian Institution, Report of the United States National Museum for 1894 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1896) 757-1011 [post 880 Plate 10]. Tenn-Mo-Tq26 (NMNH 115560) from Burial 8 of Mound A at Toqua, Tennessee, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 48, 214, 485b. Willoughby, "Notes on the History and Symbolism of the Muskhogeans and the People of Etowah," 58 Fig. 30. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127b Fig. 178. Jefferson Chapman, Tellico Archaeology: 12,000 Years of Native American History. Tennessee Valley Authority, Publications in Anthropology, #41 (Knoxville: TVA, 1985) 92 Fig. 7.19a.
2 Louis F. Burns, Osage Indian Customs and Myths (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984) 165 Fig. 27, 167.
3 I slightly violate this definition by adopting the practice of referring to the period from heliacal rising to heliacal setting as an "apparition." The heliacal period is a special case of a synodic period.
4 See also the variant Seated Display with this same configuration of eight dots in Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 44.
5 Elliott Coues, Key to North American Birds: Containing a Concise Account of Every Species of Living and Fossil Bird at Present Known from the Continent North of the Mexican and United States Boundary, Inclusive of Greenland (Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1884) 126-127. The italics are those of the source. The illustrations are from p. 126 (sanderling) and p. 130 (Cooper's hawk).
6 Noble S. Proctor and Patrick J. Lynch, Manual of Ornithology: Avian Structure and Function (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998) 74.
7 Cp. Cat. no. 91113, NMNH, and Cat. no. 91117, NMNH in Wilson, The Swastika, 886-887 Figs 240, 241. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 30. The Wilson drawing (Fig. 241) shows the eighth shell bead barely visible behind the ornamental braid that hangs in front of it. The illustration in Fundaburk and Foreman does not show this.
8 Thomas M. N. Lewis and Madeline Kneberg, Ten Years of the Tennessee Archaeologist, Selected Subjects (Chattanooga: J. B. Graham Publishers, 1954) 187. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 44.
9 For this, see Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Phoenix of the Western World: Quetzalcoatl and the Sky Religion (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982) 72, 79.
10 Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Jade Steps: A Ritual Life of the Aztecs (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1985) 120; Laurette Séjourné, Teotihuacan, Métropole de l’Amerique (Paris: Francois Maspero, 1969) 214.
11 "The horse conch (Pleuroploca gigantea), not the lightning whelk, is the largest marine snail occurring in the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic Ocean. The horse conch gets as large as 48 cm in length and has a dextral shell, while sinistral whelks have a maximum length of 41cm." Laura Kozuch, Marine Shells from Mississippian Archaeological Sites, Ph.D. Thesis, 1975. Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, 4; see also, 34, 97-98; 36 Table 3.1, shows that 40% of lightning whelks in that collection sample were over 20 cms long. Among the sample, 23% of all shells larger than 20 cms were lightning whelks (p. 37).
12 There are no known Mississippian shell trumpets, but Bartram mentioned that in one Creek town a conch shell was used call an assembly. William Bartram, The Travels of William Bartram. 1955 facsimile ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 1928 [1791]) 400. Kozuch, Marine Shells from Mississippian Archaeological Sites, 9.
13 Cecilio A. Robelo, Diccionario de Mitologia Nahoa, Anales del Museo Nacional de México, Volume 4, ##1-2 (1907): 24-144 (Ch. - Ma.) [43, s.v. Ehecacozcatl]. Seler remarks,
It is the most prominent and characteristic attribute of the god, the direct expression of his nature as god of the wind, the whirling one, the one ruling in the wide kingdom of the air." Seler, Collected Works, 2:229b.
14 Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 50. This is the pendant from a necklace of a chunky player depicted on a shell gorget from Perry County, Missouri. The Pear Whelk (Busycon spiratum) is often confused with the Lightning Whelk, but is, like most shells, dextral rather than sinistral. Budd Titlow, Seashells: Jewels from the Ocean (Minneapolis: Voyageur Press, 2007) 45.
15 Dextral: Tenn-Hm-H5, Tenn-Bt-T6; Sinistral: Ga-Brt-E7, Ga-Brt-E8, Ga-Brt-E10, Ga-Brt-E11, Ga-Brt-E12, Ga-Brt-E30, Ga-Brt-E216, Ga-Brt-E139, Tenn-Je-FI17, Tenn-Mo-Tq28; Indeterminate: Ga-Brt-E217, Ga-Brt-E219, Ga-Brt-E221, Mo-Py-SM2. Tenn-Bt-T6, which portrays the Headsman scene, is represented only by a drawing. Tenn-Hm-H5, which exhibits the Headsman theme, is also anomalous in having a necklace with only two beads and a whelk, as well as 11 disks on his breechcloth. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, passim.
16 Laura Kozuch, Marine Shells from Mississippian Archaeological Sites, 31, 40-43. For the difference between the lightning whelk and the perverse [prickly] whelk, see Gregory J. Mount, Prehistoric Trade Networks in the Lake Okeechobee Region: Evidence from the Ritta Island and Kreamer Island Sites (Ann Arbor: ProQuest, 2009) 40. Robert Tucker Abbott, American Seashells (New York: Van Nostrand, 1954) 236 — the perverse whelk has a higher incidence of dextral spirals, and is characterized by "a rounded bulge on the outside of the mid-section of the body whorl." See also, Kozuch, Marine Shells from Mississippian Archaeological Sites, 47. A more important difference is noted by Kozuch: "Previous work by malacologists shows that different species of sinistral whelk shells have different apex angles, and this difference enables archaeologists to distinguish between the two recognized species of sinistral Busycon." Kozuch, Marine Shells from Mississippian Archaeological Sites, 4, 84.
17 J. B. Wise, Myroslaw George Harasewych, and Robert T. Dillon, Jr., "Population Divergence in the Sinistral Busycon Whelks of North America, with Special Reference to the East Florida Ecotone," Marine Biology, 145 (2004): 1163-1179.
18 Blair Witherington and Dawn Witherington, Seashells of Georgia and the Carolinas (Sarasota: Pineapple Press Inc, 2011) 25a.
19 Kozuch, Marine Shells from Mississippian Archaeological Sites, 4-5, 12, 37-38, 40, 48. H. Stephen Hale, Marine Shells in Midwestern Archaeological Sites and the Determination of Their Most Probable Source. MA Thesis, 1976. College of Social Science, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, 71. R. Tucker Abbott, American Seashells: The Marine Mollusca of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of North America. 2nd ed. (New York: Van Nostrand and Reinhold Company, 1974) 222. Hulda Magalhaes, "An Ecological Study of Snails of the Genus Busycon at Beaufort, North Carolina," Ecological Monographs 18, #3 (1948): 377-409 [406]. Cf. Cheryl Claassen and S. Sigmann, "Sourcing Busycon Artifacts of the Eastern United States," American Antiquity, 58, #2 (1993): 333-347.
20 Kozuch, Marine Shells from Mississippian Archaeological Sites, 3, 5. Hale, Marine Shells in Midwestern Archaeological Sites and the Determination of Their Most Probable Source. Jerald T. Milanich, Origins and Prehistoric Distributions of Black Drink and the Ceremonial Shell Drinking Cup, in Black Drink: A Native American Tea, ed. C. M. Hudson (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979) 83-119. Ann I. Ottesen, A Preliminary Study of Acquisition of Exotic Raw Materials by Late Woodland and Mississippian Groups. Ph.D. Thesis, 1979. Department of Anthropology, New York University. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 26-27.
21 "Previous work shows that most artifacts in the Southeast were not made from the largest shells available, horse conch shells. In addition, dextral shells of the same family, and of similar shape and size, were rarely exchanged among Southeast Mississippian sites. Lightning whelk shells were the overwhelming choice for manufacture of artifacts ..." Kozuch, Marine Shells from Mississippian Archaeological Sites, 5, cf. 37, 78 Table 4.4, 80, 95, 136. "Ninety-seven percent (140) of engraved specimens from Spiro were from lightning whelk shells." Kozuch, 84. Eighty-eight percent of columella beads were made from sinistral whelk shells. Kozuch, 88.
22 In Hocąk, the narrow or pointed end is considered to be the top: hisawa (Ai rA w L), "the top part" (Miner), "the top of something" (Marino, "The Dipper"), "the top of something pointed" (Susman), "top point" (Susman), "apex, point" (Dorsey), "the end" (Marino), "the top, pointed or narrow end" (Susman); cf. hisawaíja (Ai rA wy tt), "at the end," where reference is made to what we would call the "head" or "beginning" of the Mississippi, the narrow part of something horizontal ("Traveler and the Thunderbird War," "Trickster Concludes His Mission").
23 This is a table showing the days on which the azimuth of Morning Star puts it slightly to the left of the sun. All measurements are for local sunrise at Tula, Mexico. The first date of the apparition is when Morning Star crosses the horizon while in inferior conjunction; the last date under an apparition is when it is last above the horizon immediately prior to superior conjunction. The first date under an apparition for which an azimuth is given is that on which Venus first appears to the left of the sun. The figure in bold green represents the maximum differential between the sun's azimuth and Venus' azimuth, when the latter is to the left of the sun. A negative number in red indicates a return of Venus to the right of the sun. The dates chosen begin in the Year I (1-Rabbit) of the Toltec calendar.
Apparition |
Date |
Morning Star's Azimuth |
Sun's Azimuth |
Differential |
Days to the Right of the Sun |
Days to the Left of the Sun |
17 Jan. 727 |
Inferior Conjunction |
208
|
||||
13 Aug. 727 |
74° 38' |
74° 47' |
9' |
|||
13 Sept. 727 |
84° 35.095' |
86° 48.479' |
2° 13.384' |
80 |
||
14 Sept. 727 |
85° 0.193' |
87° 13.618' |
2° 13.425' |
|||
15 Sept. 727 |
85° 25.527' |
87° 38.808' |
2° 13.281' |
|||
1 Nov. 727 |
Superior Conjunction |
|||||
Total: |
208 |
80 |
||||
22 Aug. 728 |
Inferior Conjunction |
44
|
||||
5 Oct. 728 |
96° 20' |
96° 22' |
2' |
|||
14 Oct. 728 |
99° 20.031' |
100° 0.519' |
40.488' |
21 |
||
15 Oct 728 |
99° 43.158' |
100° 24.131' |
40.973' |
|||
16 Oct 728 |
100° 6.860' |
100° 47.554' |
40.649' |
|||
25 Oct 728 |
104° 6.444' |
104° 10.113' |
3.669' |
|||
26 Oct 728 |
104° 35.688' |
104° 31.549' |
-4.139' |
229 |
||
12 June 729 |
Superior Conjunction |
|||||
Total: |
273 |
21 |
||||
27 March 730 |
Inferior Conjunction |
147 |
||||
21 Aug. 730 |
77° 41' |
77° 44' |
3' |
|||
22 Sept. 730 |
87° 21.505 |
90° 42.891 |
3° 21.386' |
77 |
||
23 Sept. 730 |
87° 46.777 |
91° 8.246 |
3° 21.469' |
|||
24 Sept. 730 |
88° 12.346' |
91° 33.596 |
3° 21.250 |
|||
6 Nov. 730 |
107° 59.226 |
108° 1.116' |
1.890' |
|||
7 Nov. 730 |
108° 24.139 |
108° 19.336 |
-4.803' |
69 |
||
15 Jan. 731 |
Superior Conjunction |
|||||
Total: |
216 |
77 |
||||
4 Nov. 731 |
Inferior Conjunction |
263 |
||||
24 July 732 |
69° 3' |
69° 4.5' |
1.5' |
|||
17 Aug. 732 |
75° 4.412' |
76° 27.816' |
1° 23.404' |
24 |
||
17 Aug. 732 |
Superior Conjunction |
|||||
Total: | 263 |
24 |
||||
11 June 733 |
Inferior Conjunction |
82 |
||||
1 Sept. 733 |
82° 0' |
82° 6' |
6' |
63 |
||
29 Sept. 733 |
90° 1.263' |
93° 46.677' |
3° 45.414' |
|||
30 Sept. 733 |
90° 26.292' |
94° 11.840 |
3° 45.548' |
|||
1 Oct. 733 |
90° 51.718' |
94° 36.914' |
3° 45.196' |
|||
2 Nov. 733 |
106° 46.342' |
106° 50.267' |
3.925' |
|||
3 Nov. 733 |
107° 17.545' |
107° 9.666' |
-7.879' |
145 |
||
28 March 734 |
Superior Conjunction |
|||||
Total: |
227 |
63 |
||||
It should be emphasized that Morning Star hardly strays much to the left of the sun, not exceeding 3.75° at the very maximum. It spends a total of 1,187 days to the right of the sun, and 264 days slightly to the left.
24 Tenn-Mi-X5 from Marion County, Tennessee, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 481a.
25 W. David Sissom and Rowland M. Shelley, "Report on a Rare Developmental Anomaly in the Scorpion, Centruroides vittatus (Buthidae)," The Journal of Arachnology, 23 (1995): 199-201.
26 For wikiri, see the comment to "The Resurrection of the Chief's Daughter."
27 Jasper Blowsnake (q.v.).
28 The Northern Crown is the constellation Corona Borealis. The raconteur goes on to explain (p. 500) that the five stars in Hercules are called his lodge because in the olden times the Blackfeet used to hold their lodges down with (five) stones. Brings Down the Sun, "Legend of Poïa, the Christ Story of the Blackfeet," in Walter McClintock, The Old North Trail: or, Life, Legends and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1910) 491-500. On the identity of Star Boy (Scarface) with Jupiter, see p. 503. Cora Morris, Mythology: North American (Norwood: Marshall Jones Co., 1924) 106-109. In another version, the mother survives, but violates a taboo which results in the boy's body turning into a puff ball. The boy himself became Polaris ("Fixed Star"). Clark Wissler and D. C. Duvall, "Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians," Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, 2 (1909): 1-164 [58- 61]. Cf. the composite version of this story in Gladys A. Reichard, "Literary Types and Dissemination of Myths," Journal of American Folk-lore, 34, #133 (July - Sept., 1921): 269-307 [297-302].
29 Bear's Arm, "13. Old Woman's Grandson," in Martha Warren Beckwith, Myths and Ceremonies of the Mandan and Hidatsa: Second Series. Publications of the Folk-Lore Foundations, #12 (Poughkeepsie: Vassar College, 1932) 120-121.
30 Bear's Arm, "3. The Sacred Arrow," in Martha Warren Beckwith, Myths and Hunting Stories of the Mandan and Hidatsa Sioux (Publications of the Folk-Lore Foundation, #10 (Poughkeepsie: Vassar College, 1930) 41-42.
31 Alan Dundes (ed.), The Study of Folklore (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965) 450 nt 9. For the Oto, see George Truman Kercheval, "An Otoe and an Omaha Tale," The Journal of American Folklore, 6, #22 (July - Sep., 1893): 199-204 [199-201]. For the Dakota, cp. Michel Renville, "Wićaŋḣpi Hiŋḣpaya; or, The Fallen Star," in Stephen Return Riggs, "Dakota Grammar, Texts, and Ethnology," Contributions to North American Ethnology, 9 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1893): 83-90 (Text), 90-94 (Translation). For the theme generally, see Stith Thompson, "The Star Husband Tale," in Dundes (ed.), The Study of Folklore, 414-474. This is a reprint of Stith Thompson, "The Star Husband Tale," Studia Septentrionalia, 4 (1953): 93-163; published in book form under the same title (Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co., 1953).
Tenn-Mo-Tq26 |
32 The inset photo shows both cobweb halves, the right one is flipped horizontally to facilitate comparisons. From Wilson, The Swastika, post 880 Plate 10. Jefferson Chapman, Tellico Archaeology: 12,000 Years of Native American History. Tennessee Valley Authority, Publications in Anthropology, #41 (Knoxville: TVA, 1985) 92 Fig. 7.19a. This is Tenn-Mo-Tq26 from Burial 8 of Mound A at Toqua, Tennessee, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 48, 214, 485b. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127b Fig. 178. Willoughby, "Notes on the History and Symbolism of the Muskhogeans and the People of Etowah," 58 Fig. 30. The drawing in Willoughby, which is reproduced in Chapman, Tellico Archaeology, 92 Fig. 7.19b (right below the photo), is inaccurate, showing only five wedges where the photo shows six. This error has been replicated in Fundaburk and Foreman, and in Phillips and Brown.
33 A number of webs look as if they have a hole in the middle, although closer examination reveals a few crossing strands. Other webs have a hole simply because they are incomplete. See the well illustrated work by James H. Emerton, The Common Spiders of the United States (Boston, London: Ginn & Company, 1902) 154 seq. The iconographic spider web is counterfactual in a number of ways. It has far fewer strands than normal, and its curving strands are not spiral.
34 Francis La Flesche, The Osage Tribe: Rite of the Chiefs; Sayings of the Ancient Men, Volume 36 of the Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1921) 102 ℓℓ. 8-16, 324 (text), 488 (literal translation) = Bailey, The Osage and the Invisible World, 241 ℓℓ. 8-16; La Flesche, A Dictionary of the Osage Language, 360, "Hóⁿ-ga U-ṭa-noⁿ-dsi Wi-gi-e, The Ritual of the Isolated Hóⁿga." Burns, Osage Indian Customs and Myths, 157-166, mentions that the snare (Hoeka) is a common idea among Siouan peoples.
35 Bear's Arm, "3. The Sacred Arrow," in Martha Warren Beckwith, Mandan and Hidatsa Mythology, Publications of the Folk-Lore Foundation (Poughkeepsie: Vassar College) #10 (1930): 22-52 [41-42].
36 Codex Borbonicus: Bibliothèque de l’Assemblee Nationale, Paris (Y120) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974) Plate 15, cf. Plates 3, 8, 9, 10, 13, 19. Cecelia F. Klein, "The Devil and the Skirt: An Iconographic Inquiry into the Prehispanic Nature of the Tzitzimime," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) 31 (2000): 17–62 [50 nt. 40]. For the spider as a tzitzimitl, see Seler, Collected Works, 5:334a; cf. 1:79b, 6.183a.
37 Codex Borbonicus, Plate 9. The spider is associated with night (moon) and star deities: Mictlantecuhli, Tepeyollotli, Chalciuhtotolin, Tlazoltéotl, Xochiquetzal, Itzpapalotl, and Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli. Seler, Collected Works, 5:334a (see also 5:327 Figs. 954, 955).
38 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 166, s.v. "Tlahuizcalpantecutli."
39 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 154b, s.v. "skybearers."
40 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 156a, s.v. "spider."
41 Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 47. F. Kent Reilly III, "The Petaloid Motif: A Celestial Symbolic Locative in the Shell Art of Spiro," in Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography, edd. F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007) 39-55 [52 Fig. 3.8a]. The inset engraving is from Wilson, The Swastika, 913 Fig. 275.
42 The spider web (tocapeyotl) is used as a shoulder covering of the death god: "tilmatl ó manta Mitlantecutl ó el señor de los muertos." Seler, Collected Works, 5:334a. Spiders are shown in the hair of the death god Tizol. Seler, Collected Works, 3:137b. On one piece of pottery, Tezcatlipoca seems to have been depicted as a spider. Seler, Collected Works, 6:233b (see 6:234 Fig. 165b).
43 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 166b, s.v. "Tlahuizcalpantecutli."
44 Durán, 114-116. Klein,"The Devil and the Skirt," 48 nt. 36.
45 David L. Evans and Justin O. Schmidt, Insect Defenses: Adaptive Mechanisms and Strategies of Prey and Predators (New York: SUNY Press, 1990) 115-116.
46 Rev. Gilbert L. Wilson, "The Iktomi Myth," Collections of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, 1 (1906): 474-475 [475]. Another source says, "I have also asked old men of Crow, Cheyenne, and Blackfoot tribes about arrowheads, and all told me the same thing: Old Man Coyote, Wihio, Napi — the legendary culture heroes, or tricksters — made them." Reginald Laubin and Gladys Laubin, American Indian Archery, Volume 4. Volume 154 of Civilization of the American Indian Series (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991) 118. These tribes generally make arrowheads out of bone.
47 Wilson, "The Iktomi Myth," 475. The reverend goes on to say, "While we were discussing the subject a big Sioux stalked into the shop. Mr. Allen turned toward him. 'Arrow-head — flint — how made?' he asked. The Indian laid the flint in his palm. 'Iktomi, — leetle spider men — so big,' and he indicated a little being some four inches high. ... This story is wide spread among the Teton Dakotas [Lakotas]. It was told me, exactly as above, by a Santee, and to a friend of mine by a Yankton Dakota." Wilson, "The Iktomi Myth," 474-475. The Sioux make the exact same claim that the Hocągara do: the flint arrowheads are not made by them, but are found lying on the ground.
48 Charles Edward Brown, Wigwam Tales (Madison, Wisc.: Charles E. Brown, 1930) 12. See also, Joseph Brown, Teaching Spirits: Understanding Native American Religious Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 58.
49 Paul Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books, 1956) 32-35; see also 20-21. In one story Trickster eats an entire raccoon family. Here consumption may express the internalizing of the nature of what is consumed, as it is almost universally in mythology. Radin, The Trickster, 28-31.
50 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from Spiro, Part 2, Plate 237 (cf. 236). For raccoons associated with what appear to be World Pillars (Cosmic Columns), see Part 2, Plates 136, 137.
51 Charles Edward Brown, Moccasin Tales (Madison, Wisc.: State Historical Museum, 1935) 4-5. Informant: Oliver LaMère of the Bear Clan.
52 Paul Radin, "The Bladder," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook #27: 1-61; "The Morning Star, A Winnebago Legend," collected by Louis L. Meeker (National Anthropological Archives, 1405 Winnebago, A.D.S., Nov. 22, 1896); "The Morning Star," in David Lee Smith, Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) 105-110.
53 The nettle is a natural rubefacient, so being whipped with a bush would lead to red stripes down the back. The stinging nettle was introduced from Europe, but was present prior to the XIXᵀᴴ century, as is attested in a book published in 1801 — Samuel Stearns, The American Herbal; or, Materia Medica (Walpole, New Hampshire: David Carlisle, 1801) 236 ("The juice is called aſtringent, and the leaves a powerful rubefacient."). Parallel, vertical stripes are symbolic of the sun among the Osage, and in Mexico, vertical red stripes are painted on those who are to be sacrificed (most usually to the sun). Bailey, The Osage and the Invisible World, 257, ℓℓ. 40, 47; 259, ℓℓ. 49, 56; Davíd Carrasco, City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000) 156.
54 This may have a Mesoamerican parallel, although I have not been able to confirm this. In a description of an altar of Venus, it is said, "There are two additional flint knives [on the sculpture] that commemorate the sacrifice of Venus, when it was pierced by the Sun with an arrow." Manuel Aguilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life in the Aztec World (New York: Facts on File, 2006) 199b.
55 Paul Radin, "The Bladder," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook #27: 1-60. Charlie N. Houghton, Untitled, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3892 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, ca. 1908) Winnebago III, #11a, Story XXXV: 333-360 (286-313). "The Morning Star, A Winnebago Legend," collected by Louis L. Meeker (National Anthropological Archives, 1405 Winnebago, A.D.S., Nov. 22, 1896); "The Morning Star," in David Lee Smith, Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) 105-110. Kathleen Danker and Felix White, Sr., The Hollow of Echoes (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978) 27-28. Informant: Felix White, Sr. Philip Longtail (Sįcserecka), Buffalo Clan, "Watequka and His Brothers," with interlinear translation by James Owen Dorsey, 4800 Dorsey Papers: Winnebago 3.3.2 (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, October and November, 1893) Story I, 13-14, interlinear, 7-9. Reuben David St. Cyr, with interlinear translation by James Owen Dorsey, 4800 Dorsey Papers: Winnebago 3.3.2 (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, 1886) under "Notes," 9-10. Louis L. Meeker, "Siouan Mythological Tales," Journal of American Folklore, 14 (1901): 161-164.
56 Among the Teleuts of Siberia, "Cosmologically, the World Tree rises at the center of the earth, the place of earth's 'umbilicus,' and its upper branches touch the palace of Bai Ülgän." Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trs. Willard Trask. Volume 76 of Bollingen Series (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964) 270. Here, Evening Star's position is near the Winter Solstice point and near the horizon, as well as being nearly on the equator of the Milky Way. So the star is at the base of the World Tree at the (or a) center of the earth, and therefore can be characterized as being at the omphalos/umbilicus of the Sky Vault.
57 Paul Radin, "Morning Star (Wiragošge Xetera)," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook #8: 1-93 [22].
58 In an 8 year period beginning in 1054, we have the following dates in which Evening Star is found in the Great Rift (at sunset in Cahokia):
Date ES is at the Galactic Equator in the Great Rift |
Apparent Magnitude |
Angular Separation from the Sun |
1054 | - | - |
6 November 1055 | -3.92 | 23° 11' 49" |
1056 | - | - |
14 October 1057 | -4.42 | 45° 22' 21" |
21 November 1058 | -3.91 | 8° 27' 21" |
1059 | - | - |
23 October 1060 | -4.06 | 38° 18' 53" |
In 1058 there may be a question as to whether Evening Star was visible at sunset in that position. These configurations recur at octennial intervals, subject to some drift over time.
59 Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, §35, 111.
60 Sam Blowsnake, Untitled account of the Medicine Rite, in Amelia Susman, Notebooks (Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, January 13-17, 1939) Book 9, 52-79 [65]. The marks refer to a map being drawn on the ground. The long Road is that of the righteous, which means that the other road is not only to the left, but is short; and since it is to the left from the point of view of the sojourning soul, it follows that the soul started its journey somewhere closer to the Gemini (Orion) end of the Milky Way.
61 Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, §99, 273-274; Eliade, Shamanism, 285.
62 Alice C. Fletcher, "Symbolic Earth Formations of the Winnebagoes," Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 32 (1884): 396-397.
63 For the role of the ladder in the ascension to the Above World, see Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, §§32-34, 102-107. For the soul ladder, see Eliade, Shamanism, 283, 285, 487-494.
64 (q.v.) Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Winnebago II, #6: 169-176 [175-176]; for the revised phonetic text (without the commentaries), see Winnebago III, #6: 362.91-372.140. Both a Hocąk text and an English translation are published in Jasper Blowsnake (Thunderbird Clan), "The Journey of the Ghost to Spiritland: As Told in the Medicine Rite," in Paul Radin, The Culture of the Winnebago as Described by Themselves (Baltimore: Special Publications of the Bollingen Foundation, #1, 1949) 66-72. A loose English translation is also given in Paul Radin, The Road of Life and Death: A Ritual Drama of the American Indians. Bollingen Series V (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973 [1945]) 257-264; and in Sam Blowsnake (ed. Paul Radin), Crashing Thunder. The Autobiography of an American Indian (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983 [1926]) 105-110. This story is discussed in Claude Lévi-Strauss, "Four Winnebago Myths," Structural Anthropology, vol. 2, trs. Monique Layton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976) 198-210.
65 Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Winnebago III, #1: 165-166 [165]; for a handwritten phonetic text, see Winnebago II, #1: 184-185. A typed phonetic text is found at Winnebago II, #5: 203-204. A loose English translation is also given in Radin, The Road of Life and Death, 171.
66 Charles E. Brown, Lake Mendota Indian Legends (Madison: State Historical Museum, 1927) 2-3. However, this is based on an earlier article, "Indians Tell How 4 Lakes Got Names," The Wisconsin State Journal, Sunday, July 16, 1922. Brown, Lake Mendota Indian Legends, 3-4; Dorothy Moulding Brown, Wisconsin Indian Place-Name Legends, Wisconsin Folklore Booklets (Madison: 1947) 13-14; a slightly shorter version exists in James D. Butler, "Taychoperah, the Four Lakes Country," Wisconsin Historical Collections, 10 (1885): 64-89 [64-65]. The letters of Rev. William Hamilton, 4800 Dorsey Papers: Chiwere & Winnebago 3.3 [292] (National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, ca. 1885).George Ricehill, [untitled], in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3892 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago III, #11a: 63-64. Cf. Paul Radin, "Short Tales," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago IV, No. 7i, #19, "The Man who Turned into a Fish."
67 Paul Radin, The Evolution of an American Indian Prose Epic. A Study in Comparative Literature, Part I (Basil: Ethnographical Museum, Basil Switzerland, 1954) 80-84.
68 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from Spiro, Part 2, Plates 240-241; cf. 243.
69 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from Spiro, Part 2, Plate 224.
70 "This fire god for his part also has a special relation to the polar region — the 'north and its wheel' — for this was the hole in which the drill rod was inserted, which led the whole firmament in a circle, a cosmic even that has undoubtedly been connected from primeval time with the fire driller or is explained from this — although the Mexican star that bore the special name 'fire driller' (mamalhuaztli) should be sought elsewhere perhaps ... The mythic personification of the polar region, the star god Mixcoatl, however, is the one who always appears in the myths as the fire driller κατ’ ἐξοχήν." Seler, Collected Works, 4:146a.
71 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from Spiro, Part 2, Plates 245, 246, cf. 247.
72 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from Spiro, Part 2, Plates 252, 254, 255, 256.
73 "Reason for Milky Way," in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3862 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago I, #3: 105, 107b.
74 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from Spiro, Part 2, Plate 237 (cf. 236).
75 Phillip Longtail (Sįcserecka), Buffalo Clan, "The Man with Two Heads," text with interlinear translation by James Owen Dorsey, 4800 Dorsey Papers: Winnebago 3.3.2 (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, October and November, 1893) VIII.1-8 [5].
76 Gareth Jones and Jens Rydell, "Attack and Defense: Interactions between Echolocating Bats and Their Insect Prey," in Bat Ecology, ed. Thomas H. Kunz and M. Brock Fenton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006) 301-345.
77 Reilly and Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld," 303.
78 In the Headsman (Ga-Brt-E8) it is the severed head that has this pattern. It is also seen in both of the Mothra Combat scenes, Ga-Brt-E12 and Mo-Py-SM2. A similar pattern is seen in Nahuatl codices in figures associated with the dance: Codex Laud 5, Borgia 59 (the unpainted figure in the bottom panels), 60 (lower left panel), and 62; cf. Féjerváry-Mayer 37. See Bodo Spranz, Los Dioses en los Códices Mexicanos del Grupo Borgia: una Investigación Iconográfica, trs. Marìa Martínez Peñaloza (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1973) 339.
79 He thinks that having two such characters opens the way to seeing each of them as one of the Hero Twins. However, there is no argument as to how the various adventures of the Twins might fit the iconography of these figures. Adam King, "Iconography of the Hightower Region of Eastern Tennessee and Northern Georgia," Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World, 279-293 [282-283].
80 Yoneda, "Glyphs and Messages in the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2, 164 Fig. 7.3b (a warrior); 170 Fig. 7.4 (two priests performing the New Fire ceremony at Chicomoztoc); 173 Fig. 7.5b (four men participating in a white flint ceremony); 174 Fig. 76.e (two men participating in a ritual in honor of Tezcatlipoca (?)).
The "Story Board" of Etowah and Hocąk Mythology.
1 "Grandfather's Two Families," where on p. 87 he addresses the brothers of his second family as "grandsons." This may just be a polite address, and the brothers may only be his step-children. On p. 90, it is said, "The youngest one was the blessed one." This is Morning Star, as we are told in the last sentence of the story, p. 93. Paul Radin, "Morning Star (Wiragocge Xetera)," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook 8: 1-93.
2 Pages 24-28 in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, ca. 1912) Winnebago IV, #9: 2-12 (missing the first two of its typewritten pages, and concluding just before the adventures of the Twins). See "Blue Horn's Nephews" in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, ca. 1912) Notebook 58: 1-104 (missing its ending). The lost ending of this story (pp. 104-107) was found inserted between pp. 107 and 108 of "Coonskin Coat," in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Notebook 59.
3 Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Winnebago V, #2: 1-123 (syllabic text) [23-25]. These are also mentioned again with the added information that the nephews also had such knives, in "The Children of the Sun," in Paul Radin, The Evolution of an American Indian Prose Epic. A Study in Comparative Literature, Part I (Basil: Ethnographical Museum, Basil Switzerland, 1954) 75-80. The original English translation is found in Paul Radin, "Hąpwira Hinįkwahira," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, ca. 1912) Notebook 12, 1-56. The Zuñi Morning Star, called Áchiyalátâp̣a ("Knife Wings"), has wings edged with knives. "A Youth Destroys Áchiyalátâp̣a," in Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian (Norwood: The Plimpton Press, 1907-1930) 17:176-179.
4 Discovered in 1936, and housed in the Frank H. McClung Museum, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (566/1HA3). This is Tenn-Hm-H10, from Burial 58, Hixon Mound, Hamilton County. This almost perfect gorget is reproduced in the following set of sources: Tennessee, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 47-48, 240, 359, 467b; Brose, Brown, and Penney, Ancient Art of the American Woodland Indians,182 Plate 133. T. M. N. Lewis, "Annotations Pertaining to Prehistoric Research in Tennessee," University of Tennessee Record, 40, #6 (1937): 3-28 [23]. Willoughby, "Notes on the History and Symbolism of the Muskhogeans and the People of Etowah," 55 Fig. 27. Madeline Kneberg and A. H. Whitford, "Shell Industry," in The Prehistory of the Chickamauga Basin in Tennessee: A Preview, 1:160-171 [163 Fig. 8.3A]. Madeline Kneberg, "The Tennessee Area," in Archaeology of the Eastern United States, ed. James B. Griffin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952) Fig. 109g. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 48 (a rather poor photograph). Madeline Kneberg, "Engraved Shell Gorgets and Their Associations," Tennessee Archaeologist, 15 (1959): 1-39 [9 Fig. 18]. Antonio J. Waring, Jr., "The Southern Cult and Muskhogean Ceremonial," in The Waring Papers: The Collected Works of Antonio J. Waring, Jr. ed. Stephen Williams. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, #58 (Cambridge: Peabody Museum, 1968) 30-69 [45 Fig. 14]. James H. Howard, The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex and Its Interpretation, Missouri Archaeological Society, Memoir 6 (December, 1968): 42 Fig. 11c. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127b Fig. 178. Reilly and Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld," 300 Fig. 13.1e. Dye, "Art, Ritual, and Chiefly Warfare in the Mississippian World," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South (New Haven: Yale University Press and The Art Institute of Chicago, 2004) 190-205 [194 Fig. 6]. Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 142 Fig. 6.4. Cf. Ga-Brt-E13 from the Pat Wolford collection, found at the east village site, Etowah, Georgia. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 172-173, 419a. There also exists a fragment, Ga-Brt-E219 from Mound C in Etowah, Georgia. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 423a.
Tenn-Je-FI17 (NMNH 62930), from Fain's Island Mound, Tennessee. From Wilson, The Swastika, 885 Fig. 239, taken from William H. Holmes, Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made by the Bureau of Ethnology during the Field Season of 1881. Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-1882 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1884) 427-510 [452 Fig. 128]. William H. Holmes, "Eccentric Figures from Southern Mounds," Science, 3, #62 (April 11, 1884), pp. 436-438 [437b Fig. 2]. George Grant MacCurdy, "Shell Gorgets from Missouri," American Anthropologist, New Series, 15, #3 (July - Sept., 1913): 395-414 [410 Fig. 75]. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 48, 211, 477a; Gates P. Thruston, The Antiquities of Tennessee and the Adjacent States (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1890) post 338 Plate 16.
A rare Spiro example is found in the Craig C style. Okla-Lf-S109 (BMNY), from Spiro, Oklahoma. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 446a.
Here we may mention the "court card" design showing two fighting raptors, Ga-Brt-E22. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 142. These could be an aviform version of the combat between Morning Star and Evening Star. However, it seems rather more likely than not that they represent the conflicting rotation of day and night.
5 Below are photographs of actual artifacts from Tennessee of the sort of weapons shown in the gorgets.
These are taken from Thruston, The Antiquities of Tennessee and the Adjacent States, 218 Plate 11 (hook weapon), 240 Plate 14 (sword). At Etowah we have a number of such swords. In Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets,141 — Ga-Brt-E93, Ga-Brt-E206; 142 — Ga-Brt-E207, Ga-Brt-E208; 159 — Ga-Brt-E183; 161 — Ga-Brt-E178, Ga-Brt-E181; 162 — Ga-Brt-E179, Ga-Brt-E184. The hook weapon resembles in some respects a scimitar knife, its curved shape designed to cut the jugular vein or carotid artery depending on what side of the neck into which the blade is hooked and dragged back. See also the examples in David H. Dye, "Art, Ritual, and Chiefly Warfare in the Mississippian World," 200 Figs. 19 and 20.
6 Dye, "Art, Ritual, and Chiefly Warfare in the Mississippian World," 199 Fig. 18, and most particularly Fig. 17.
7 This is Ga-Brt-E8 (RSPF 62042) from Burial 37 near the base of Mound C at Etowah, Georgia. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 45, 141, 418b. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 30. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127a Fig. 177. Reilly and Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld," 300 Fig. 13.1f. Cf. Tenn-Hm-H5 from Burial 68 at Hixon Mound, Hamilton County, Tennessee, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 239, 467a. Only the left edge is preserved in Okla-Lf-S292 from Spiro Mound. It shows most of the decapitated head, and portrays both the forward foot and hand as raptor podia. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 450a.
This is Ga-Brt-E10 of Burial g at Mound C, Etowah, Georgia. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 135, 419a. Based on drawings in Wilson, The Swastika, 888 Fig. 242, Cat. no. 91443, NMNH, and Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 30. Holmes, "Eccentric Figures from Southern Mounds," 437a Fig. 3. Cyrus Thomas, Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology, Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1890-1891 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1894) 306 Fig. 189. Thruston, The Antiquities of Tennessee and the Adjacent States, 340 Fig. 240. Madeline Kneberg and A. H. Whitford, "Shell Industry," in The Prehistory of the Chickamauga Basin in Tennessee: A Preview, 1:160-171 [163 Fig. 8.3C]. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127a Fig. 177. Cf. Tenn-Bt-T6 of Burial 132 from Talasee, Blount County, Tennessee. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 224, 459a. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127b Fig. 178. Madeline Kneberg, "Engraved Shell Gorgets and Their Associations," Tennessee Archaeologist, 15, #1 (1959): 1-39 [Fig. 19].
Tenn-Mi-X5 from Marion County, Tennessee, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 481a, ultimately from Jon C. Griffin, 1984 (further details not given).
8 "The Children of the Sun," in Paul Radin, The Evolution of an American Indian Prose Epic. A Study in Comparative Literature, Part I (Basil: Ethnographical Museum, Basil Switzerland, 1954) 75-80. The original English translation is found in Paul Radin, "Hąpwira Hinįkwahira," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, ca. 1912) Notebook 12: 1-56.
9 Hakíriregiži, wągoną́gera nąkárawą wagigíreže (q.v.). The word ną-kára-wą means, "to sing one's own song," -kára- being an infix meaning, "one's own"; and nąwą, which means as a verb, "to sing," and as a noun, "song." The original text is in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Notebook 43, 1-62 [6]. Paul Radin, "The Two Friends Who Became Reincarnated: The Origin of the Four Nights Wake," The Culture of the Winnebago as Described by Themselves (Baltimore: Special Publications of the Bollingen Foundation, #1, 1949) 12-46. Informant: John Rave (Bear Clan). This story is discussed in Claude Lévi-Strauss, "Four Winnebago Myths," Structural Anthropology, vol. 2, trs. Monique Layton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976) 198-210.
10 Thomas, Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology, 19, 298, 302.
⬅ Ga-Brt-E17, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 134. Wilson, The Swastika, 887 Fig. 241, NMNH 91117 (111). Design on a copper repoussé plate. Thomas, Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology, 305, Plate XVII post 304. This is from grave a of Mound C (Thomas, 302-303). Frank Hamilton Cushing, Preliminary Report on the Explorations of Ancient Key-Dwellers' Remains on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, 35, #153 (1896) post 100 Plate 35-3. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 110. Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, cover, 157 Fig. 11.
⬅ Ga-Brt-E16, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 134. Wilson, The Swastika, 886 Fig. 240, NMNH 91113. Design on a copper repoussé plate. Thomas, Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology, 304 Fig. 186, 305. This is from grave a of Mound C (Thomas, 302-303).
11 William H. Holmes, "Eccentric Figures from Southern Mounds," Science, 3, #62 (April 11, 1884): 436-438 [438].
12Adam King and F. Kent Reilly III, "Raptor Imagery at Etowah: The Raptor is the Path to Power," Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World, 314.
13 Garrick Bailey, The Osage and the Invisible World: From the Works of Francis La Flesche (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995) 256-257 (ℓℓ. 26, 31, 65, 72). For their identity with the pileated woodpecker, see 257, ℓℓ. 58-79. As to the sex of each phase of Venus, the following table represents some of what is known among other tribes.
Tribe | Morning Star | Evening Star |
Hocągara | male | male |
Osage | male | female |
Assiniboine | male | male |
Crow | male | ? |
Mandan | female | female |
Caddo | male | male (?)* |
Wichita | male | ? |
Ojibwe | female | ? |
Blackfoot | male | ? |
Passamaquoddy | male | ? |
Iroquois | female | ? |
Tsimshian | female | ? |
Chilcotin | female | ? |
Tewa | male | female |
Tohono O’odham | female | ? |
Pomo | female | female |
Chumash | ? | male ? |
Yuki | female | ? |
Polar Inuit | male | male |
Most of these are taken from Miller, Stars of the First People, 72-73, 85, 93, 108-109, 122-123, 133, 168-171, 209-214, 262-265, 280-281, 285-304. Assiniboine — Jerome Fourstar, "How the Morning and Evening Stars Came to Be," in How the Morning and Evening Stars Came to Be and Other Assiniboine Indian Stories (Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2003) 1-23. Ojibwe — Mary Catherine Judd, Wigwam Stories Told by North American Indians (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1904) 168-170. *Caddo — Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion, 1098, where the Evening Star was described as someone's "sister." Erika Greene pointed out to me (pc 26 March 2019) that Dorsey has a story in which the Evening Star is unambiguously male: George A. Dorsey, Traditions of the Caddo (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997 [1905]) 26-27. In all of the above cases, we should note that many informants refer to stars other than Venus when using such terms as "evening star" or "morning star."
14 B. S. Bowdish, "The Wonders of a Bird's Bill," American Homes and Gardens, 3 (July, 1906): 36.
15 John James Audubon, The Birds of America, from Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories (New York: G. R. Lockwood, 1870) 231.
16 George E. Lankford, Looking for Lost Lore (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008) Chapter 7, 139-162, with special reference to 154, #2.
17 Wing, "17. The Brothers Who Became Lightning and Thunder," in George A. Dorsey, Traditions of the Caddo (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997 [1905]) 31-36 [35]. George E. Lankford, Native American Legends. Southeastern Legends: Tales from the Natchez, Caddo, Biloxi, Chickasaw, and Other Nations. American Folklore Series (Little Rock: August House, 1987) 169. James R. Duncan and Carol Diaz-Granados, "Of Masks and Myths," Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 25, #1 (Spring, 2000): 1-26 [10].
18 Hocąk Teaching Materials, edd. Johannes Helmbrecht and Christian Lehmann, 2 vols. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010) 1:171b, s.v. rezi nąną́p. I have not been able to find this expression in the literature, but rezínąną́p meaning "to blaze" is found in Miner.
19 Thomas Foster, Foster's Indian Record and Historical Data (Washington, D. C.: 1876-1877) vol. 1, #2: p. 3, col. 3.
20 Polly Schaafsma, Ed Krupp, Susan Milbrath, Mike Mathiowetz, and Robert L. Hall, White Paper: The Role of Venus in the Cosmologies of Mesoamerica, West Mexico, the American Southwest, and Southeast. Paper #: 11-02-007 (Santa Fe: Santa Fe Institute, Feb. 21, 2011) 13.
21 (q.v., 1, 2). "The Morning Star, A Winnebago Legend," collected by Louis L. Meeker (National Anthropological Archives, 1405 Winnebago, A.D.S., Nov. 22, 1896) 8; Louis L. Meeker, Siouan Mythological Tales, Journal of American Folklore, 14 (1901): 161-164; "The Morning Star," in David Lee Smith, Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) 105-110.
22 Apparently Morning Star's and Evening Star's association with the wind is natural. The Ojibwe say that Morning Star was a woman who was blown into the sky. Stansbury Hagar, "Sun, Moon, and Stars (American)," in the Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, edd. James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, and Louis Herbert Gray (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1922) 65-71 [12:69a].
23 This is described in "Grandfather's Two Families" (q.v.). For the Pawnee, their female Evening Star is a goddess of storms. She is in charge of four stellar deities known as "Wind," "Clouds," "Lightning," and "Thunder." Woman Cleanse the People, "9. The Origin of the Basket Dice Game," in George A. Dorsey, The Pawnee Mythology (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997 [1906]) 45. In Greek mythology it is said, "This king [Hesperus], having once climbed to the peak of Mount Atlas, was suddenly snatched away by mighty winds while he was making his observations of the stars, and never was seen again; and because of the virtuous life he had lived and their pity for his sad fate the multitudes accorded to him immortal honours and called the brightest of the stars of heaven after him." Diodorus Siculus, 3:60. Hesperus is Evening Star, who is also associated with wind in Hocąk mythology.
24 (q.v.). Paul Radin, "The Man's Head," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook #51: 1-61 [58-59] (English only); Winnebago V, #13: 1-21, 26-61 [58-59], and Winnebago V, #10: 22-25. The last citation was from what had been an unidentified syllabic text which proved to be the missing pages to Winnebago V, #13.
25 From 1874-1890, in a much cited study, Richard Alexander Hess monitored lightning strikes in the forest of Lippe-Detmold in Germany, and derived the following results:
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William Rogers Fisher, Manual of Forestry: Forest Protection, Volume 4 of Manual of Forestry, Sir William Schlich, William Rogers Fisher, Richard Alexander Hess, Karl Gaye (London: Bradbury, Agnew & Co., 1907) 661-664, citing [Richard Alexander] Hess, in Zeitschrift fur Forst- und Jagdwesen. Very similar results were obtained in the United States, and published in a pamphlet by Arthur Judson Henry, "Loss of Life and Property by Lightning," in Lightning and Electricity of Air; in 2 Parts, Weather Bureau Bulletin, #26 (Part II), Weather Bureau Document #197 (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Weather Bureau, 1899) 45-74 [64-69], some of the results of which were reprinted in "Correspondence and Notes: Loss of Life and of Property by Lightning," Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 25 (1899) 273-274. The idea that the oak has the religious prominence that it does, was first suggested by Gilbert Thomas Burnett (1800-1835): "It is not improbable, says Professor Burnet, that the liability of the oak to be struck by lightning may have led to the dedication of that tree to the god of thunder." John Claudius Loudon, Arboretum Et Fruticetum Britannicum: Or, The Trees and Shrubs of Britain, Native and Foreign, Hardy and Half-hardy, Pictorially and Botanically Delineated, and Scientifically and Popularly Described; with Their Propagation, Culture, Management, and Uses in the Arts, in Useful and Ornamental Plantations, and in Landscape Gardening; Preceded by a Historical and Geographical Outline of the Trees and Shrubs of Temperate Climates Throughout the World (Printed for the author, 1838) 3: 1812. This view is also expressed by Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, trs. James Steven Stallybrass (London: George Bell & Sons, 1882) 1: 172, 4: 1341; followed by William Warde Fowler, "The Oak and the Thunder God," Roman Essays and Interpretations (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1920) 37-41; Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (London: Macmillan and Co., limited, 1913) 11: 298-300; Gregory Nagy, Greek Mythology and Poetics (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1992) 195-196.
26 (q.v.). Meeker, "The Morning Star, A Winnebago Legend," 8. Cf. Meeker, Siouan Mythological Tales, 161-164.
27 However, the Crow say that the Morning Star (of Venus) can appear as an eagle. A Crow woman named "Debra" says,
That Morning Star turns itself into an eagle and then this star helps a person when they go out fasting. This star would turn into an eagle and then he would help him when he fights. I know of one man that this Morning Star helped. When this man was a warrior this star would come down as an eagle, it comes down they say. This one man, when he's in a battle that star comes as an eagle and gives him powers to fight.
McCleary, The Stars We Know, 35.
28 (q.v.). Untitled Clan Myth (Hocąk-English Interlinear) in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3881 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1908) Winnebago V, #8: 36-41. A loose translation is published in Paul Radin, The Winnebago Tribe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990 [1923]) 170-172.
29 Julia Ellen Rogers, The Shell Book: A Popular Guide to a Knowledge of the Families of Living Mollusks, and an Aid to the Identification of Shells Native and Foreign (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1913) 66.
29.1 Clark Wissler, "The Whirlwind and the Elk in the Mythology of the Dakota," 259. Clark Wissler, Some Protective Designs of the Dakota. Volume 1, Part 2 of Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History (New York: Published by order of the Trustees, 1907) 47-48. "This bird has a large dark spot on the throat, which is said to represent the moon and to be further evidence of the sacred character of the bird." Wissler, 48.
30 See the discussion in Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 160-161.
31 See Riggs, A Dakota-English Dictionary, 514a s.v. wa-kiŋ´-yaŋ.
32 Mary Catherine Judd, Wigwam Stories Told by North American Indians (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1904) 241-243.
33 This is from Craig Mound, Spiro, M.A.I. Cat. no. 18/9112, incised on what appears to be a Lightning Welk. Edwin Kenneth Burnett, "The Spiro Mound Collection in the Museum," Contributions from the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 14 (1945): 1-47 [explanation on pp. 24-25 Plates 29-30, photo and drawing in Plates 29-30 post p. 68]. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 203 (cp. Part 1, 48-49, 128 [with a Huaxtec parallel]). Compare this Birdman to Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from Spiro, Part 2, Plate 208.1A.
34 "Blue Horn's Nephews," in Paul Radin, The Evolution of an American Indian Prose Epic. A Study in Comparative Literature, Part I (Basil: Ethnographical Museum, Basil Switzerland, 1954) 80-84. Apparently the story was obtained by Sam Blowsnake of the Thunderbird Clan from an anonymous older member of the tribe ca. 1912 (Ibid., 21). Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, ca. 1912) Winnebago IV, #9: 2-12 (missing the first two of its typewritten pages, and concluding just before the adventures of the Twins). The present citation comes from p. 75 of "Blue Horn's Nephews" in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, ca. 1912) Notebook 58: 1-104 (missing its ending). The lost ending of this story (pp. 104-107) was found inserted between pp. 107 and 108 of "Coonskin Coat," in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Notebook 59.
35 The Micmacs also say that Evening Star is the chief of the stars. Stansbury Hagar, "Sun, Moon, and Stars (American)," in the Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, edd. James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, and Louis Herbert Gray (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1922) 65-71 [12:69a].
36 George Lankford, "The Great Serpent in Eastern North America," in Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography, edd. F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007) 107-135.
37 Henry W. Hamilton, "The Spiro Mound," Missouri Archaeologist, 14 (1952): 235, plate 111. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 229. The barred rectangles are use the reconstruction of Phillips and Brown.
38 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 228. Discussed at Part 1, p. 141. "The two cups are at the same time extraordinarily alike and extraordinarily different. Nevertheless, the case for common authorship is stated with considerable assurance." Part 2, Plate 229.
39 Thomas Foster, Foster's Indian Record and Historical Data (Washington, D. C.: 1876-1877) vol. 1, #2, p. 3, col. 2.
40 (q.v.). Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 194. Informant: a member of the Waterspirit Clan.
41 (q.v.) Sam Blowsnake, Waretcáwera, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3897 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, ca. 1912) Winnebago V, #11: 223-251 [239]. An English translation is found in "The Twins," in Paul Radin, The Evolution of an American Indian Prose Epic. A Study in Comparative Literature, Part I (Basil: Ethnographical Museum, Basil Switzerland, 1954) 95-97. Informant: Sam Blowsnake of the Thunderbird Clan, ca. 1912.
42 See the Commentaries to "Morning Star and His Friend," "The Big Stone," "How the Thunders Met the Nights," and "The Dipper."
43 (q.v.). Paul Radin, "The Blue Man," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook 55; Paul Radin, (untitled), Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3858 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago IV, #5: 4-16.
44 (q.v.). "The Epic of the Twins, Part One," in Paul Radin, The Evolution of an American Indian Prose Epic. A Study in Comparative Literature, Part I (Basil: Ethnographical Museum, Basil Switzerland, 1954) 24-41. The original text is in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Winnebago V, #2: 1-38 (English translation), 1-123 (syllabic text) [23].
45 There have been 52 known sightings of this bird, and in those places in Wisconsin where they have not been seen, "may reflect the paucity of observers more than the absence of birds." Samuel D. Robbins, Wisconsin Birdlife: Population & Distribution Past & Present (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991) 227-228. The illustration of the Gyrfalcon is from Charles Barney Cory, The Birds of Illinois and Wisconsin. Volume 9 of the Zoological Series of the Field Columbian Museum (Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1909) 476.
46 Based on the photo and drawing in Reilly and Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld," 304 Fig. 13.3b-c. This is Ga-Brt-E50 of Burial 179 in Mound C, Etowah, Georgia. This gorget is "unique thematically and in being engraved on the convex side [of the shell]." Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 46; see also 146, 421a. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127a Fig. 177.
47 Reilly and Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld," 305-309, and 304 Fig. 13.3b.
48 The term "Waterspirit," like "Thunderbird," does not reflect the Hocąk terminology. Wakcéxi means "Difficult One," since they often fluctuate in devious ways between good and evil.
The problem with using the "Underwater Panther" designation is that Waterspirits come in a multitude of types. Serpentine forms are common enough. They tend, like Greek river spirits, to have a human face and a set of horns, with an elongated body or tail. The latter feature is best captured in a snake's body, since the tail represents the long, narrow, sinuous course of rivers and streams, and of the springs that feed lakes. See "Waterspirits."
49 Reilly and Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld," 306-307 Figs. 13.4 and 13.5.
50 George
A. Dorsey, The Arapaho Sun Dance: The Ceremony of the Offerings Lodge. Field
Museum Anthropological Series (Chicago: the Museum: 1903) 5:224-225.
51 Gladys A. Reichard, "Literary Types and Dissemination of Myths," 298.
52 Reichard, "Literary Types and Dissemination of Myths," 299-300.
53 Robert Harry Lowie, The Assiniboine, Volume 4, Part 1 of Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History (New York: The Trustees, 1910) 176.
54 Phillip Longtail (Sįcserecka), Buffalo Clan, "The Man with Two Heads," text with interlinear translation by James Owen Dorsey, 4800 Dorsey Papers: Winnebago 3.3.2 (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, October and November, 1893) VIII.1-8.
55 That skulls can sometimes be locatives for the Beneath World, see F. Kent Reilly III, "The Great Serpent in the Lower Mississippi Valley," in Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World, 129.
56 Nancy Oestreich Lurie and Patrick J. Jung, The Nicolet Corrigenda. New France Revisited. (Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, 2009) 106.
Mothra.
1 Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 136-151.
2 This is Ga-Brt-E12 (EMM 1577) from Burial 137, Mound C, Etowah, Georgia. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 45, 145, 419a. Philip Phillips and James A. Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings: From the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma, Part 1 (Cambridge: Peabody Museum Press, 1978) 127a Fig. 177. David S. Brose, James A. Brown, and David W. Penney, Ancient Art of the American Woodland Indians (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985) 186 Plate 134. Reilly and Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld," 300 Fig. 13.1a. Cf. Ga-Brt-E11 of Burial 27, east side of Mound C, Etowah, Georgia. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 45, 151-152, 419a. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127a Fig. 177. Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 138 Fig. 6.2. Adam King, "Power and the Sacred," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 150-165 [160 Fig. 17e]. Tenn-Mo-Tq28 probably from Burial 18 in Toqua Mound ("Big Toco"), Tennessee. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 214, 486a. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 127b Fig. 178. Ga-Brt-E216 (RSPF 61425) from Mound C, Etowah, Georgia, Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 423b.
This is Mo-Py-SM2 of Saint Mary's assemblage in Perry County, Missouri. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 46, 275. MacCurdy, "Shell Gorgets from Missouri," 412 Fig. 77. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 50. Of essentially the same design, see the slightly more damaged Ga-Brt-E139 from Burial 223 in Mound C at Etowah, Georgia. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 147, 422a.
Ala-Tu-M2, of Moundville, Alabama. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 380. Clarence Bloomfield Moore, "Certain Aboriginal Remains of the Black Warrior River," Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 13 (1905): 125-244 [134 Fig. 5; cf. 133 Fig. 4.]. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 94 above. Vincas P. Steponaitis and Vernon J. Knight, "Moundville Art in Historical and Social Context," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 166-181 [174 Fig. 13]. Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 137 Fig. 6.1.
3 Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 139.
4 Compare the patterns seen at Spiro in Braden B style, Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, Plate 97 (cf. Plate 98).
5 Ala-Tu-M6, found in Mound C, Moundville, Alabama. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 303-304. Moore,
"Certain Aboriginal Remains of the Black Warrior River," 144 Fig. 15 (inset). Vincas P. Steponaitis, Ceramics, Chronology, and Community Patterns: An Archaeological Study at Moundville (New York: Academic Press, 1983) 235. Cf. essentially the same design on the ceramic bottle Bud Medley Place, Bayou Maçon, Chicot County, Arkansas in the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma (5425.2559). Brose, Brown, and Penney, Ancient Art of the American Woodland Indians, 121 Plate 81. Philip Phillips, "Archaeological Survey in the Lower Yazoo Basin, Mississippi, 1949-1955," Papers of the Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, #60 (Cambridge: Peabody Museum, 1970) 141-144. Steponaitis, Ceramics, Chronology, and Community Patterns, 337. Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 149 Fig. 6.11. There is another bottle that has the proboscis design on it: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma (cat. no. 230), from Scott County, Arkansas. Steponaitis and Knight, "Moundville Art in Historical and Social Context," 172 Fig. 9.
6 "Since it is also our belief that the elite figural art of these two major Mississippian centers, Etowah and Moundville, focuses on the supernatural, otherworldly, and archetypal as opposed to the factual or historical, we conclude that this is not an ordinary butterfly or moth but a prominent supernatural." Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 139.
7 "The great Butterfly belongs to the Isolated Earth clan. The name used in the wí-gi-e, Dsin-thá ton-ga, is an archaic name and not that in ordinary use. The common name is Dsi-ón-dsi-on." Bailey, The Osage and the Invisible World, 88. Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 148.
8 Bailey, The Osage and the Invisible World, 86.
9 Bailey, The Osage and the Invisible World, 210, ℓℓ. 35-41.
10 Mary Catherine Judd, Wigwam Stories Told by North American Indians (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1904) 242-243.
11 W. J. Holland and Steven Daniel, The Field Guide to Butterflies (New York: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2004) 13. Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 139.
12 Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, 623.
13 Leyenda de los Soles, 80:17-80:28.
14 Leyenda de los Soles, 79:34-80:5 in Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs: the Codex Chimalpopoca, 151-152.
15 Record Number: E-044, Inventory Number: 10-215232; Jorge R. Acosta Museum storeroom, Tula archaeological zone. Period 2-B (2561, 497.T). From El Corral, Building 1. It was found in the rubble of the "Open Patio" associated with ceramic material from the Tollan phase, as well as burials and offerings. Originally covered with stucco with red pigment applied only to the center of the deity. Esperanza Elizabeth Jiménez García, Sculptural-Iconographic Catalogue of Tula, Hidalgo: The Stone Figures (FAMSI, 2010) 60 Photo 40. The gray area is a rectangular depression carved out of the center of the deity's depiction.
16 Altar of Itzpapalotl (Obsidian Butterfly), Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City. Aguilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, 199-200 Fig. 8.29. Beutelspacher, Las mariposas entre los antiguos Mexicanos, 50 Fig. 93.
17 The following is the caption given to this carving in Beutelspacher, Las mariposas entre los antiguos Mexicanos, 49 Fig. 91 —
Itzpapalotl, drawing taken from the "Keystone of a Tomb, Teotenango, Mexico," was originally identified as a "true vulture with the body and wings of a butterfly," but we are confident that this is Itzpapalotl by the wings, the circles (star signs) that are presented in the wings and thorax, the presence of claws, and of course the head of coscacuauhtli or "true vulture" which show from various sources a close relationship with Itzpapalotl, and according to Beyer, "the buzzard (king vulture) is also the animal of the goddess Itzpapalotl." On the other hand, there was an order of Teotenango Matlalzinca warriors called precisely Coszcacuauhtli.
Teotenango was a city located at the southern end of the Valley of Toluca in the central highlands of Mexico. The city was once called Cozcuauhtenanco ("Walled Place of the Vultures") because it was defended by this military order of Matlalzinca warriors. For Itzpapalotl's connection to vultures, see above.
18 John Bierhorst, A Nahuatl-English Dictionary and Concordance to the Cantares Mexicanos: With an Analytic Transcription and Grammatical Notes (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1985) 95 s.v. cōzcatl; 101 s.v. cuāuhtli.
19 Reilly and Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld," 299. "Dances with Mothra" is the name given by them to what is here called the "Mothra Combat."
20 "The vulture has a bald head and is thus a symbol of old age, of long life, of the infirmities and prerogatives of the aged. Of those who were born under this sign it was said that they would attain an advanced age and that they would behave themselves like old people, readily imparting advice, and gather around themselves disciples and followers, etc." Seler, Collected Works, 1:130.
21 After serving the Sun for four years, the warriors then, "... changed into precious birds, ... chalky butterflies, feather down butterflies, gourd bowl butterflies; they sucked honey there where they dwelt. And here upon the earth they came to suck from the various flowers." Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, Florentine Codex: Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, General History of the Things of New Spain, 2nd ed., revised (Santa Fe, 1950-1982) 6:49. Seler, Collected Works, 3:102, 4:9, 5:39. Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 48a, s.v. "butterfly." The butterfly as the soul of a dead warrior may have also extended back to Teotihuacan. Annabeth Headrick, "Butterfly War at Teotihuacan," in M. Kathryn Brown, and Travis W. Stanton, Ancient Mesoamerican Warfare (Lanham, MD: Rowman Altamira, 2003) 149-170.
22 "When the baby arrived on earth, then the midwife shouted; she gave war cries, which meant that the little woman had fought a good battle, had become a brave warrior, had taken captive, had captured a baby." Sahagún, General History of the Things of New Spain, 6:167.
The Bilobed Arrow.
1 For the bilobed arrow and the bilobed plume, see Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 86-87.
2 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 86-87, 86 Fig. 104, 148a s.v.
3 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 86-87, 87 Fig. 105, 148a s.v.
4 Carol Diaz-Granados, "Marking Stone, Land, Body, and Spirit," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 146 Fig. 15.
5 The panel continues on in what is called the "Giant Panel," in which a large figure is featured, but to his lower left we can see the head of another person which is of the same size as the "giant's." Do the smaller figures represent the Heroka (or their preforms), and the larger ones men of normal size? We'll probably never know, since the archaeologists have kept almost all of the 300 or more pictures of Picture Cave a secret. Carol Diaz-Granados, "Marking Stone, Land, Body, and Spirit," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 147 Fig. 17.
6 John Rave, "A Wakjonkaga Myth," in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook #37: 1-70.
7 "Deer Clan Origin Myth," in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3899 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago III, #19a: 1-13.
8 Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 201.
9 The material on the Deer Clan and centrality comes from Radin, 198-201; and "Deer Clan Origin Myth," 1-13. See the Deer Clan Origin Myth.
10 Carol Diaz-Granados, "Marking Stone, Land, Body, and Spirit," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 148, Fig. 20.
11 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 148-151.
12 Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles, 115, 117.
13 Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles, 117.
14 This is stated in the story "The Fleetfooted Man" (q.v.): "There a Hočąk village was. To a great warrior was born a baby boy. It was very good. He grew larger, and when he was old enough to eat, whenever his father could, he would feed him only deer lungs. He wanted him to be able to run fast, that is why he did it." Jigi Hocųk’ cínoknǫkšgúni. Wągwášoše xetéra hocįcį́nįgią gicoínegi. P’įxjį. Xetéhi nąúje, hahí warújenįk gip’į́giži caraxúrašana rúcgigis’áže. Sagerékjege wágiúnąkše. James St Cyr, "Fleetfoot," in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook #19, Story II: 18.
15 Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles, 116.
16 Ni, "to live" is given by Dorsey, and "breath, life" by Marino. Under nį, Marino has "alive, breath; to breathe"; and "to give birth to."
17 Jimm Goodtracks, Báxoje-Jiwére-Ñú’achi Ich’e Wawagaxe — Ioway-Oto-Missouria Dictionary, 2a, s.v. ñí; 11b, ss.vv., ní, ni-haⁿ.
18 Francis La
Flesche, A Dictionary of the Osage Language, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of
American Ethnology, Bulletin 109 (Washington, D. C.: United States Printing
Office, 1932) 230 s.v. "alive," and 290 s.v. "to live."
19 La
Flesche, A Dictionary of the Osage Language, 109 s.v. ni-óⁿ, 237, s.v. "breath (the)."
20 Stephen R. Riggs, A
Dakota-English Dictionary (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992
[1890]) 342a, s.v. ni-yá.
21 Riggs, A Dakota-English Dictionary, 340b, s.v. ni.
22 As the Great (cąk) Voice (ho), the Hocągara see themselves as this center.
23 Robert
L. Hall, An
Archaeology of the Soul: North American Indian Belief and Ritual (Urbana
& Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997) 99a and Fig. 12.2c.
24 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 100b.
25 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 99a and Fig. 12.2a-b.
26 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 55b.
27 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 55, especially Fig. 7.2.
28 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 55b Fig. 7.2a.
29 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 50b.
30 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 55a.
31 Alice C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe, 2 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press: 1992 [1911]) 397. See Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 52a, and 51 Fig. 7.1.
Morning Star and the Bilobed Plume.
1 John Harrison, The Giant or The Morning Star, translated by Oliver LaMère, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3892 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago III, #11a, Story 8: 92-117 [96-97].
2 Mary Catherine Judd, Wigwam Stories Told by North American Indians (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1904) 243.
3 At Spiro there exists a head (among a collection of others) that has a prosopic maskette and a bilobed plume. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part I, Plate 17. This could be a warrior who is in the livery established by Redhorn, but wearing the bilobed plume in honor of Morning Star (as one might if he had received a blessing from him).
4 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 50-51.
The pipe-wand used by the Omaha. James Owen Dorsey, Omaha Sociology. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology. Third Annual Report, 1881-82 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1884) 205-370 [277 Fig. 20].
5 Goodtracks, Báxoje-Jiwére-Ñú’achi Ich’e Wawagaxe — Ioway-Oto-Missouria Dictionary, English "W" 3 s.v. "water"; La Flesche, A Dictionary of the Osage Language, 354a s.v. "water," 105 s.v. ni; Riggs, A Dakota-English Dictionary, 340 s.v. ni-dé (sacred language), 314 s.v. mí-ni. However, cf. Mandan, mini. George Francis Will and Herbert Joseph Spinden, The Mandans: A Study of Their Culture, Archaeology and Language, Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University (Cambridge: The Museum, 1906) 219 s.v. "water"; Hidatsa, midi. Washington Matthews, Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians. Department of the Interior, United States Geological and Geographical Survey, Miscellaneous Publications, #7 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1877) 238 s.v. "water"; Crow, bilí. George Reed, Dictionary of the Crow Language. Thesis. 1975. M. S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dept. of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics, 40 s.v. bilí. Ofo, áni. James Owen Dorsey and John Reed Swanton, A Dictionary of the Biloxi and Ofo Languages: Accompanied with Thirty-One Biloxi Texts and Numerous Biloxi Phrases, Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 47 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1912) 339 s.v. áni; Biloxi, ani. Dorsey and Swanton, A Dictionary of the Biloxi and Ofo Languages, 317 s.v. ani.
6 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 52b-54b.
7Alice C. Fletcher, The "Wawan," or Pipe Dance of the Omahas. Sixteenth Report (1882) of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1887) 308-333 [310-311]. Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 50b.
8 Dorsey, Omaha Sociology, 279. Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 50b.
9 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 54a.
10 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 54b.
11 Robert L. Hall, "The Cultural Background of Mississippian Symbolism," in The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Artifacts and Analysis. The Cottonlandia Conference. Ed. Patricia Galloway (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989) 239-278 [253].
12 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 54b.
13 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 55b.
14 "Grandmother's Gifts," (q.v.). Paul Radin, The Road of Life and Death: A Ritual Drama of the American Indians. Bollingen Series V (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973 [1945]) 323-324; the original text is in Jasper Blowsnake, Untitled, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3876 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Library, n.d.) Winnebago II, #7: 253-256. Cf., The Medicine Rite Origin Myth. Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 302-311. Original texts can be found at: Thomas Clay and James Smith, The Foundation Myth of the Winnebago Medicine Rite, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago II, #4: 1-123 (interlinear phonetic text), Winnebago I, #7a: 203-287 (phonetic only), Winnebago III, #5: 1-55 (phonetic only), and Winnebago III, #18: 697-812 (interlinear phonetic text).
15 That this analogy holds is confirmed in the use of waruc xópini, "spirit food," to denote tobacco (q.v.). Untitled, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3876 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Library, n.d.) Winnebago II, #7: 254; an English translation exists in Paul Radin, The Road of Life and Death: A Ritual Drama of the American Indians. Bollingen Series V (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973 [1945]) 323-324.
16 The several variants of the myth of the duel between Morning Star and Evening Star begin when the two doppelgängers confront one another around the hearth fire. Here they turn the *Hųka rite on its head. Instead of the pipe being unlit and used as a wand to effect the rebirth of an adoptee, two combatants who are already family — indeed, twin brothers — light up their pipes and attempt to kill each other in a singular way. Like the Mexican Quetzalcoatl in his form as Ehécatl, these Hocąk deities are both gods of the wind, so by drawing hard on their pipes, they attempt to suck their opponent into the fire (the place of solar conjunction). In most versions, Morning Star wins, sucking Evening Star into the fire, at which point Morning Star decapitates him and runs away with his head. However, in a version where Evening Star wins, Morning Star is buried under the fireplace, and Evening Star goes off. In the second part of this myth, Evening Star confronts a character called "Cricket," who has stolen his wife and sister. This is the duel replayed. Morning Star's (external) heart is contained in a nest of five white swan feathers, recalling not only the white feathers of the adoption rites, but the water bird of the arrow-pipe. Five is the number of apparitions that Morning Star repeats every eight years. Evening Star lets Turtle rake his claws over Cricket's external heart. The turtle claw is used by the Hocągara in place of the flint arrowhead, so Morning Star is destroyed by the arrowhead, the complement of the feather of the bilobed plume found in the bilobed arrow. Cricket then disintegrates into a hoard of crickets. It is the loss of the green things of earth that the crickets mourn every year. If Cricket is Morning Star, it would demonstrate that the Hocąk Morning Star once was viewed as owning the green things of the earth, the most important of which is maize.
1 Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles, §11, p. 132.
2 The Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 2:56-3:4, in Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs: the Codex Chimalpopoca, 26-27.
3 Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs: the Codex Chimalpopoca, 189; and Leyenda de los Soles, 78:30.
4 Leyenda de los Soles, 78:30-79:15. See also, Eduard Seler, Collected Works in Mesoamerican Linguistics and Archaeology (English Translations of German Papers from Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur Amerikanischen Sprach- und Alterthumskunde), translated by Charles P. Bowditch & Frank E. Comparato; J. Eric S. Thompson and Francis B. Richardson, edd., 2d ed. (Lancaster, California: Labyrinthos, 1996) 5:51b.
5 Museum of the American Indian, Cat. no. 20/699. Edwin Kenneth Burnett, "The Spiro Mound Collection in the Museum," Contributions from the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 14 (1945): 1-47 [explanation on p. 39 Plate 75, photo and drawing in Plate 75 post p. 68].
6 Eduard Seler, "Venus Period in the Picture Writings of the Borgian Codex Group," Mexican and Central American Antiquities, Calendar Systems, and History, ed. Charles P. Bowditch. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 28 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904) 355-391 [369, fig. 96f].
7 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 91a Fig. 117, 190b Fig. 247. Robert J. Salzer and Grace Rajnovich, The Gottschall Rockshelter: An Archaeological Mystery (St. Paul: Prairie Smoke Press, 2001) 63 Fig. 49.
8 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 91a Fig. 117, Plate 21a.
9 Eduard Seler, "Venus Period in the Picture Writings of the Borgian Codex Group," Mexican and Central American Antiquities, Calendar Systems, and History, ed. Charles P. Bowditch. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 28 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904) 355-391 [369, Fig. 96f].
10 Diego Durán, The History of the Indies of New Spain, trs. Doris Heyden (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994) 143. In a note (143 nt. 2), Heyden says that the tlacacaliztli was also practiced by "the Huaxtecs and other indigenous groups."
11 (q.v.). Paul Radin, "Redhorn's Nephews," Notebooks, Freeman #3860 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1908-1913) Winnebago IV, #7a: 1-16 [10-11].
12 However, the figure of Turtle does seem to appear in a pipe bowl carving that originated in Cahokia. This figure is nicknamed "Turtleman." In his carving he is portrayed as standing over a captive whose arms are tied behind his back. He is drawing a curved knife over the victim's eyes, apparently part of the process of ritual torture, or perhaps symbolizing a connection between war and blindness. On the Hocąk model, the Warleader is suppose to have foreseen the warpath in divinely inspired visions bestowed by sympathetic spirits, so if he is defeated, he is proven to have been "blind." David H. Dye, "Art, Ritual, and Chiefly Warfare in the Mississippian World," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 199 Fig. 16a-b. Brown, "The Culture Signature of the Braden Art Style," 56-57.
§3. REVOLUTION FROM ABOVE
The Theological Mystery of Cahokia and Etowah.
The Crab Nebula | |
Hubble Telescope, NASA |
1 Supernovas of having a pleurion pulsar as a remnant occur about once in 450 years. K. S. Dwarakanath and G. Srinivasan, "How Often are Remnants like the Crab Nebula Born?" in Supernovae, their Progenitors and Remnants, edd. G. Srinivasan and V. Radhakrishnan (Bangalore: Indian Academy of Sciences, 1985) 97-103 [102].
2 F. Richard Stephenson and David A. Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002) 100-149. The Crab Nebula was discovered by John Bevis in 1731. John Bevis, Uranographia Britannica, or exact view of the heavens (1745). Simon Mitton, The Crab Nebula (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978) 30. Paul Murdin and Lesley Murdin, Supernovae. 2d edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) 51-52. Named the "Crab Nebula" by William Parsons, the Third Earl of Rosse, "Observations on some of the Nebulae," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 134 (1844): 321-23. Murdin & Murdin, Supernovae, 52-55. In 1928, Hubble showed its relationship to the Crab Nebula: "The Crab Nebula, Messier No. 1 ... is expanding rapidly and at such a rate that it must have required about 900 years to reach its present dimensions. For, in the ancient accounts of the celestial phenomena only one nova has been recorded in the region of the Crab Nebula. This account is found in the Chinese annals, the position fits as closely as it can be read, and the year was 1054!" Edwin Hubble, "Novae or Temporary Stars," Astronomical Society of the Pacific Leaflets, 1, #14 (January, 1928): 55-58 [58]. It was Jan Oort who effectively made the case for this identity. Jan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak and Jan Hendrik Oort, "The 'Guest-Star' of 1054," T’oung Pao, Second Series, 36, #2 (1941): 174-180 [180]. Ganesan Srinivasan, "Neutron Stars," in Stellar Remnants, Volume 25 of the Advanced Course of the Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy, ed. G. Meynet & Daniel Schaerer. (Berlin: Springer, 1997) 108. Murdin & Murdin, Supernovae, 64.
3 Timothy R. Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, "Star Performances and Cosmic Clutter," Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 18, #01 (2008): 78-85 [80-81]. Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi, 19-24, 111, 149, 169.
4 This should be "north-west." Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 100-149. The guest star is depicted on a planesphere carved in stone in 1247 at Suzhou. It ultimately traces back to a chart made in ca. 1100. Murdin & Murdin, Supernovae, 66a.
5 The original text is found in the Sung Shih (Treatise on Astronomy, Paragraph on "guest-stars") ch. 56, p. 25a (Po-na ed.). Duyvendak and Oort, "The 'Guest-Star' of 1054," 174. Murdin & Murdin, Supernovae, 4. The translation given in Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, §8.2.1 118: "First year of the Zhihe reign period, fifth lunar month, (day) yichou [2]. A guest star appeared (chu) to the south-east of Tianguan, possibly several inches away (ke shu cun). During the third lunar month of the first year of the Jiayou reign period, it then vanished (mo)." This last sentence was "a footnote to this text, written by a later commentator ...".
6 Chapter 52 of the Song Huiyao Jigao. This is a newer translation. Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, §8.2.1 120. Cf. the older translation from Duyvendak and Oort, "The 'Guest-Star' of 1054," 176: "[This star became invisible during the period of Chia-yu.] Originally this star had become visible in the 5th moon of the 1st year of the period Chih-ho (June 9th - July 7th 1054) in the eastern heavens, in T'ien-kuan (ζ Tauri); it was visible by day, like Venus; pointed rays shot out from it on all sides; the colour was reddish-white. Altogether it was visible [in daylight] for 23 days."
7 An older translation renders this as, "of the period Ten-ki and thereafter ...". Duyvendak and Oort, "The 'Guest-Star' of 1054," 177-178. This makes an enormous difference, since it suggests that the star appeared in the middle 10-day period and continued on for some unspecified time. The new translation, on the other hand, leads to a very odd statement, namely that the guest star appeared after the middle 10-day period. So why would they not have simply said, "It appeared in the last 10-day period"?
8 Fujiwara Sadaie (1162-1241), Mei Getsuki (ed. of Kokusho-Kankokai, vol. 3, p. 253), quoted in Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, §8.2.3 126, but I've restored the Japanese terminology from the translation in Aidan Breen and Daniel McCarthy, "A Re-evaluation of the Eastern and Western Records of the Supernova of 1054," Vistas in Astronomy, 39 (1995): 363-379 [372]. The original text is from Duyvendak and Oort, "The 'Guest-Star' of 1054," 177-178, who offer a different translation:
In the middle ten-day period of the 4th [5th] moon of the 2nd year of the period Ten-ki (i. e. May 20th-29th 1054) and thereafter, between 1-3 a. m., a "guest-star" appeared in the orbit of Orion; it was visible in the eastern heavens. It shone like a comet (?) in T’ien-kuan (ζ Tauri), and was as large as Jupiter.
The word "Comet" does not occur in the translation used by Stephenson and Davis. Duyvendak and Oort, "The 'Guest-Star' of 1054," 178 nt 5, also wish to emend this word. "The Tz’u-hai distinguishes between po and sui , the ordinary word for comet. It says that a po has short rays, shooting out on all sides (); this definition is very similar to what is said of the light of the guest-star in the text of the Sung Hui Yao. A sui is said to have long rays." Stephenson and Davis render the word as bo, and have it translated as "emerged." "We have rendered the term bo (which in a non-astronomical sense is used to describe the 'shooting up of plants') as 'emerged'. Instead, Ho Peng Yoke et al. have suggested that two separate objects were described in the Meigetsuki: a guest star 'in the degree of Zui(xi) and Shen' and a comet (boxing) at Tianguan. However, in the text, bo is not qualified by the noun xing (i.e. 'star'). In addition, Chinese records make no mention of any comet around this time, only the guest star itself." (§8.2.3 126).
9 "This text claims that the "guest-star" appeared in the 4th moon, instead of in the 5th as reported by the other texts. This however is impossible, for, as Professor J. H. Oort tells me, at that time the sun was approximately in conjunction with this star, so that it must have been invisible. The 4th moon must therefore be an error for the '5th moon'; as happens so easily in chronological records, the notice has been shifted to a wrong moon." Duyvendak and Oort, "The 'Guest-Star' of 1054," 178. Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 100-149. Starry Night Pro Plus 6, set at Kyoto, shows that the Crab Nebula was in conjunction with the sun on 29 May 1054.
10 The dates for Cahokia are a day earlier than those of Asia. The longitude of Kyoto is 135.75° E, and that of Cahokia is 90.20° W, for a difference of 134.45°. This is a time difference of +8:58, so 0300 at Kyoto is 1158 hours at Cahokia. So given the time of day, SN 1054 would have been invisible on the day in which it was discovered in Japan. This table shows the relevant data.
Kyoto | June 29 | June 30 | July 1 | July 2 | July 3 | July 4 | July 5 | July 6 | July 7 | July 8 |
Rise of SN 1054 | 0241 | 0237 | 0233 | 0229 | 0225 | 0221 | 0217 | 0213 | 0209 | 0205 |
Altitude at 0300 Hrs. | 2° 52.5' | 3° 37' | 4° 21.7' | 5° 6.5' | 5° 51.7' | 6° 36.9' | 7° 22.3' | 8° 7.8' | 8° 53.6' | 9° 39.3' |
Altitude at Sunrise | 23° 32.6' | 24° 26.4' | 25° 20.6' | 26° 15.0' | 27° 9.6' | 28° 4.8' | 28° 39.2' | 29° 55.4' | 30° 50.0' | 31° 47.0' |
Sunrise | 0445 | 0445 | 0446 | 0446 | 0447 | 0447 | 0448 | 0449 | 0449 | 0450 |
Δt in Sky before Sunrise | 2:04 | 2:08 | 2:13 | 2:17 | 2:22 | 2:26 | 2:31 | 2:36 | 2:40 | 2:45 |
11 Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, §8.5 135. However, there appears to be a discrepancy in the time at which the sighting was made. At Kaifeng it was seen at daybreak, but in Japan it was seen sometime between the hours of 0100 and 0300. However, since on 28 June M1 rose at 0245, it couldn't have been earlier than that. On 4 July, the spot of M1 rose at 0221 hours. Kaifeng is 1:34 earlier than Kyoto, so if it was seen at 0300 at Kyoto, then we would calculate that it could have been seen between 1126 hours on 3 July and 0126 hours on 4 July at Kaifeng, well before daybreak. However, on July 4, the spot of M1 rose at 0147 hours, so if we estimate daybreak to have occurred at 0330 hours, this would have been a period of 1:43. So either the Japanese time record is also in error, or they discovered the guest star (slightly) earlier, or the Chinese simply missed seeing it before daybreak on 4 July. It's a big sky, and it would be surprising it if was instantly seen by either set of astronomers.
12 The Japanese source can specify the time of night that it was seen, but it can't tell us exactly what day. This itself is a serious anomaly. This time of night is also well in advance of the 4 July sighting of the Chinese, who cite "daybreak" (see the previous footnote). This can be deduced from the fact that Kaifeng is about an hour and a half earlier in time (calculated by longitude) than Kyoto. At this point, one begins to think that the astronomers at Kyoto may have missed the observation, perhaps because of clouds. Not long after, it will have became impossible not to notice it. If they failed to observe the star's initial appearance, we must suppose that reports began to filter in that it had been sighted by non-astronomers in the wee hours of the morning on various dates prior to Kyoto's first sighting. Since they were being supported by the Emperor, they would have wished to avoid embarrassment by making a report lacking the specificity that might be contradicted by other observers. However, since they had to rely (ex hypothesi) on various reports not in complete agreement, and presented sometime after the fact, they ended up being surprisingly vague, and as to time, slightly inaccurate. As a corollary it might be useful for them to say that initially it was not that big — the size of Jupiter — an excuse, perhaps, for not finding it earlier.
13 The -3.5 value is given by Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, §8.8 143. This was the value originally calculated by Nicholas Ulrich Mayall and Jan Hendrik Oort, "Further Data Bearing on the Identification of the Crab Nebula with the Supernova of 1054 A.D. Part II. The Astronomical Aspects," Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 54, #318 (April, 1942): 95-104 [98], but promptly corrected to -5, which led them to say, "it appears that the 1054 nova may have been one of the brightest supernovae on record" (p. 99). However, when the records of SN 1054 are compared to those of SN 1006, they are rather unenthusiastic, suggesting that the brightness was not seen as overwhelming. Nevertheless, the record of Song Huiyao Jigao led Breen and McCarthy to accept something in the order of -5 magnitude: "A point source such as a supernova with such intensity as -5 magnitude would consequently appear to randomly emit short rays in all directions, as is clearly suggested by [the text] ... We see therefore that the description of the guest star given in [the text] is fully in accord with what we should expect of a very bright point source near ζ Tauri rising in early July." Breen and McCarthy, "A Re-evaluation of the Eastern and Western Records of the Supernova of 1054," 373.
14 Annals of the Sung shih, ch. 12, p. 10b, quoted in Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, §8.2.1 123. Duyvendak's translation is, "On the day hsin-wei (of the 3rd moon of the 1st year of the period Chia-yu, i.e. April 17th 1056) the Chief of the Astronomical Bureau reported that from the 5th moon of the 1st year of the period Chih-ho (June 9th-July 7th 1054) a guest-star had appeared in the morning in the eastern heavens, remaining in T’ien-kuan (ζ Tauri), which only now had become invisible." Quoted in Jan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak and Jan Hendrik Oort, "The 'Guest-Star' of 1054," T’oung Pao, Second Series, 36, #2 (1941): 174-180 [175]. Nicholas U. Mayall, "The Story of the Crab Nebula," Science, n.s. 137, #3524 (July 13, 1962): 91-102 [94a].
15 Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, §8.2.1 121.
16 Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, §8.2.1 118.
17 The following table shows Julian Days with decimal places to represent hours. This system represents midnight as half-way through a Julian day (n.5), and ignores the International Date Line, which astronomy programs extrapolate into the past. In the present essay, the Julian date is used non-fractionally, and changes locally at midnight as well as over the International Date Line. As can be seen, the established convention is essentially useless if one wants to define a Julian day as running from midnight to midnight.
Place | Kaifeng | Kyoto | Guadalcanal | Samoa | Hawaii | San Francisco | Cahokia |
Longitude | 114.35° E | 135.75° E | 160.05° E | 170.72° W | 157.92° W | 122.38° W | 90.20° W |
Julian Day | 2106215.65 | 2106215.71 | 2106215.75 | 2106215.83 | 2106215.87 | 2106215.97 | 2106216.06 |
Equivalent Time | 0330 hours | 0456 hours | 0603 hours | 0800 hours | 0851 hours | 1113 hours | 1322 hours |
Date, Greenwich, 1201-1200 |
4 July 1054 | 5 July | |||||
Date, IDL, 0001-0000 |
4 July 1054 | 3 July |
The post-contact dates used in the New World are based on Spanish time. The Caso correlation, which has worked properly in the investigation of the astronomical origins of calendar names, would be thrown off in some cases by two days if Greenwich is the dateline and noon-to-noon marks the change of day.
18 Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, §8.2.1 121.
19 Duyvendak and Oort, "The 'Guest-Star' of 1054," 176.
20 Murdin & Murdin, Supernovae, 8-9.
21 For SN 1006, see the discussion in Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 150-174. Its remnant is obscure and is designated "G327‧6+14‧6." Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 171-174.
22 SN 1006 was near the star κ Centauri. On 30 April 1006
at 0005 hours, κ Centauri had a maximum altitude of 13° 57.245', and declination at the time of -37° 40.870'. Starry Night Pro Plus 6, set at St. Louis (Cahokia).
23 Murdin & Murdin, Supernovae, 15 Table 1.
24 Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 151-152.
25 Some were of the opinion that it would bring war, famine, and dislocation. Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 151.
26 "When the star first appeared, people who were versed in divination said many times that it was auspicious. Although there were grounds for believing this, the Emperor did not accept it. Not until the Superintendent Astronomer and the Hanlin Academicians repeatedly reported it did the Emperor listen to them. The officials congratulated the Emperor." The Song Huiyao Jigao, chapter 52. Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 152.
27 "A Chinese observer noted in the Sung Shih that it 'cast shadows.' Another Chinese source says that 'it shone so brightly that objects could be seen by its light.' This all indicates that it was much brighter than Venus." Murdin and Murdin, Supernovae, 15b. The star was visible for at least two years (Murdin and Murdin, Supernovae, 16b), perhaps three. Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 156.
28 Iba Yasuaki, quoted in Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 150. "It was like Mars, and it was bright and scintillating." Mei Getsuki, which also dated the supernova to 1 May 1006, in agreement with Chinese sources. Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 156.
29 ‘Alī ibn Riḍwān (of Egypt), Commentary on the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy. Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 163.
30 Eutychius, (Coptic) Patriarch of Alexandria, quoted by Yaḥyā ibn Sa‘īd al-Anṭākī, Patriarch of Antioch, in his Continuation of the Annales. Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 165.
31 From a Yemeni chronicler quoted by Stephenson & Green, Historical Supernovae and their Remnants, 166.
32 Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi, 19.
33 Brown, "On the Identity of the Birdman within Mississippian Period Art and Iconography," 56-105. Reilly, "The Petaloid Motif: A Celestial Symbolic Locative in the Shell Art of Spiro," 39-55. James A. Brown, "The Cahokian Expression: Creating Court and Cult," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 104-123 [104, 114, 118-119]. F. Kent Reilly III, "People of Earth, People of Sky: Visualizing the Sacred in Native American Art of the Mississippian Period," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 124-137 [125, 126, 132, 133, 135, 136]. Carol Diaz-Granados, "Marking Stone, Land, Body, and Spirit: Rock Art and Mississippian Iconography," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 138-149 [143-144, 147-148]. Adam King, "Power and the Sacred: Mound C and the Etowah Chiefdom," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 150-165 [156, 158]. James A. Brown, "The Regional Cultural Signature of the Braden Art Style," in Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World, 37-63. Reilly and Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld," 294-312.
34 The Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 7:37-42.
35 The table shows that on 10 June, the right ascension differential and angular separation were at their minimum values.
Star | 9 June 1055 = 3-Reed of 5-Reed 20-Izcalli (I) |
10 June 1055 = 4-Jaguar of 5-Reed 1-Cuauhuitlehua (II) |
11 June 1055 = 5-Eagle of 5-Reed 2-Cuauhuitlehua (II) |
||||||
Right Asc. | Angular Sep. | Sunrise | Right Asc. | Angular Sep. | Sunrise | Right Asc. | Angular Sep. | Sunrise | |
Venus | 5h 28.915m | 1° 35' 10" | 04:33:05 | 4h 37.452m | 1° 00' 55" | 04:33:06 | 4h 42.647m | 1° 35' 30" | 04:33:09 |
SN 1054 | 4h 38.190m | 4h 38.190m | 4h 38.190m |
We should also note the fact (as seen in the video) that Morning Star also came into right ascension conjunction with Saturn (angular separation of 0° 41' 18") along the way (on 20 April 1055 = 5-House of 4-Rabbit). Starry Night Pro Plus 6, set at Tula.
36 This table shows the eclipse of 10 July 1052.
The Partial Eclipse of the Sun on 10 July 1051 Day 3-House of Year 1-Reed (10-Tlacaxipehualiztli) |
Location | Cahokia | Eclipse Magnitude & Obscuration |
Latitude | 38.6539° N | |
Longitude | 90.0644° W | |
Altitude | 163 m | |
Time Zone | 06:00 W | |
Calendar Date (Julian) | 10 July 1051 a. D. | |
Calendar Date (Tonalpohualli) | 3-House of 1-Reed | |
Calendar Date (Xiuhpohualli) | 10-Tlacaxipehualiztli (III) | |
Eclipse Type | Partial | |
Sunrise | 04:45:52 | |
Partial Eclipse Begins | 11:04:54 | |
Sun Altitude | 69 | |
Maximum Eclipse | 12:43:33 | |
Sun Altitude | 71 | |
Sun Azimuth | 209 | |
Partial Eclipse Ends | 14:17:13 | |
Sun Altitude | 57 | |
Eclipse Magnitude | 0.98 | |
Eclipse Obscuration | 0.973 |
Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak and Chris O'Byrne (NASA's GSFC) | Eclipse Magnitude - © 2006-2008 Jürgen Giesen - www.GeoAstro.de |
37 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 173, s.v. trecena, #19.
38 Charles Phillips, The Mythology of the Aztec and Maya, David M. Jones, consultant (London: Anness Publishing, 2006) 19.
39 Munroe S. Edmonson, The Book of Counsel: The Popol Vuh of the Quiche Maya of Guatemala. Middle American Research Institute, publication 35 (New Orleans: Tulane University Press, 1971) 11-12.
40 Susan Milbrath, Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999) 266.
41 For the creation myth, see Popol Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life, trs. Dennis Tedlock. Revised Edition (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996 [1985]) 63-73.
42 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 164, s.v. "Tezcatlipoca."
43 Juan de Torquemada, Monarquía indiana, 3 vols. (Mexico City: Editorial Leyenda, 1969) 2:79; Gerónimo de Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica indiana. 4 vols. (Mexico City: Editorial Salvador Chávez Hayhoe, 1945) 1:88; Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Fifth Sun: Aztec Gods, Aztec World (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983) 95.
44 The second anniversary date was 4 July 1056, which is
4-Lizard of the solar day 6-Tlacaxipehualiztli [III] in the year 6-Flint on the Aztec calendar. The Hyades Intrusion of 14 June 1056 was 10-Lizard of the solar day 6-Cuauhuitlehua [II] in the year 6-Flint. The date 6-Cuauhuitlehua is separated from 6-Tlacaxipehualiztli by a vigesimal "month" (veintena) of 20 days.
45 Nothing of interest is recorded for 4-Rabbit (1054), nor for 6-Flint (1056). However, the second octennial of 1064 (1-Flint) was the traditional year during which Tula, the capital of the Toltecs, was abandoned. The Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 10:5-11:4. It is not clear what effect the collapse of the Toltecs had on the nascent Mississippian civilizations, nor on the hypothetical expatriate Toltec community at Cahokia. It is possible that this date was selected because One Flint is the calendar name of Mixcoatl-Camaxtli, the national god of most Nahua tribes. Some confirmation is seen in the fact that in 1-Flint of 1272, a man named Totepeuh became ruler of Cuitlahuac, founding a new dynasty. The Annals of Cuauhtitlan,18:20-18:21. Totepeuh is an alternate name for Mixcoatl, since a man of that name is said in the same source to have been the father of Quetzalcoatl (who is Morning Star). The Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 3:55.
46 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 173, s.v. trecena, #20. This trecena is also presided over by Iztapaltotec. This god is very obscure, but Fray Ríos is able to tell us,
Iztapaltotec properly signifies, a large stone, or the surface of the earth, or the bloody stone of the afflicted, or placed within a razor, which is the same as a sword or fear. They represented in this manner this god with his mouth open, "ad deglutiendum hominess." He presided over these thirteen signs. They considered it fortunate to be born on the first sign of Rabbit, and that those who were born on that sign would enjoy long life, and that he who was born on Five Herbs (Grass) would be a rich merchant.
John Pohl's MESOAMERICA. Ríos' comments are found in Codex Rios 39. On the next page, Ríos says of Xiuhtecuhtli, "The corresponding figure represents the God of Fire, who purifies the earth and renovates things; and accordingly they place him last of all."
47 The trecenas proceed in the following order: Cayman, Jaguar, Deer, Flower, Reed, Death, Rain, Grass, Snake, Flint, Monkey, Lizard, Motion, Dog, House, Vulture, Water, Wind, Eagle, Rabbit.
48 King and Reilly, "Raptor Imagery at Etowah: The Raptor is the Path to Power," 314. Reilly and Garber, "Dancing in the Otherworld," 296.
49 King, "Iconography of the Hightower Region of Eastern Tennessee and Northern Georgia," 288-290.
50 Alexandre Guy Pingré, Cosmetographie, ou Traité historique et théorique des comètes (Paris: de l’Imprimerie royale, 1783) 1:372, 1:623. John Williams, Observations of Comets from 611 b.c. to a.d. 1640, Extracted from the Chinese Annals (London: the Author, 1871]) 57 #248. Ho Peng Yoke, "Ancient and Mediaeval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese Sources," Vistas in Astronomy 5 (1962): 127-225 [184]. Gary W. Kronk, Cometography: A Catalog of Comets, Volume 1, Ancient-1799 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 1:174-175.
51 ʻIzz-ad-Dīn Abu-'l-Ḥasan ʻAlī Ibn-al-At̲īr, al-Kamil fi'l-Ta'rikh (1233) in Chronicon quod perfectissimum inscribitur: Ad fidem codd. Berol., musei Brit. et Paris. Ed. Carl Johan Tornberg. 14 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1851-1876 [1867]) IX:632. The Japanese text gives the same value. Dai Nihon shi (1715). Yoke, "Ancient and Mediaeval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese Sources," 184.
52 Ibn-al-At̲īr, al-Kamil fi'l-Ta'rikh. Dai Nihon shi. The Chinese Sung shih (1345) reported that it was "over 10°" in length. Yoke, "Ancient and Mediaeval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese Sources," 184. Kronk, Cometography: A Catalog of Comets, 1:175.
53 Ibn-al-At̲īr, al-Kamil fi'l-Ta'rikh. Sung shih. Dai Nihon shi. Yoke, "Ancient and Mediaeval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese Sources," 184. Kronk, Cometography: A Catalog of Comets, 1:175.
54 Sung shih in Yoke, "Ancient and Mediaeval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese Sources," 184. Kronk, Cometography: A Catalog of Comets, 1:175.
55 Ibn-al-At̲īr, al-Kamil fi'l-Ta'rikh in Yoke, "Ancient and Mediaeval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese Sources," 184. Kronk, Cometography: A Catalog of Comets, 1:175.
56 Sung shih and Dai Nihon shi in Yoke, "Ancient and Mediaeval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese Sources," 184. Kronk, Cometography: A Catalog of Comets, 1:175.
57 Sung shih and Dai Nihon shi in Yoke, "Ancient and Mediaeval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese Sources," 184. Kronk, Cometography: A Catalog of Comets, 1:175.
58 Kronk, Cometography: A Catalog of Comets, 1:175.
59 The table below shows the Mexican dates for the period during which the comet was in the sky. The dates are given in American time. The year is 6-Flint.
Julian Date | 9/6 | 9/7 | 9/8 | 9/9 | 9/10 | 9/11 | 9/12 | 9/13 | 9/14 | 9/15 | 9/16 | |
Aztec Date | Day | 3-Rabbit | 4-Water | 5-Dog | 6-Monkey | 7-Grass | 8-Reed | 9-Jaguar | 10-Eagle | 11-Vulture | 12-Motion | 13-Flint |
Trecena | Death |
Julian Date | 9/17 | 9/18 | 9/19 | 9/20 | 9/21 | 9/22 | 9/23 | 9/24 | 9/25 | 9/26 | |
Aztec Date | Day | 1-Rain | 2-Flower | 3-Cayman | 4-Wind | 5-House | 6-Lizard | 7-Snake | 8-Death | 9-Deer | 10-Rabbit |
Trecena | Rain |
60 Sam Blowsnake, Waretcáwera, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, ca. 1908) Winnebago V, #11: 49, note at the top of the page.
61 Paul Radin, "Wears White Feather on His Head," Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Notebook #4: 1-50 [39-42].
62 In "Įcorúšika and His Brothers" (q.v.), it is said that Įcorúšika (= Redman, Redhorn) is the brightest of three stars that are bunched together. This shows that Redhorn is a fixed star and not a planet.
63 An angular separation of 1° 2' 31" (3.0 positional angle) between Mars and ε Tauri was measured at sunrise (06:11:58 hours) from Etowah Mounds for 29 August 1059. Another sample date of 26 August 1501, 06:12:02 hours, showed an angular separation of 1° 9' 20" (positional angle of 355.7°). The following are among the dates when Mars underwent retrograde motion near the Hyades: 1059, 1091, 1106, 1170, 1186, 1203, 1250, 1264, 1296, 1375, 1390, 1423, 1469, 1502, 1549, 1581, 1596, 1628, 1660, 1674, 1707, 1739, 1754, 1832, 1864, 1912. What counts as "near" is an arbitrary judgment on my part, and it is possible that some dates were missed. Starry Night Pro Plus 6 software was used for reconstructions and measurements. The green line represents the ecliptic.
64 The illustration above (from Starry Night Pro Plus 6 software) shows Evening Star (Venus) opposite the Hyades whose brightest star, Aldebaran, is labeled. The green line is the ecliptic. The hook-shaped star cluster below Venus is the Pleiades. Evening Star is always found somewhere to the right of the ecliptic line.
65 The table below shows some of the dates (not systematically selected) on which Evening Star aligned roughly with ε Tauri at sunset (under the heading "Opposite the Hyades"). The column entitled "Ecliptic Retrograde" shows in which constellation the Evening Star was when it began to reverse its course on the ecliptic and return to the sun. The date was determined by its greatest ecliptic longitude as measured at sunset from Tula, Mexico. "Eʰ" represents the Evening Star cycle measured from its heliacal rise to its heliacal setting.
Cycle | Opposite the Hyades |
Ecliptic Retrograde |
Greatest Ecliptic Longitude |
Date |
Eʰ I | 30 Mar 1051 | Leo | 139° 27.445' | 8 July 1051 |
30 Mar 1059 | Leo | 137° 16.492' | 5 July 1059 | |
29 Mar 1067 | Leo | 135° 5.221' | 3 July 1067 | |
28 Mar 1083 | Leo | 130° 44.853' | 28 June 1083 | |
14 Apr 1347 | Hyades | 59° 53.233' | 13 Apr 1347 | |
not in Hyades | Pleiades | 51° 12.650' | 3 Apr 1379 | |
Eʰ II | not in Hyades | Pisces | 2° 20.048' | 15 Feb 1053 |
not in Hyades | Pisces | 0° 3.327' | 12 Feb 1061 | |
not in Hyades | Pisces | 336° 48.139' | 20 Jan 1141 | |
not in Hyades | Capricorn | 315° 12.043' | 29 Dec 1212 | |
Eʰ III | 12 Apr 1054 | Libra | 210° 6.143' | 18 Sep 1054 |
12 Apr 1062 | Libra | 207° 43.076' | 16 Sep 1062 | |
11 Apr 1070 | Virgo | 205° 19.415' | 13 Sep 1070 | |
10 Apr 1086 | Virgo | 200° 35.042' | 8 Sep 1086 | |
23 Apr 1590 | Hyades | 62° 9.169' | 23 Apr 1590 | |
not in Hyades | Pleiades | 6° 3.083' | 16 Apr 1614 | |
Eʰ IV |
25 Mar 1056 | Taurus | 70° 31.046' | 25 Apr 1056 |
27 Mar 1064 | Taurus | 68° 22.102' | 23 Apr 1064 | |
27 Mar 1088 | Taurus | 61° 55.012' | 16 Apr 1088 | |
7 Apr 1112 | Hyades | 55° 27.257' | 9 Apr 1112 | |
not in Hyades | Pleiades | 48° 57.127' | 2 Apr 1136 | |
Eʰ V | 26 Apr 1057 | Sagittarius | 286° 7.325' | 2 Dec 1057 |
26 Apr 1065 | Sagittarius | 283° 37.316' | 30 Nov 1065 | |
24 Apr 1081 | Sagittarius | 278° 38.744' | 25 Nov 1081 | |
18 Apr 1201 | Scorpius | 241° 18.916' | 18 Oct 1201 | |
As can be seen, the retrograde point drifts down the ecliptic counter-sunwise until the planet achieves conjunction. The retrograde point drifts by the Hyades and on to the Pleiades while remaining on the opposite side of the ecliptic line. In Eʰ V, the retrograde point is too far away from the Hyades to reach them, and in Eʰ II, the planet never makes it to the Hyades before reentering conjunction with the sun.
66 Both the Delaware and the Osage call Morning Star, "The Red Star." Dorcas S. Miller, Stars of the First People: Native American Star Myths and Constellations (Boulder: Pruett Publishing Co., 1997) 56 (Delaware), 263 (Osage). In keeping with the same principle, the Fox call the Evening Star Maskuigwawa, "Red-eyed." William Jones, Ethnography of the Fox Indians, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 125 (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1939) 21. The Pawnee Big Star, which they describe as red, is probably the Morning Star (of Venus). Hall, Archaeology of the Soul, 87. Like the Hocągara, the Seminole refer to Evening Star as "the Red Star." Miller, Stars of the First People, 280. The Yucatec Maya refer to Venus as Chak ek, "Great/Red Star," the term chak meaning both "red" and "great." J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya History and Religion (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970) 252. Milbrath, Star Gods of the Maya, 201. Hall, Archaeology of the Soul, 87b.
Attribute Transference: Morning Star, Itzpapalotl, and Mothra.
1 Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 141-142, and 143 Fig. 6.5.
2 Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 150-151.
The Douglass Gorget Mo-NM-X3 |
3 Fla-Le-Lj46 shows a Birdman figure whose nose looks rather like a lepidopteran proboscis. B. Calvin Jones, "Southern Cult Manifestations at the Lake Jackson Site, Leon County, Florida: Salvage Excavation of Mound 3," Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 7 (1982): 3-44 [30-31 Figs. 6a, 6b]. Brown, "On the Identity of the Birdman within Mississippian Period Art and Iconography," 79 Fig. 4.2a. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 363. The Douglass gorget, Mo-NM-X3, shown above, has no avian traits, but shares the odd proboscis with the Florida exemplar. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 53, 438a, from Thruston, The Antiquities of Tennessee and the Adjacent States, 346 Plate XVII. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 177a Fig. 230. Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 150 Fig. 6.12. Duncan and Diaz-Granados, "Of Masks and Myths," 17 (and Fig. 10), assert that the figure is that of the wild Twin. His Florida counterpart is clearly a Birdman, however. The long lepidopteran proboscis was not included in the table of transferred attributes because there seem to be no examples of it in the iconography of Itzpapalotl.
4 Moth form — see the discussion of the itzpapalotl moth above. Beutelspacher, Las mariposas entre los antiguos Mexicanos, 43-51.
Wings — Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 18v, Codex Rios, 29 (27v).
Spots on wings — Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 18v, Codex Rios, 29 (27v). The itzpapalotl moth (q.v.) has spots on its wings.
Segmented abdomen — this is a feature of the the itzpapalotl moth itself (q.v.), as well as several fictionalized versions of the moth — cp. Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 18v, Codex Rios, 29 (27v), and the monolith at Teotenago, Beutelspacher, Las mariposas entre los antiguos Mexicanos, 49 Fig. 91.
Bat form —
Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya,100a s.v. Itzpapalotl. Beutelspacher, Las mariposas entre los antiguos Mexicanos, 45 Fig. 84 (shown with a bat's head in a stone carving near Tenochtitlan).
Eagle form — see the painting of the broken tree of Tamoanchan with Itzpapalotl in eagle form below. Her eagle form is portrayed on the Mitla wall murals, Seler, Collected Works, 5:54 Fig. 65. See also the eagle-headed, butterfly Itzpapalotl shown in Beutelspacher, Las mariposas entre los antiguos Mexicanos, 49 Fig. 91.
Eagle wings — Codex Borbonicus, 15.
Eagle tail feathers — Codex Borbonicus, 15.
Eagle podia for feet and hands — Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 18v, Codex Rios, 29 (27v), Codex Borbonicus, 15.
Tridactyly — Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 18v, Codex Rios, 29 (27v).
Deer antlers — see the double-headed female stag painted at Mitla, which is otherwise identified with Itzpapalotl in literary sources. Seler, Collected Works, 5:54 Fig. 66. See the next entry as well.
Somatic duality (double head) — The alternate story to that of the slaying and burning of Itzpapalotl has her descend as a two-headed deer in Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, 623. In another source, Itzpapalotl and a companion descend to earth as a pair two-headed deer. Leyenda de los Soles, 79:34-80:5, in Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs: the Codex Chimalpopoca, 151-152.
Spider form — Codex Borbonicus 15, cf. 3, 8, 9, 10, 13, 19. Klein, "The Devil and the Skirt: An Iconographic Inquiry into the Prehispanic Nature of the Tzitzimime," 17–62 [50 nt. 40]. For the spider as a tzitzimitl, see Seler, Collected Works, 5:334a; cf. 1:79b, 6.183a.
Flint knives on the edge of its wings — Codex Borbonicus, 15. In her eagle form, these are shown on the Mitla wall murals, Seler, Collected Works, 5:54 Fig. 65.
5 Susan Milbrath, "Gender and Roles of Lunar Deities in Postclassic Central Mexico and Their Correlations with the Maya Area," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, 25 (1995): 45-94 [70-71].
6 Cecelia F. Klein, "The Identity of the Central Deity on the Aztec Calendar Stone," The Art Bulletin, 58, #1 (March, 1976): 1-12 [10b, 9a Fig. 21]. See also 10a Fig. 23, where Tlaloc is shown with the attributes of Xochipilli at Codex Borgia 28.
7 "Each outstretched arm passes through the figure of a star," and the raccoon hind quarters were thought to be arrows. MacCurdy, "Shell Gorgets from Missouri," 411.
8 The foot as a symbol of conquest may explain the Maddin Creek (Missouri) petroglyph that shows a large prostrate figure over whom two smaller figures stand. The prostrate figure has a snake under his right arm. The Hocąk Twins, as well as both Evening Star and Morning Star, are associated with serpents (q.v.). There is a large foot drawn crosswise over his midsection. Diaz-Granados thinks that it may be the Twins who have laid low a Giant, but since the Twins are the size of children, the prostrate figure need not be a Giant. The foot, however, since it is at the midsection, both signifies the relegation of the prostrate figure to the Low at the same time that it bisects him. Carol Diaz-Granados, "Early Manifestations of Mississippian Iconography in Middle Mississippi Valley Rock-Art," Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World, 81-82, 81 Figure 4-7a = 77 Figure 4-3d. In another pictograph from Picture Cave, a triumphant Birdman is seen standing on the trunk of the body of a defeated opponent. Carol Diaz-Granados, "Marking Stone, Land, Body, and Spirit: Rock Art and Mississippian Iconography," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 143 Fig. 7.
Morning Star in the House (Calli) of the Obsidian Butterfly, Part II.
1Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 130; Part 2, Plates 200-202.
2 Alex D. Krieger, "Recent Developments in the Problem of Relationships between the Mexican Gulf Coast and Eastern United States," in Huastecos, Totonacos y sus Vicinos, ed. Ignacio Bernal and Eusebio Davalos. Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos, 13, ##2-3 (1953): 497-518 [507 Fig. 75B-C, 509 Fig. 76B, 510]. Krieger's Fig. 75B is from Nombres geográficos de México, 95 s.v. Cuauhtinchan; Fig. 75C is from Nombres geográficos de México, 202 s.v. Tezcacoac, and to this serpent, compare the snake extending out of a Calli sign at Nombres geográficos, 76 s.v. Coacalco.
3 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 202; Part 1, 130a Fig. 183.
4 Some of the upright feathers on the bird's crown have been eroded from view. Cade describes the upright threat display this way,
Whether a potential predator or a conspecific, all falcons employ an Upright Threat display, in which the bird orients its body vertically, spreads its tail, holds it wings out from the body, and fluffs out its feathers to the maximum extent, especially those on the breast, cheeks, naps, and crown. The bird hisses and cackles and strikes out with its feet or its beak.
Tom J. Cade and R. David Digby, The Falcons of the World (Ithaca: Comstock/Cornell University Press, 1982) 40; Roland H. Wauer, The American Kestrel: Falcon of Many Names (Neenah: Big Earth Publishing, 2005) 48.
5 Antonio Peñafiel and Viscount Edward King Kingsborough, Nombres geográficos de México: Catálogo alfabético de los nombres de lugar pertenecientes al idioma "Nahuatl" : estudio jeroglífico de la matrícula de los tributos del Códice mendocino (Mexico City: Oficina tip. de la Secretaría de fomento, 1885) 56 s.v. Apancalecan.
6 Codex Mexicanus Caractere hieroglyphi [Codex Laud]. Codices selecti phototypice impressi, v. 11. (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1966). Having this same rounded Γ, elongated, with a symbolic and continuous back and roof, are Codex Laud 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16.
7 See Codex Laud 10, 12, 16; In Nombres geográficos de México, 57 s.v. Atenanco, a plinth with four target designs placed upon it serves as a foundation for wall symbols; at 215 s.v. Tlatzoxiuhco, a Calli sign has a turquoise design on its plinth.
8 The following codices show Itzpapalotl as the patron of the Calli day sign: Ríos 29, Telleriano-Remensis 18v, Tonalamatl 15, Vaticanus A 27v, Vaticanus B 63. See also Seler, Collected Works, 1:195 (#15), 6:2b. John Pohl's translation of the commentary at Ríos 29 is worth presenting in full:
Rios 29 (27v) Fifteenth Trecena [Calli/House]: Yxpapalotl (Itzpapalotl). Yxpapalotl signifies a Knife of Butterflies (Obsidian Butterfly). He (She) was one of those gods who, as they affirm, were expelled from heaven; and on this account they paint him (her) surrounded with knives, and wings of butterflies. They represent him with the feet of an eagle; because they say that he (she) occasionally appears to them, and that they only see the feet of an eagle. They further add, that being in a garden of delight he (she) pulled some roses, but that suddenly the tree broke, and blood streamed from it; and that in consequence of this they were deprived of that place of enjoyment, and were cast into this world, because Tonacatecutli and his wife became incensed; and accordingly they came some of them to the earth, and others went to hell.
He (she) presided over these thirteen signs; the first of which, the House, they considered unfortunate, because they said that demons came through the air on that sign, in the figure of women such as we designate witches, who usually went to the highways where they met in the form of a cross, and to solitary places; and accordingly, that when any bad woman wished to absolve herself or her sins and to do penance, she went alone by night to these places, and took off her garments, and sacrificed there with her tongue, and left the clothes which she carried, and returned home naked, as a sign of the confession of her sins. He was called, before he sinned Xomunco, and afterwards, Yxpapalotl, which signifies a knife of razors. Click to view this page.
9 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 201.
10 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 201.
11 Vindobonensis 5; with head protruding out: Cospi 13, Borgia 68 (identified as Itzpapalotl in Seler, Collected Works, 5:247b, and 5:248 Fig 500 [there called Tlazoltéotl]), Vindobonensis 16, Vindobonensis 21, Vindobonensis 39. Cf. Vaticanus 3773 B 61 (a vulture, for which see Seler, Collected Works, 5:248 Fig. 501); at Tonalamatl 13, an eagle in the foreground with a Calli behind him (Seler, Collected Works, 5:248 Fig. 502); also cf. 30, of which Seler says, "Beside this ruler of the fourteenth day-count, and thoroughly corresponding with the nature both of the goddess [Tlazoltéotl] and of the sign, is figured a house at the threshold of which stands an owl, that is, the dark home of Earth, the dark interior of the Earth." Seler, Codex Vaticanus No. 3773, 173. For horned owls standing in Callis, see Seler, Collected Works, 5:254 Fig. 538 (Codex Borgia 12, Codex Vaticanus B 91.
12 Frank Hamilton Cushing, Zuni Fetishes (Wickenburg: KC Publications, 1966 [1880]) 40. Charles Francis Saunders, "The Ceramic Art of the Pueblo Indians," The International Studio, 41 (1910): LXVI-LXXI [LXVIII]. Charles Francis Saunders, The Indians of the Terraced Houses (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912) 151. Krieger, "Recent Developments in the Problem of Relationships between the Mexican Gulf Coast and Eastern United States," ... Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 202.
13 Brown and Duncan entertain this idea with respect to a preform of Grandmother Earth and the Birdman.
A prominent icon shown with Earthmother is the deep-set chest/bundle she appears to guard. Is there something significant contained within such a large bundle? A plausible answer to the question comes from the depiction of Birdman with Phillips' "flounce" worn around his midriff. This article looks suspiciously like a basket burst through the top and bottom, with the warps and wefts carefully delineated. James Duncan (personal communication) has pointed out that Birdman could be depicted in the process of emerging from the basket — perhaps coming to full size in the process. James A. Brown, "The Culture Signature of the Braden Art Style," in Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World, 61. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 205b Fig. 268.
I don't see this myself. However, this may be a perceptual short coming of mine. Since Itzpapalotl is at once the goddess of the full moon (both black and white), and the earth, it could be true that she was identified in some cultures with Grandmother Earth. This may not represent the Hyades intrusion, however, since Morning Star, like most stars, is "trapped" within the earth for a period of time before freeing himself and escaping into the sky.
14 See the following examples from Codex Vindobonensis 16, 21, 39, and 43.
Eagle in a Calli-like Structure |
15 This "house" is said to be a "bent stone hill with caves; an eagle on the slope." Jill Leslie Furst, Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I: A Commentary. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York at Albany, Publication #4 (Albany: the Author, 1978) 284 sub num. 3a. The goddess Nine Reed appears in another toponym just below this painting. The numerous "V's" associated with the structure are probably not accidental, as Lady Nine Reed may have some affinity to Tlazoltéotl. "An image of Tlazolteotl with arrow-heads on her clothing is accompanied by the date 9 Reed in the Borgia (47); she may equate with the supernatural Lady 9 Reed whose clothing is edged in flints in the Zouche-Nuttal (3, 51 [?]), although her other attributes are very different." Elizabeth Hill Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007) 221. The "House" of this painting is of the curved Γ type with symbolism integrated with the back wall and roof. The eagle is a standard representation of the sun. Michael Lind, The Sociocultural Dimensions of Mixtec Ceramics. Issue 33 of Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology (Nashville: Vanderbilt University, 1987) 22. Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 83a s.v. "eagle. "The "horse collar" form displayed around the edge of the House is the standard Mixtec symbol of the moon, but instead of it containing a rabbit, it has a simple red disk. For this shape as a moon sign, see Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 119b. The large number of nested "V's" and particularly the indented wedge behind the eagle, would be consistent with a Hyades theme. Of particular interest is the series of scallops or serrations found in the wedge. For a mouth with teeth in a tree that occurs within a hieroglyphic symbol, see Peñafiel and Kingsborough, Nombres geográficos de México, 42 s.v. Acaxochitlan. The teeth stand for -tlan, a locative (50 s.v. Ahuacatlan). Cf. 95-96 s.v. Cuauhtitlan; 156 s.v. Otlatitlan; 173 s.v. Tecamachalco; 219 s.v. Totitlan; 236 s.v. Xiloxochitlan; 239 s.v. Xocotla; 240 s.v. Xochicuauhtitlan. These serrations recall the inverse scalloped form of the proboscis of Mothra as well as the inverse scalloped symbol wrapping around the Calli of Cup 202. However, although the Mixtecs have the same day signs as the Central Mexicans, their pantheon differs significantly, and the calendar names assigned to their deities do not match those of the Nahua. However, having said all this, vide a scene actually showing Itzpapalotl in the form of an eagle emerging from the "V" (with serrated teeth) formed by the broken tree of Tamoanchan.
Bleeding Tree of Tamoanchan with Itzpapalotl in Eagle Form (Seler, 1904: 369, fig. 96f) |
Eduard Seler, "Venus Period in the Picture Writings of the Borgian Codex Group," Mexican and Central American Antiquities, Calendar Systems, and History, ed. Charles P. Bowditch. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 28 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904) 355-391 [369, fig. 96f].
16 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 200; Part 1, 130b Fig. 184.
17 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 130b.
18 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 130b.
19 James R. Murie, Ceremonies of the Pawnee. Studies in the Anthropology of North American Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press for the American Indian Studies Research Institute, Indiana University, 1989) 45.Alice C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe (Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1992 [1904-1905]) 177. See the Commentary to "Old Man and White Feather."
20 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 130b.
21 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 201; Part 1, 131a Fig. 185.
22 George E. Lankford, Looking for Lost Lore: Studies in Folklore, Ethnology, and Iconography (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008) 139-162.
23 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 130b-131a.
24 Here is a count of the years for the first whole calendar cycle (52 years) beginning with the first year of the Toltec calendar, 1-Rabbit.
1-Rabbit |
2-Reed |
3-Flint |
4-House |
5-Rabbit |
6-Reed |
7-Flint |
8-House |
9-Rabbit |
10-Reed |
11-Flint |
12-House |
13-Rabbit |
726 |
727 |
728 |
729 |
730 |
731 |
732 |
733 |
734 |
735 |
736 |
737 |
738 |
1-Reed |
2-Flint |
3-House |
4-Rabbit |
5-Reed |
6-Flint |
7-House |
8-Rabbit |
9-Reed |
10-Flint |
11-House |
12-Rabbit |
13-Reed |
739 |
740 |
741 |
742 |
743 |
744 |
745 |
746 |
747 |
748 |
749 |
750 |
751 |
1-Flint |
2-House |
3-Rabbit |
4-Reed |
5-Flint |
6-House |
7-Rabbit |
8-Reed |
9-Flint |
10-House |
11-Rabbit |
12-Reed |
13-Flint |
752 |
753 |
754 |
755 |
756 |
757 |
758 |
759 |
760 |
761 |
762 |
763 |
764 |
1-House |
2-Rabbit |
3-Reed |
4-Flint |
5-House |
6-Rabbit |
7-Reed |
8-Flint |
9-House |
10-Rabbit |
11-Reed |
12-Flint |
13-House |
765 |
766 |
767 |
768 |
769 |
770 |
771 |
772 |
773 |
774 |
775 |
776 |
777 |
1-Rabbit |
778 |
25 The trecenas for the year 1-House proceed in the following order (Rain being partly in the previous year).
765 |
||||||||||||
Rain |
Grass |
Snake |
Flint |
Monkey |
Lizard |
Motion |
Dog |
House |
Vulture |
Water |
Wind |
Eagle |
1-Aug |
9 Aug |
22 Aug |
4 Sept |
17 Sept |
30 Sept |
13 Oct |
26 Oct | 8 Nov |
21 Nov |
4 Dec |
17 Dec | 30 Dec |
766 |
|||||||||||||||
Rabbit |
Cayman |
Jaguar |
Deer |
Flower |
Reed |
Death |
Rain |
Grass |
Snake |
Flint |
Monkey |
Lizard |
Motion |
Dog |
House |
12 Jan |
25 Jan |
7 Feb |
20 Feb |
5 March |
18 March |
31 March |
13 April |
26 April |
9 May |
22 May |
4 June |
17 June |
30 June |
13 July |
26 July |
26 This comes from a source that is impossible to track down. It is repeated in many secondary sources, for instance, Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, The Aztecs (Rizzoli, 1989) 116. The primary source, History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings, trs. and ed. Henry Phillips, Jr. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 21 (1883): 616-651 [617], lists the four Tezcatlipocas and their identities along with their associated colors, but says nothing about years or cardinal points.
27 Since there are two phases of Venus (Evening and Morning), the occultation of Morning Star by the Moon probably averages about once a year. In the year 765, Venus was occluded by the moon one other time on 17 August, but this occurred below the horizon at Tula's latitude. See the website, "Occultation of Planets by Moon, Eight Millennium Catalog, 2 000 BC - 6 000 AD," where for this 8,000 year time span, there are calculated to be 16,220 occultations of the moon and Venus.
28 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 154b. The other three skybearers were Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (Morning Star), associated with the east and the year Reed; Xiuhtecuhtli (Fire), associated with the north and Flint; Mictlantecuhli, associated with the south and Rabbit.
Mothra Revisited.
1 In the genesis of this thesis, I had first argued that Itzpapalotl was connected intimately with the Hyades, then I noticed the attribute transfer from her to the Birdman of Etowah. I then planned to present the thesis as a systematic explanation of the known facts, but in the course of looking through the overview section of Phillips and Brown, I discovered the reference to the Calli sign in connection to Birdman. Since the Calli trecena is governed by Itzpapalotl, it became immediately obvious why such a sign, which is even roughly shaped like the Hyades, would contain a Birdman, and why its surround would contain symbolic references to him. My thesis forces a conclusion that others entertained on the basis of mere appearance. That they entertained it at all was a bold step. If my explanation of the Calli is correct, then Birdman (Morning Star) is trapped inside it because he had been famously trapped inside the Hyades in 1056 and thereafter. Since Itzpapalotl has an alloform as a moth, a fact that her very name expresses, we may say that from a Mexican or Mexicanized point of view, Morning Star was attacked by a supernatural moth. This is exactly what we find at Etowah. Given the facts about Itzpapalotl's relationship to Calli, her standing as the Obsidian Butterfly, and the astronomical events of the year 1056, it is impossible to deny that the moth fought by Morning Star is a reflex (an evolved form) of Itzpapalotl.
2 Norton William Jipson, Story of the Winnebagos (Chicago: The Chicago Historical Society, 1923 [unpublished]) 409-411 [410].
3 Crow — Lowie, Myths and Traditions of the Crow, 130. Lakota — Naopi-sica, "The Stone Boy," in J. R. Walker, "The Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of The Teton Dakota," Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. XVI, Part II (1917): 194.
4 "1 Reed [844]. According to what they tell and what they say, this was when Quetzalcoatl was born, called Topiltzin Priest Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl, and his mother they say was named Chimalman. And from what they say about him, Quetzalcoatl was placed in his mother's belly when she swallowed a piece of jade." The Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 3:59-4:2, Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs, 28.
5 Knight and Franke, "Identification of a Moth/Butterfly Supernatural in Mississippian Art," 142, and 144 Fig. 6.6.
6 James Owen Dorsey, "Teton Folk-Lore Notes," The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 2, #5 (1889): 133-139 [137].
7 Riggs, 519a s.v. wá-mni-o-mni. Cf. yu-mní, "to turn round, to go round in circles." Riggs, 632b, s.v. The homonyms of ó-mni, mean as a noun, "an eddy"; and as a verb, "to go round and round." Riggs, 374b, ss. vv. Cf. ó-mni-mni, "a place where the wind whips around" (Lakota). Riggs, 374b s.v.
8 Clark Wissler, "The Whirlwind and the Elk in the Mythology of the Dakota," The Journal of American Folklore, 18, #71 (October-December, 1905): 257-268 [258].
9 Clark Wissler, Some Protective Designs of the Dakota. Volume 1, Part 2 of Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History (New York: Published by order of the Trustees, 1907) 46 Fig. 21.
10 Wissler, Some Protective Designs of the Dakota, 46 Fig. 22.
11 Wissler, "The Whirlwind and the Elk in the Mythology of the Dakota," 259. Wissler, Some Protective Designs of the Dakota, 44-45.
12 The deity is Näyāaⁿxa-tisei, "Whirlwind Woman." The word näyāaⁿxa means both "whirlwind" and "caterpillar." "47. Nih’āⁿçaⁿ and Whirlwind Woman," in George Amos Dorsey and Alfred Louis Kroeber, Traditions of the Arapaho, Volume 5 of Publications of the Field Columbian Museum, Anthropological series (Chicago: Columbia Museum, 1903) 97 nt. 2.
13 Wissler, "The Whirlwind and the Elk in the Mythology of the Dakota," 258. The Gros Ventre also see "a rapport between the buffalo and the moth." Wissler, 260-261.
14 Wissler, "The Whirlwind and the Elk in the Mythology of the Dakota," 259.
15 Wissler, "The Whirlwind and the Elk in the Mythology of the Dakota," 260. Wissler, Some Protective Designs of the Dakota, 43-44.
16 James R. Walker, Lakota Belief and Ritual (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991) 51, 222.
17 Jeffrey D. Triblehorn and David D. Yager, "Acoustic Interactions between Insects and Bats: A Model for the Interplay of Neural and Ecological Specializations," in Ecology of Predator-Prey Interactions, edd. Pedro Barbosa and Ignacio Castellanos (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 77-104 [91].
18 Wissler, Some Protective Designs of the Dakota, 45-46. The spider or his web can be seen on both of these Lakota artifacts.
A Bone Artifact of Unknown Function |
A Cross in German Silver |
Wissler, Some Protective Designs of the Dakota, 45 Fig. 19 (left), 44 Fig. 18 (right). The markings on the right and left limbs of the cross appear to be buffalo tracks.
19 Here are the stories set in parallel.
Oglala 1 | Oglala 2 | Hocąk |
Iron Hawk and his wife transform themselves into buffaloes. | Red Calf dons his father's gray cap and is transformed into a hawk. | - |
An Uŋḣćéġila ("Rock Woman") persuades Iron Hawk to ferry her across a creek. | With the help of his mother, he finds the place where his father was supposed to be. | A woman who is a witch and a Waterspirit (Wakcéxi), persuades Įcorúšika to cross over from the front of the lodge to its back. |
Having thus tricked him, she sprouted wings and carried him within a whirlwind* through the hole in the sky. | Red Calf encounters a whirlwind and follows it through the hole in the sky. | Having thus tricked him, he fell into the Underworld through the hole in the false bottom. |
There he found villages of birds. Then he came to a village at the fork of two creeks. | There he was among the Bad Waterspirits. | |
He was told that the man was to be killed and eaten. | He was told that he was to be killed and eaten. | |
Iron Hawk was pinned in place by a Uŋḣćéġila. | Įcorúšika was bound in irons by the Waterspirits. | |
Red Calf shot the Uŋḣćéġila and broke her up. | Įcorúšika broke his iron bonds. Then he attacked and killed Waterspirits with a firebrand. | |
As he and his father fled, Red Calf shot dead another Uŋktéḣi. | The Waterspirits fled as Įcorúšika killed many with his firebrand. | |
The birds helped Iron Hawk and Red Calf by making a giant nest and lowering them through the hole to the world below. | Loon (and Otter) tried to help free Įcorúšika. | |
Red Calf killed the Uŋktéḣi who were killing the birds. After this the birds "were able to scatter out over the country."† | Įcorúšika rewarded them by allowing them to live on earth. | |
Yellow Iktomi had abused Red Calf's grandmother by pushing her. | Hena had abused Įcorúšika's wife and brothers by using force against them. | |
Red Calf beat Iktomi with a dirty teepee skin. | Įcorúšika hit Hena with a firebrand. | |
This turned Iktomi black. | Hena and his brothers had put charcoal on their faces in supplication. Being hit with a firebrand transformed Hena into a red fox.‡ | |
*Beckwith's version says that when Red Calf went looking for his father, "he flew to the middle of the channel and there in the middle was a whirling wind. This was his father's trail." (p. 388) †this appears as the last paragraph of the story after an intervening extraneous episode about Iron Hawk. ‡see also, "The Seduction of Redhorn's Son." |
Martha Warren Beckwith, "Mythology of the Oglala Dakota," The Journal of American Folklore, 43, #170 (October-December, 1930): 339-442 [386-389]. Julian Rice, Ella Deloria's Iron Hawk (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993) Lakota: 38-48, ss. 218-336; English: 78-90.
20 The Crow and Oglala stories are set out in parallel:
Oglala 1 | Oglala 2 | Crow 1 | Crow 2 |
Iron Hawk ferries an Uŋḣćéġila across a creek. | With the help of his mother, he finds the spot where his father had disappeared. | - | Spring Boy spots the hole through which his brother went. |
Iron Hawk and his wife had transformed themselves into buffaloes. | Red Calf transforms himself into a hawk. | - | Spring Boy transforms himself into an arrow. Later, Spring Boy transforms himself into a little child. |
She sucks him up a whirlwind into the hole in the sky. | Red Calf follows the whirlwind through the hole in the sky. | Long Arms pulls Curtain Boy through the hole in the sky. | Spring Boy shoots himself through hole. |
Iron Hawk's wife shows up to swim with him, but she can't find him. | - | Spring Boy can't find where Curtain Boy went. | - |
Red Calf comes upon one village after another of birds. | Spring Boy comes upon one village after another of birds. | ||
Red Calf was put up by an old woman at the last village. | Spring Boy was put up by an old woman at the last village. | ||
She told him that a man in the form of a buffalo was to be eaten on the morrow. | She told him that a mischievous boy was to be eaten on the morrow. | ||
He went with the woman to watch the spectacle. | He went with the woman to watch the spectacle. | ||
When Red Calf appeared, his father recognized him. | When Spring Boy appeared, his brother recognized him. | ||
Red Calf was held in place by a Rock Woman (Uŋḣćéġila) attached to his hip. | Curtain Boy was bound by the arms of Long Arms. | ||
Red Calf shot an arrow at the Rock Woman, which shattered her into pieces. | Spring Boy first shot an arrow at Long Arms' stone, and it bled; then Spring Boy shot dead Long Arms himself. | ||
Iron Hawk and Red Calf fled as a buffalo and a hawk respectively. | The two brothers fled. | ||
Birds lower the two in a nest through the hole in the sky. | The two of them escape by riding arrows back down through the hole in the sky. |
21 For the malinalli, see Alfredo López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan: Places of Mist. Trs. Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1997) 108-110, 113 Fig. 12m, 117 Fig. 14. See Codex Féjerváry-Mayer 28, where the trunk of the Tree of Tamoanchan is shown twice in the form of a malinalli.
22 George A. Dorsey and James R. Murie, "Notes on Skidi Pawnee Society," Field Museum Anthropological Series, Publication 479, 27, #2 (September 18, 1940): 67-119 [102]. Lankford, "The Path of Souls," 189.
23 The Hocąk deity, Disease Giver (Hošereų́wahira), is located in the southern quadrant.
24 Murie and Fletcher disagree as to which path those killed in action took down the Milky Way. Fletcher said that they took the short path, since their lives, like those who died of disease, had been cut short. Murie said that it was the longer path, the shorter trail being for those who died in bed. Fletcher, "Pawnee Star Lore," 13. "Ceremonies of the Pawnee, Part I: The Skiri," edd. James R. Murie and Douglas R. Parks. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, 27, #1 (October 15, 1981): 41.
25 Fletcher, "Pawnee Star Lore," 13. Lankford, "The 'Path of Souls'," 189.
26 Fletcher, "Pawnee Star Lore," 14.
27 As can be seen in the illustration [inset], the sign used in the plains for "medicine" and "sacred" strongly resembles the form of a whirlwind. William Tomkins, Universal Indian Sign Language of the Plains Indians of North America, 5th ed. (San Diego, published by the author, ca. 1931) 36, 63. George Fronval and Daniel Dubois, trs. by E. W. Egan, Indian Signs and Signals (London: Oak Tree Press, 1978) 14.
28 Robert H. Lowie, The Religion of the Crow Indians, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, 25, pt. 2 (New York: Published by Order of the Trustees, 1922) 380-381. Robert Harry Lowie, Crow Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960) 157 note.
29 Indian Ghost Legends, Number 12. Nebraska Folklore Pamphlets (Lincoln: Federal Writers' Project in Nebraska, November 15, 1937) 4-6.
30 Thomas Vennum, Jr., "Music," Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11: Great Basin, Warren L. D'Azevedo and William C. Sturtevant. Smithsonian Institution (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1986) 694.
31 James Mooney, The Ghost-dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, Volume 14, Part 2 of the Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1896) 970.
32 Teresa Pijoan, White Wolf Woman: Native American Transformation Myths (Little Rock: August House, 1992) 65, 159, 162.
33 "The Whirlwind Boy," in Clark Wissler and D. C. Duvall, Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995 [1908]) 126.
34 "The Whirlwind Boy," in Wissler and Duvall, Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians, 127.
35 The Hyades Intrusion may be found at Moundville on Vessel NR40, as suggested by Schatte's fuller description of it:
Lastly, the raptor component engraved on vessel NR40 (Figure 1G) is quite distinctive. In fact, this creature deserves further discussion. Although the entire engraving is not reproduced here, this raptor is depicted as emerging from or going into what appears to be a ceramic vessel. Additionally, there are curvilinear rayed bands associated with this design. It might be the case that the appearance of this creature is a function of the message conveyed in the iconography of the vessel.
Kevin E. Schatte, "Identification of Some Thematic Variation in the Iconography of Moundville, Alabama," Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society 26, ##1-2 (1998): 113-127 [115, and see also 116 Fig. 1G].
36 Wissler, "The Whirlwind and the Elk in the Mythology of the Dakota," 261. This is called a "butterfly cross" in George Bird Grinnell, "The Lodges of the Blackfeet," American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 3, #4 (October-December, 1901): 650-668 [655, 661-663, 665-666].
37 Clarence Bloomfield Moore, Moundville Revisited. Crystal River Revisited. Mounds of the Lower Chattahoochee and Lower Flint Rivers. Notes on the Ten Thousand Islands, Florida, (Philadelphia: F. C. Stockhausen, 1907) 390. "A raptor’s tongue is triangular in shape with two rearward pointing projections which give it the look of a somewhat elongated arrow head." Delaware Raptor Center, Raptor Adaptations. Viewed, 30 September 2012.
38 Vernon James Knight, "An Assessment of Moundville Engraved 'Cult' Designs from Potsherds," Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Chronology, Content, Context, ed. Adam King (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007) 151-164 [155 Fig. 8.3].
39 George Lankford, "The Raptor on the Path," in Visualizing the Sacred. Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World, edd. George E. Lankford, F. Kent Reilly III, and James F. Garber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010) 246-250. Lankford, "The 'Path of Souls'," 209-211.
40 John R. Swanton, The Indians of the Southeastern United States. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 137 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1946) 724. Clay MacCauley, The Seminole Indians of Florida. Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report, 5 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1887) 522 ("bad birds"). Lankford, "The 'Path of Souls'," 210. Lankford, "The Raptor on the Path," 246-247.
41 Moore, Moundville Revisited, 350-351, 351 Fig. 9.
42 Clarence Bloomfield Moore, Certain Aboriginal Remains of the Black Warrior River: Certain Aboriginal Remains of the Lower Tombigbee River. Certain Aboriginal Remains of Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound. Miscellaneous Investigation in Florida (Philadelphia: F. C. Stockhausen, 905) 125-244 [206 Fig. 115, Vessel 9]. Lankford, "The 'Path of Souls'," 209 Fig. 8.14. Moore's vessel 9 is now designated O9/M5. Schatte, "Identification of Some Thematic Variation," 118 Fig. 2D.
43 Moore, Moundville Revisited, 351 Fig. 9, Vessel No. 71. This illustration was created by scanning the photograph of the vessel in Moore, tracing it in Photoshop, then counter-distorting it to compensate for the distortion created by the curved surface of the vessel. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 37, column 2, 5 down from the top. Schatte, "Identification of Some Thematic Variation," 116 Fig. 1C. Lankford, "The 'Path of Souls'," 210 Fig. 8.15.
44 Moore, Moundville Revisited, 350 Fig. 8, Vessel No. 54. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 34 Top. Schatte, "Identification of Some Thematic Variation," 116 Fig. 1C.
45 James R.
Walker, Lakota Myth, ed. by Elaine A. Jahner (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1983) 152-153.
46 Lankford, "The 'Path of Souls'," 206. We have already encountered the "horned serpent"
asterism among the Arapaho (⤊), although they take it to be on the opposite side of the Milky Way.
47 "... the wings, rather than being a part of the essential form of the creature, are in indicator of location in the celestial realm." Lankford, "The Great Serpent in Eastern North America," 107.
48 See pp. 39-63 of "Bluehorn's Nephews" (q.v.).
49 Schatte, "Identification of Some Thematic Variation," 113-127.
50 Klein, "The Identity of the Central Deity on the Aztec Calendar Stone," 10b.
51 Klein, "The Identity of the Central Deity on the Aztec Calendar Stone," 11b.
52 "Blue Horn's Nephews" in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, ca. 1912) Notebook 58: 1-104 [75 q.v.].
53 Both Morning Star and Evening Star cross the Milky Way not far from α Scorpii (Antares). As a sample, these dates from the mid-XIth century serve to show how often this happens.
Morning Star | Evening Star | |
January, 1055 | November, 1055 | |
December, 1056 | October, 1057 | |
January, 1058 | November, 1058 | |
January, 1060 | October, 1060 |
During one apparition of each star, they are in conjunction with the sun when they are in Scorpius. This means that all five apparitions of both phases of Venus appear in the Scorpius Milky Way.
54 For the dog, see Lankford, "The Raptor on the Path," 245-246. In Hocąk mythology, Sirius is Wears White Feather, a white "crane" (peją́). His counterpart elsewhere is White Plume (q.v.). In Central Siouan myths, the white crane is transformed into a dog, making the dog the alloform of the crane, and therefore another image of Sirius. The canine identity of Sirius is widespread in the Old World, where a dog may also appear as an obstacle on the way to the Otherworld. The most obvious explanation in both cases is that since Sirius sits within the Milky Way, its dog form is likely to be encountered by souls on the Path. The Osage identification of Sirius as a dog is explicit. Francis La Flesche, A Dictionary of the Osage Language, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 109 (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1932) s.v. Shóⁿ-ge a-ga-k'e-goⁿ; Louis F. Burns, Osage Indian Customs and Myths (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2005 [1984]) 204. For Indo-European material, see Bruce Lincoln, “The Hellhound,” Journal of Indo-European Studies 7 (1979): 273-285 [275]. Bruce Lincoln, Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) Chapter 7, "The Hell Hound" (96-106).
55 Physics I.1, 184a16ff; De Anima I.2, 403b20ff; Metaphysics I.3, 983b2ff; and Nicomachean Ethics VII.1, 1045b1-8.
56 Lankford, "The Raptor on the Path," 250.
The Mace of One Reed.
1 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 130b-131a.
2 Francis La Flesche, The Osage Tribe: Rite of the Chiefs; Sayings of the Ancient Men, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, 36th Annual Report (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1921) 90, 91 ℓℓ 47-60; these words are spoken by the Sun Carrier Clan, and in addition to the Sun, the subject of this liturgy also includes the Moon, Morning Star, and Evening Star. This is reproduced in Bailey, The Osage and the Invisible World, 258-259. Francis La Flesche, War Ceremony and Peace Ceremony of the Osage Indians, Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology. Bulletin 101 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939) 119 Fig. 9, 120 ℓℓ 37-53; the rite's liturgy concerning the sun, which belongs to the Winds Clan, also includes Morning Star and Evening Star, who are identified with the pileated woodpecker. Cp. Hall, Archaeology of the Soul, 186b nt. 13.
3 Hall, Archaeology of the Soul, 112b. Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 2:49 — "They say the sun that exists today was born in 13 Reed [751], and it was then that light came, and it dawned. Movement Sun, which exists today, [also] has the day sign 4 Movement, and this sun is the fifth that there is." This date is 13-Reed of 13-Reed (12 November 751), when (oddly enough) the sun rises achronically with the Hyades (Aldebaran). This 13-Reed year is the first such year in Toltec history (see above).
4 Hall (Archaeology of the Soul, 109-112) argues that this style of mace evolved from the symbolism of the atlatl, which he believes it resembles. He says,
The artifact called a 'mace' by archaeologists in the eastern United States was a club of wood or stone with the outline of a spear thrower of the twin-fingerloop type. No clubs of this kind are known from post-Contact times. All belong to a period of around A.D. 1000-1400, and most are known only from illustrations engraved on shell, as pendants cut from thin sheets of 'native' (naturally occurring pure) copper, or as monolithic clubs or batons of chipped and polished flint. (Ibid., p. 111a)
There are two things that he himself says that weaken this thesis:
1. "The atlatl is a weapon that is believed to have been used in North America for eleven thousand years and more, yet if one were to judge from Indian oral tradition alone, the atlatl never existed north of Mexico. ... for most North American Indians of this century, the atlatl is a weapon as foreign as the flintlock musket was to their ancestors at the time of European contact." (Ibid., p. 109a)
2. "Three miniature mace cutouts are illustrated by Fletcher and La Flesche as tattoos on the hand of a Ponca girl between the symbols for 'day' and 'night', and this tattooing provides a clue to some of the symbolism of the atlatl ... The miniature maces tattooed on the hand of the Ponca girl were just such marks of honor but were not recognized as maces by Fletcher and La Flesche or by the Poncas themselves." (Ibid., p. 111b)
The silhouettes shown in the text in this section demonstrate a stronger resemblance to the tail of an arrow than to an atlatl.
5 On the table below is a comparison of the arrow point shown in the Miacatla glyph compared to that of an actual Cahokian point.
Miacatla Point (Left), Cahokian Point (Right) |
The Cahokian point is a photograph converted into an outline by Photoshop (inversion of color > photocopy filter > conté crayon filter). The arrow point is from the Clay Ball Cache, CB-07, shown on Lithic Casting.com > Cahokian Points > "Clay Ball Cache" Cahokia Points.
6 Antonio J. Waring, Jr. and Preston Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," American Anthropologist, 47 n.s., #1 (Jan. - Mar., 1945): 1-34 [8 Fig. 2ℓ-w]. Reproduced in Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19.
7 M.A.I. Cat. no. 18/9335. There is red and black paint on both sides, with the handle painted black. E. K. Burnett, "The Spiro Mound Collection in the Museum," Contributions from the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 14 (1945): 1-47 [explanation on p. 17 Plate 16, photo in Plate 16 post p. 68]. "Baton in chipped flint. Remnants of paint present." Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2u. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19. As the inset shows, there is a pronounced isomorphism of this mace with the reed-arrow compound hieroglyph that denotes the town Miacatla (Nombres geográficos de México 138).
8 Made from wood. Key Marco, Florida. Cushing, Preliminary Report on the Explorations of Ancient Key-Dwellers' Remains on the Gulf Coast of Florida, post 100 Plate 35-3a. Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2q. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19q.
9 From a repoussé plate found in Union County, Illinois. Thomas, Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology, 161 Fig. 85; Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2w; Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19w. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 175b Fig. 228.
10 This shows the top part of the mace only, the long handle has been omitted. National Museum of the American Indian, Cat. no. 142, in David H. Dye, "Art, Ritual, and Chiefly Warfare in the Mississippian World," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 191-205 [191 Fig. 1].
11 This shows the top part of the mace only, the long handle has been omitted. Tennessee State Museum, Nashville. Gates P. Thruston Collection of Vanderbilt University, Cat. no. 186, in Dye, "Art, Ritual, and Chiefly Warfare in the Mississippian World," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 196 Fig. 10.
12 This shows the top part of the mace only, the long handle has been omitted. Chipped from brown flint. Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C., Cat. no. 187, in Dye, "Art, Ritual, and Chiefly Warfare in the Mississippian World," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 196 Fig. 11. Cf. Burnett, "The Spiro Mound Collection in the Museum," explanation at p. 17 Plate 15, and photo at Plate 15 post p. 68. There the Cat. no. is given as 20/7099 (M.A.I.).
13 This is inscribed on a gorget fragment and is known as the "Key mace." H. M. Trowbridge Collection, 2769. Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2s; Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19s, Plate 28 lower row, center.
14 Jesse Walter Fewkes, Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895, Annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Volume 17 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1898) 519-744 [681]. Zelia Nuttall, The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations. A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious, Sociological, and Calendrical Systems. Archaeological and Ethnological Papers Of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University. Vol. II. (Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, March, 1901) 131-132. Jesse Walter Fewkes, Two Summers' Work in Pueblo Ruins, Volume 22, Part 1, Issue 1 of the Annual Report, United States Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904) 156. Fewkes, Two Summers' Work in Pueblo Ruins, 154-155. Watson Smith and Steven A. LeBlanc, Kiva Mural Decorations at Awatovi and Kawaika-a: with a Survey of Other Wall Paintings in the Pueblo Southwest, Volume 37 of Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. Issue 5 of Reports of the Awatovi Expedition (Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 2006) 266, 455. Ekkehart Malotki and Donald Edgar Weaver, Stone Chisel and Yucca Brush: Colorado Plateau Rock Art (Walnut, California: Kiva Publishing, 2001) 164. Patterson, A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest, 146 s.v. "Mirror Images." Dennis Slifer, Kokopelli: the Magic, Mirth, and Mischief of an Ancient Symbol (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2007) 99.
15 Garrick Mallery, Picture-Writing of the American Indians, 2 vols. (New York: Dover Publications, 1972 [1898]) 2:700-701.
16 Nuttall, The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations, 131-132.
17 Mallery, Picture-Writing of the American Indians, 2:700-701. George A. Dorsey and H. R. Voth, "The Mishongnovi Ceremonies of the Snake and Antelope Fraternities: The Stanley McCormick Hopi Expedition," Publications of the Field Columbian Museum. Anthropological Series, 3, #3 (June, 1902): 162-163, 165-261 [206]. Elsie Clews Parsons, "Fiesta at Sant'ana, New Mexico," The Scientific Monthly, 16, # 2 (Feb., 1923): 178-183 [182]. Frank Waters and Oswald White Bear Fredericks, Book of the Hopi (New York: Viking Press, 1972) 151, 215. Fewkes, Two Summers' Work in Pueblo Ruins, 157-158. Malotki and Weaver, Stone Chisel and Yucca Brush, 164. Slifer, Kokopelli: the Magic, Mirth, and Mischief of an Ancient Symbol, 100.
18 George Wharton James, Indian Blankets and Their Makers (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1914) 89. Slifer, Kokopelli: the Magic, Mirth, and Mischief of an Ancient Symbol, 97-98.
19 Leland Clifton Wyman, Southwest Indian Drypainting (Santa Fe: School of American Research, 1983) 215. The cloud terrace is the emblem of the Hopi Cloud Clan. Malotki and Weaver, Stone Chisel and Yucca Brush, 164.
20 "In rock art motifs, as well as ceramics, basketry, murals, and other media, the cloud terrace, or rain altar, is a nearly ubiquitous symbol, especially in the Four Corners region. The cloud terrace has been drawn in different ways, from precise, geometric, step-like designs to more realistic, rounded, cloud-like portrayals — it represents the towering thunderhead clouds that bring life-giving rain in the summer." Slifer, Kokopelli: the Magic, Mirth, and Mischief of an Ancient Symbol, 99-100.
21 Fewkes, Two Summers' Work in Pueblo Ruins, 155-158. Polly Schaafsma and Curtis F. Schaafsma, "Evidence for the Origins of the Pueblo Katchina Cult as Suggested by Southwestern Rock Art," American Antiquity, 39, # 4 (Oct., 1974): 535-545 [540]. Malotki and Weaver, Stone Chisel and Yucca Brush, 164. Slifer, Kokopelli: the Magic, Mirth, and Mischief of an Ancient Symbol, 12; and see also 117 (petroglyphs from the Tenabo ruins in New Mexico). Joe D. Stewart, Paul Matousek and Jane H. Kelley, "Rock Art and Ceramic Art in the Jornada Mogollon Region," Kiva, 55, # 4 (1990): 301-319 [312 Figs. 5a-h, 313-315].
22 See Codex Laud 12, where cloud terraces are affixed under the plinth of Tlaloc's calli.
23 See the miniature copper pendants Lauderdale County, Alabama, representing the mace head shown in Plate 109, Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands. William S. Webb and David L. DeJarnette, An Archaeological Survey of Pickwick Basin in the Adjacent Portions of the States of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Smithsonian Institution Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 129 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942) 227-229, Plate 253 Fig. 1. For cloud terrace designs on burial urns from the Alabama River area, see Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 39 top, first row center; Plate 40, column 2, top.
24 Taken from a temple roof. Nuttall, The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations, 116 Fig. 35e, 131-132.
25 The left cloud terrace is taken from William H. Holmes, "Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans," Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1880 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1884) 185-305, post 302 Plate 76. The example to the right comes from the altar of the Eagle Down Fraternity. H. Byron Earhart, Religious Traditions of the World: A Journey through Africa, Mesoamerica, North America, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, China, and Japan (New York: Harper-Collins, 1993) 348.
26 Middle Mississippi Valley. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 51 left, column 1, row 6.
27 Middle Mississippi Valley. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 40 column 2, row 1.
28 Willoughby, "Notes on the History and Symbolism of the Muskhogeans and the People of Etowah," 40 Fig. 17. Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2m. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19m.
29 A copper hair pin from Mound H. National Museum of the American Indian, Cat. no. 17/0147. Steponaitis and Knight, "Moundville Art in Historical and Social Context," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 167-181 [175 Fig. 16].
30 Cushing, Preliminary Report on the Explorations of Ancient Key-Dwellers' Remains on the Gulf Coast of Florida, post 100 Plate 35 Fig. 3a. Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2q. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19q.
31 Engraved on a conch shell bowl, H. M. Trowbridge Collection. Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2s. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19s.
32 MacCurdy, "Shell Gorgets from Missouri," post 410 Plate 20. On the Birdman, the photograph seems to show an earring in the form of a disk containing an 8-pointed design, beneath which hang 6 beads in a vertical row. Duncan and Diaz-Granados, "Of Masks and Myths," 11 Fig. 7, reconstructs this as a 9-pointed figure with 5 beads underneath it. In Hocąk, pex means, "gourd, rattle," and pe, "head"; in Osage péxe means, "gourd rattle," and pe means, "forehead." Similar forms, however, are missing from Dakota.
33 "The Morning Star, A Winnebago Legend," collected by Louis L. Meeker (National Anthropological Archives, 1405 Winnebago, A.D.S., Nov. 22, 1896) 8; "The Morning Star," in David Lee Smith, Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) 105-110.
34 John Harrison, The Giant or The Morning Star, translated by Oliver LaMère, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3892 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago III, #11a, Story 8: 92-117 [117].
35 Charles E. Brown, Wisconsin Indian Place Legends (Madison: Works Progress Administration, Wisconsin, 1936): 5; Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 166.
36 David Lee Smith (Thunderbird Clan), "How Valleys and Ravines Came to Be," in David Lee Smith, Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) 100-101.
37 This is true, for instance, of the Morning Star of the Rogan Plate Ga-Brt-E17. A gorget from Tennessee shows a warrior with a very large version of the mace in his left hand, and a severed head in his right. National Museum of the American Indian, Cat. no. 142, in David H. Dye, "Art, Ritual, and Chiefly Warfare in the Mississippian World," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 191-205 [191 Fig. 1].
38 Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 155. This warclub was a symbol of the Thunderbird Clan.
39 Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 162.
40 Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 394, post 380 Plate 57. The warclub was about the size of a baton.
41 Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 394.
42 See Ga-Brt-E89 and Ga-Brt-E26, all from grave 6A of Mound C at Etowah. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 138-139. Willoughby, "Notes on the History and Symbolism of the Muskhogeans and the People of Etowah," 42 Fig. 18. One of these (from Ga-Brt-E89) is illustrated in Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2n.
43 On a copper plate from Etowah. Thomas, Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology, post 304 Plate 17. Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2ℓ. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19ℓ. Willoughby, "Notes on the History and Symbolism of the Muskhogeans and the People of Etowah," 40 Fig. 17.
A badge of sheet copper, Etowah. Willoughby, "Notes on the History and Symbolism of the Muskhogeans and the People of Etowah," 40 Fig. 17. Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2m. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19m.
Engraved on a conch shell bowl from Spiro, in the H. M. Trowbridge Collection. Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2r. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19r.
From Etowah in Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, see 138-139 — Ga-Brt-E89 (Willoughby, "Notes on the History and Symbolism of the Muskhogeans and the People of Etowah," 42 Fig. 18. Waring and Holder, "A Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex in the Southeastern United States," 8 Fig. 2n. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 19n); 154-155 — Ga-Brt-E192, made of sheet copper, Burial 45; 162-163 — Ga-Brt-E205, a number of copper badges from Burial 38.
44 The Arapaho Morning Star crosses are shown immediately above. Alfred Kroeber, "Symbolism of the Arapaho Indians," Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 13 (1900): 69-86 [74-76, 75 Figs. 55-61]; Alfred Kroeber, The Arapaho, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 18 (1902): 1-517 [38, 43, 46, 50, 52, 54, 56, 59, 63, 69, 88, 90, 96, 116, 122, 123, 149, 173, 178, 328, 346, 347, 352, 353, 356, 374, 380, 383, 388, 406, 429, 431, 433, 434, 443]. The Arapaho call the Morning Star Nagáq, "the Cross." Kroeber, The Arapaho, 96; Mooney, The Ghost-dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, 1015, 1019; the Gros Ventre and the Blackfeet also use the cross as a symbol of Morning Star. Wissler, "The Whirlwind and the Elk in the Mythology of the Dakota," 261. The Kiowa call Morning Star, T'aiñso, "the Cross," Mooney, The Ghost-dance Religion, 1011, 1089, 1091. On the same page, Mooney asserts, "With all the prairie tribes the morning star is held in great reverence and is the subject of much mythological belief and ceremony. It is universally represented in their pictographs as a cross, usually of Maltese pattern." See also, Peter Nabokov and Robert Easton, Native American Architecture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) 159 (Cheyenne), 165 (Kiowa). McCleary, The Stars We Know, 35 (Crow — they have several stars called "morning stars," but this one is clearly the morning star of Venus). Nuttall, The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations, 159 (Zuñi). The Yavapai of the Southwest also use a cross to symbolize Morning Star. Donald T. Healy and Peter J. Orenski, Native American Flags (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003) 259.
45 Alex Patterson, A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest (Boulder: Big Earth Publishing, 1992) 163 s.v. Quetzalcoatl; 76-77 s.v. "Cross." Polly Schaafsma, Indian Rock Art of the Southwest (Santa Fe: School of American Research, 1980) 238. Gaspar de Villagra, Historia de la Nueva Mexico (1954 [1610]) 80; Gonzalo Ortiz de Zárate, Petroglifos de Sinaloa (Mexico City: publicación patrocinada por Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1976) 62.
Class, War, and Rebirth.
1 (q.v.) "The Morning Star, A Winnebago Legend," collected by Louis L. Meeker (National Anthropological Archives, 1405 Winnebago, A.D.S., Nov. 22, 1896) 8; "The Morning Star," in David Lee Smith, Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) 105-110.
2 The non-Dakotan Central Siouan word *Wakaⁿda meant "Divinity." All branches of Central Siouan except Dakotan use this term for "the" Divinity, whom the Hocągara call "Earthmaker" (Mą-’ųna). Yet at the same time the non-Dakotan branches use *Wakaⁿda to refer to the Thunderbird, perhaps as a taboo term, the name of these deities being dangerous to utter. Dorsey reports,
In the ¢egiha the language spoken by the Ponka and Omaha, Wakanda means "the mysterious" or "powerful one," and it is applied in several senses. It is now used to denote the God of monotheism. Some of the old people say that their ancestors always believed in a supreme Wakanda or Mysterious Power. It sometimes refers to the Thunder being. James Owen Dorsey, A Study of Siouan Cults, in the Annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Volume 11, 1889-1890 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1894) 361-544 [366].
For the Dhegiha cognate to the Hocąk Wakąja, see Quapah for the Thunderbird (Clan): Wakóⁿta (Fletcher-LaFlesche), Wakánʇă (Dorsey), Wakanta (Hodge). Frederick Webb Hodge, Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico: N-Z, Volume 30 of Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, vol 30 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910) s.v. "Quapaw," 2:335b-336a. James Owen Dorsey, "The Social Organization of the Siouan Tribes," The Journal of American Folk-Lore, 4, #14 (July - Sep., 1891) and #15 (Oct. - Dec., 1891): 257-266, 331-342 [332]. "The following names of Kwapa gentes were obtained chiefly from Alphonsus Valliere, a full Kwapa, who assisted the author when in Washington, from December, 1890, to March, 1891." Alice C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe, 2 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press: 1992 [1911]) 1:68. A similar situation holds in the Dakotan branch, but the expanded word wakaⁿda is found only in the form of its stem, wakaŋ.
There are many derivatives of wakaⁿ, among which are, Taku Wakaⁿ, literally "something mysterious," rendered "some one mysterious," or "holy being," and Wakaⁿ-tañka, literally, "Great mysterious (one)," both of which terms are now applied to God by the missionaries and their converts, though Wakaⁿ-tañka is a name for the Thunder-being. Dorsey, "The Social Organization of the Siouan Tribes," 366.
3 Oliver LaMère, "Winnebago Legends," Wisconsin Archeologist, ns 1, #2 (1920): 66-68 [66].
4 Thomas Foster, Foster's Indian Record and Historical Data (Washington, D. C.: 1876-1877) vol. 1; #1, p. 4, col. 4. The Ioway held that when their Bird Clans first came to earth, they spoke the Hocąk language. "When they first came to earth, they ate people, and so they hunted them for that purpose. The Bird gentes considered themselves superior to the other gentes, but they finally became friendly, and then they ate animals." Dorsey, "The Social Organization of the Siouan Tribes," 339.
5 Radin, Winnebago Tribe, 142.
6 For the Beaded Burial, see Melvin L. Fowler, Jerome Rose, Barbara Vander Leest, and Steven A. Ahler, The Mound 72 Area: Dedicated and Sacred Space in Early Cahokia. Reports of Investigations #54 (Springfield: Illinois State Museum, 1999) 132. Timothy R. Pauketat, Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 88-92; Timothy R. Pauketat, "Founders' Cults and the Archaeology of Wa-kan-da," in Memory Work: Archaeologies of Material Practices (Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press, 2008) 61-79 [74]. Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi, 72-81.
7 Pauketat, Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians, 91.
8 Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi, 81.
9 Alice Fletcher, who had extensive experience with Central Siouan tribes, saw many of these features as common to Siouan tribes generally.
The control of the Thunder people runs like a thread through all the tribes of the Siouan group ... and they seem to have been singularly dominant from the earliest time. The Thunder gentes had charge of, or took an important part in, all ceremonies which pertained to the preservation of tribal autonomy. To them belonged the rituals and the ceremonies which inducted the child into its rights within the gens and the tribe; the adoption of captives and strangers; and the ceremonial preparation of the tribal pipes, without which there could be no tribal ceremony or enforcement of order. They had charge also of the rites for the preservation of crops from the devastation of insects and marauders.
Alice C. Fletcher, "The Emblematic Use of the Tree in the Dakotan Group," Science, New Series, 4, #92 (Oct. 2, 1896): 475-487 [480b-481a]. The political and social dominance of the Thunder people seems to have reached its apogee among the Hocągara.
10 Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 92. He goes on to say, "Whether this marked difference in burial customs was merely another example of that specialization in function so characteristic of these two divisions of the tribe, or whether it was due to distinct historical origins, it is difficult to determine. I am, however, inclined to regard the latter interpretation as by far the most probable."
11 Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi, 73.
12 Pauketat, Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians, 91.
13 Paul Radin, "Winnebago Tales," Journal of American Folklore, 22 (1909): 303-307 [304-305]. Informant: Soloman Long Tail.
14 Paul Radin, "The Two Friends Who Became Reincarnated: The Origin of the Four Nights Wake," The Culture of the Winnebago as Described by Themselves (Baltimore: Special Publications of the Bollingen Foundation, #1, 1949) 12-46. Informant: John Rave (Bear Clan). This story is discussed in Claude Lévi-Strauss, "Four Winnebago Myths," Structural Anthropology, vol. 2, trs. Monique Layton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976) 198-210. The original text is in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Notebook 43, 1-62 [56-59].
15 James A. Brown, "On the Identity of the Birdman within Mississippian Period Art and Iconography," in Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography, edd. F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007) 56-106 [93-94].
16 See the illustration in Seler, Collected Works, 2:19, which shows Chimalman, the wife of Mixcoatl-Camaxtli, in Aztlan in the year 1-Flint at the beginning of the peregrinations of the Aztecs and allied tribes. From Codex Boturini 1.
17 Miguel Leon-Portilla and Earl Shorris, In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature, Pre-Columbian to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002) 660, s.v. Mixcoatl. John Bierhorst, Four Masterworks of American Indian Literature (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974) 72 nt. 17. Karl A. Taube, Aztec and Maya Myths (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993) 33.
18 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, 4 vols. (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Company, 1856) 4:240. For the Ioway it is Wanáxi Chína Náwun, “Spirit Village Road”. Goodtracks, Báxoje-Jiwére-Ñú’achi Ich’e Wawagaxe — Ioway-Oto-Missouria Dictionary, "M" 5b, s.v. "Milky Way." The Omaha also believe that the Milky Way is a pathway of the dead. Miller, Stars of the First People, 234. Cf. the Dakota Wanáġi-taćaŋku, "the Milky Way" (literally, "Road of the Spirits"). Riggs, A Dakota-English Dictionary, 519b, s.v. Wanáġi-taćaŋku; 90a, s.v. ćaŋkú; Williamson, An English-Dakota Dictionary, 108a, s.v. "milky-way"; Lakota, Wanagi Tacanku, "the Spirit Road," Eugene Buechel and Paul Manhart, Lakota Dictionary (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002) 341a, s.v. Wanagi Tacanku; Jan Ullrich, New Lakota Dictionary (Bloomington: Lakota Language Consortium, 2008) 950b, s.v. "Milky Way," 569b, s.v. wanáǧi tȟacȟáyku; cf. Oglala Lakota, Wanaġi Ṫa Ċaŋkū, "the Path of Spirits," Goodman, Lak̇oṫa Star Knowledge, 40. Farther afield linguistically, we have Iroquois, Dja-swĕ́n-do‘, the "Great Sky Road," on which the souls of the dead travel to paradise. Harriet Maxwell Converse, Myths and Legends of the New York State Iroquois. Volume 125 (#437) of the Museum Bulletin of the New York State Museum (Albany: University of the State of New York, December 15, 1908) 56-57. The Ojibwe speak of it as Tchibekana, "Road of the Dead," Frederic Baraga, A Dictionary of the Ojibway Language (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992 [1878]) 170a, s.v. "Milky Way"; 237b, s.v. mikana; 382a, ss.vv. tchibe, tchibekana. According to the Gros Ventre, the departed soul travels over Tsŭkyŭnbya, the Milky Way, on the way to the Big Sand paradise in the north. Curtis, The North American Indian, 5:119. The Menominee also see the Milky Way as the road of the dead. Miller, Stars of the First People, 66. The Passamaquoddy call it Ketagūswōt, the "Path of Spirits." Abby Langdon Alger, In Indian Tents: Stories Told by Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and Micmac Indians (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1897) 130-133. The Arapaho call the Milky Way the "spirit (or ghost) road," thíguni-ba, James Mooney, The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1892-93 (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1896) 1015. The Cheyenne word for the Milky Way is Seozemeo, "the Road of the Dead." Rodolphe Charles Petter, English-Cheyenne Dictionary (Kettle Falls, Washington: Valdo Petter, 1915) 344, s.v. "dead"; 529, s.v. "Hades"; 706, s.v. "milk" (> "Milky Way"); 922, s.v. "road"; 1098, s.v. "way." Curtis, The North American Indian, 6:158. The Skidi Pawnee view the Milky Way as the path trod by the dead. Fox, "14. The Milky Way," in George
A. Dorsey, Traditions of the Skidi Pawnee. The American Folk-Lore Society (Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1904) 57. The Apache see the Milky Way as a trail arching over the shoulders of the Goddess of Death that has been formed by the procession of departed souls. Curtis, The North American Indian, 1:34, 1:134. The Utes also call it "Ghost Road." Miller, Stars of the First Peoples, 132. For the Paiute it is Gosípa, "the Road of the Dead," Mooney, The Ghost Dance, 1053, 1056; they also have Nûmû-po, "Peoples' Trail," since the dead travel over it. The Paviotso (Northern Paiute) believe that the soul travels south on the Milky Way, Kasípo. Curtis, The North American Indian, 15:82, 15:134, 15:186 Footnote 3. The Southern Paiute refer to it as the "Ghost Road." Miller, Stars of the First People, 127, 130. In Creek it is, poyvfekcv en-nene, "the road of ghosts," Jack B. Martin and Margaret McKane Mauldin, A Dictionary of Creek/Muskogee (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000) 80b, s.v. nene; 100b, ss.vv. poyvfekcv, poyvfekcv ennene; 272a, s.v. "Milky Way." The Klamath also see it as a ghosts' road. Miller, Stars of the First People, 122, 123. The Nez Percé c̓ewc̓e-wnim ’ískit means, "ghost trail." Haruo Aoki, Nez Percé Dictionary. Volume 122 of UC Publications in Linguistics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) 1191, s.v. "Milky Way"; 67, s.v. c̓ewc̓e-wnim ’ískit. Curtis, The North American Indian, 8:193 s.v. ʦău-ʦău-nim-ish-kit. The Wisham call it wí-ḣŭt, "the road." Curtis, The North American Indian, 8:202 s.v. The Hill Patwin call it yé-mĕ-lé-lu-râ-bĕs, "road created." Curtis, The North American Indian, 14:226. In Maidu, it is mú-pu-pup-nom-bâ, "whitish road." Curtis, The North American Indian, 14:234. The Thompson Indians of British Columbia refer to the galaxy as "Tracks of the Dead." Miller, Stars of the First People, 113. The Spokane call it ⁿ-pa-ák shu-shu-wĕḧ, "the white road." Curtis, The North American Indian, 7:184 s.v. The Karok also believe that it is the path of the dead, as do the kindred Shasta. Miller, Stars of the First People, 138, 140. Curtis, The North American Indian, 13:123 (Shasta). The Atsugewi of northeastern California believed that the Milky Way was a dead man's trail. Miller, Stars of the First People, 141.
19 George Lankford, "The 'Path of Souls': Some Death Imagery in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex," in Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography, edd. F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007) 174-212 [177, 193-205]. George E. Lankford, Reachable Stars: Patterns in the Ethnoastronomy of Eastern North America (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2007) 226-239.
20 Francis La Flesche, The Osage Tribe: Rite of the Chiefs; Sayings of the Ancient Men, Volume 36 of the Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1921) 102 ℓℓ. 8-16, 324 (text), 488 (literal translation) = Bailey, The Osage and the Invisible World, 241 ℓℓ. 8-16.
21 La Flesche, The Osage Tribe: Rite of the Chiefs; Sayings of the Ancient Men, 102 Fig. 8 caption.
22 Esther Pasztory, The Murals of Tepantitla, Teotihuacan (New York: Garland Publishing, 1976) 160-161. Headrick, "Butterfly War at Teotihuacan," 164-165. "For the Maya, the spider is a symbol of the goddess of spinning and weaving, a natural connection drawn from the spinning activities a spider makes when it weaves its web." Headrick, "Butterfly War at Teotihuacan," 165. Thompson, Maya History and Religion, 247. Karl Taube, The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1992) 103. Judith A. Franke, "The Gift of Spider Woman," The Living Museum, 61, #2 (1999): 6-7.
23 According to MacCurdy, "Shell Gorgets from Missouri," 403, the Epeira insulara has a cross on its abdomen, but this appears not to be the case. However, the orb web spider Epeira corticaria does. Emerton, Common Spiders of the United States, 165 Fig. 392.
Epeira corticaria Dorsal View, Legs Not Shown |
MacCurdy (401-403) devotes considerable space to extolling the naturalism and accuracy of the artists in portraying spiders. See also, William H. Holmes, "Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans," Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1880 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1884) 286-289.
24 Marino, 402 ⎷t’ų, s.v. hot’ųra.
25 Bacqueville de la Potherie said of them (prior to 1722), "They are naturally very impatient of control, and very passionate; a little matter excites them; and they are great braggarts. They are, however, well built, and are brave soldiers, who do not know what danger is; and they are subtle and crafty in war." "The French Regime in Wisconsin — I," Wisconsin Historical Collections, 16 (1902): 1-477 [7]. Evans observed in 1818,
"The Puans [Hocągara] too, were not less
formidable and fierce than the Iroquois." He adds, "The Puans were fierce, and exceedingly hostile to neighbouring tribes." Estwick Evans, "A Pedestrious Tour, of Four-Thousand Miles, through Western Territories, during Winter and Spring of 1818," in Reuben Gold Thwaites (ed), Early Western Travels, 1748 - 1846 (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1904) 8:232, 271. This description is echoed by Gatschet: "At one time they were the fiercest warriors in the country." Albert Samuel Gatschet, Linguistic and Ethnological Material on the Winnebago, Manuscript 1989-a (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, 1889, 1890-1891) 1-104.
26 Here is the advice given to Jasper Blowsnake by his father —
My son, it is good to die in war. If you die in war, your soul will not be unconscious. You will have complete disposal of your soul and it will always be happy. If you should ever desire to return to this earth and live here again, you will be able to do so. A second life as a human being you may live, or, if you prefer, as an inhabitant of the air [a bird] you may live, or you may roam the earth as an animal. Thus it is to him who dies in battle. Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 121.
Wonąǧireja t’era piną. Wonaǧireja šjégi, naǧiragera haké woniwąknikjaneną. Naǧiragera hiragigorokanakjaneną. Naǧiragera gipiésge š’ųkjaneną. Žigé raipįgiške, hakja wąkšigegi wąkšigi š’ikjegi, š’ųkjaneną. Wąkšigakihą wąkšigiš’ikjaneną. Žigé nįgéšge, hąpamąnįnągere žésge jaišge wąkšigiš’ikjegi, š’ųnaną. Nįgéšge mąnegi wanoicge-į́ jašge wąkšigiš’ikjegi, š’ųnaną. Wonąǧire hit’era mežesgeną. Jasper Blowsnake in Paul Radin, Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Winnebago V, #12: 17-20.
Hocąk Syllabic Text with English Translation
As John Rave put it,
This is the story they told of those who reached the Maker of Things up there in the heavens. Therefore, if one does that, he would live life under his own control, that they told. Even today, that is still going on. They tell one another this: die there making war. Therefore, they think of nothing but war. It is a hope, they say. That is why they do it.
Worák tee horágireže, mą́xiwągeregi, Wažągų́zera éja hahíreže. Ésge hižą́ žesge higíži, wą́kšigo’įra hikikúrukono wą́kšik’įkjáre, žesge horágireną. Hąp teé higų́ žesge tirákšaną. Woną́ǧire ’ų éja t’áje žésge hikigánąkšaną. Ésge woną́ǧirerášaną wewiną́kšaną. Wokarają́bižą́ héreže, ánąkšaną. Ésge wa’únąkšáną. Radin, Notebook 43, 1-62 [62].
In a note, Radin remarks, "Winnebago philosophy ... does insist that to him who dies on the warpath the moment of death does not even deprive of consciousness. He goes right on living, as if he were still an inhabitant of this earth, the only difference being that the corporeal envelope has fallen off his soul and that, although he sees and hears human beings, he himself is not visible nor his voice audible." Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 121 nt. 15.
This is very similar to what we find in Mexico. The King of the Aztecs, Motecuhzoma, sent a delegation of nobles to Huexotzinco, but the inhabitants of that city promptly sacrificed them in shocking ways.
When Motecuhzoma was informed of these sacrifices, he said, "Why are you amazed by these things? For this fate we have been born, for this we go into battle, and death in this manner is fortunate. That is the blessed death that our ancestors extolled."
Diego Durán, The History of the Indies of New Spain (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994) 459.
§4. Appendix
The Hocąk World Renewal Rite.
1 Charles Richard Tuttle and Daniel Steele Durrie, An Illustrated History of the State of Iowa (Indianapolis: Richard S. Peale & Company, 1876) 670-671. Fletcher was appointed sub-agent to the Winnebago on June 2, 1845. William John Petersen, The Story of Iowa: The Progress of an American State (New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co., 1952) 158.
2 The following account is given of his life: "JONATHAN E. FLETCHER. A native of Thetford, Vermont, born in January, 1806. He came to Muscatine in the summer of 1836, when Iowa was made a separate territory. He attended the first land sale in the territory, in November, 1838, at which he bought lands six miles west of the city, upon which he located in the fall of 1839, and went to farming, having previously returned to Vermont. He was married to Frances L. Kendrick in 1839. He had resided a few years in Ohio before he came to Iowa. In 1846, he was appointed, by President Polk, an agent for the Winnebago Indians. His valuable services in his long career as Indian agent, to the government, and to the country, are incalculable. General Fletcher held many responsible offices in this territory and state. He represented Muscatine County in the Fourth Iowa General Assembly, 1852. He was a member of the convention which framed the old constitution, taking an important part in the formation of our fundamental law." From the website, The Iowa Legislature, viewed: 5/18/2012. For more on Gen. Jonathan E. Fletcher (Jan. 1, 1806 - April 6, 1872), see Clement Augustus Lounsberry, Early History of North Dakota: Essential Outlines of American History (Washington, D.C.: Liberty Press, 1919) 151-152. On a book of old houses in Minnesota, his was described as, "... occupied by a great man who deserves wider recognition, Jonathan E. Fletcher." Roger G. Kennedy, Minnesota Houses: An Architectural & Historical View (Minneapolis: Dillon Press, 1967) 44.
3 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Information Respecting the History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, 4 vols. (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Company, 1856) 4:240.
4 As an agent to the Winnebago, he was described as "enlightened and friendly." Louis Harry Roddis, The Indian Wars of Minnesota (Cedar Rapids, Torch Press, 1956) 8.
4.1 Charles C. Trowbridge, "Manners, Customs, and International Laws of the Win-nee-baa-goa Nation," (1823), Winnebago Manuscripts, in MS/I4ME, Charles Christopher Trowbridge Collection (02611), Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library, 96-97.
5 The order of the 20 days signs is: Cayman (Crocodile), Wind, House, Lizard, Snake, Death, Deer, Rabbit, Water, Dog, Monkey, Grass, Reed, Jaguar, Eagle, Vulture, Motion, Flint, Rain, Flower. Each trecena is named for its initial day. They have the following order: Cayman, Jaguar, Deer, Flower, Reed, Death, Rain, Grass, Snake, Flint, Monkey, Lizard, Motion, Dog, House, Vulture, Water, Wind, Eagle, Rabbit.
6 James W. Springer and Stanley R. Witkowski, "Siouan Historical Linguistics and Oneota Archaeology," in Oneota Studies, ed. Guy Gibbon (1982).
7 It should also be noted that the date, 1 November 1856 (OS) — the date when the eleventh generation began — is the Gregorian date of 12 November 1856. This in itself creates a puzzle. The volume containing Fletcher's contribution appeared in 1856, and if he had submitted his manuscript after 12 November of that year, its publication before the end of the year is not too likely. So we must conclude, ex hypothesi, that the feast took place earlier in the year. It may be that such rites were once held annually, or even at Venus intervals.
8 The Annals of Cuauhtitlan, 10:5-11:4.
9 The number 73 has interesting arithmetical properties in relation to the calendar of people who use a base 10 counting system. 73 Mesoamerican solar years of 365 days each represent a total of 26,645 days. Multiplying 13 x 73 gives a grand total of 949 Mesoamerican solar years. The Mesoamericans counted in a vigesimal system (base number of 20), but the Hocągara use a decimal system (base 10). If we divide the year number of 949 by the solar number 365, we get 2.6, a decimal version of the ritual calendar number of 260; if we divide 949 by 260, we get 3.65, a like decimal version of the solar calendar number of 365. So if we took 365 solar years and multiplied them by 260, we derive 94,900 years, or 949 centuries. So 949 centuries is 260 solar meta-years (years of years) which equal 365 ritual meta-years. So using 73 Mexican solar years as our generation span also produces some number magic in a decimal system.
10 My own descent from the Emperor Trajan, 70-1945, is 61 generations, making each generation 30.7 years.
11 Hawairekjaneną hi’ąc hire wigíšąną́ hirera nįkjąkwanirera wąkšig-ho’į hitanieja égi hijobeja že’é hoš’ík hiregí. (Hawairekjanena hianjhire wigishana hirera ninkjang warninera wankshig hoi hitanieja egi hijobeja she e hushig hiregi) — "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." Exodus 20:5.
12 See, for instance, Jasper Blowsnake's account of the Medicine Rite (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). The original text is in Jasper Blowsnake, Untitled, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3887 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Library, n.d.) Winnebago II, #7, 233-247. This was published as a Hocąk text with numbered sentences followed by an English translation in Paul Radin, The Culture of the Winnebago: As Defined by Themselves International Journal of American Linguistics, Memoirs, 3 (1950): 21-24 (ss 72-212). A free translation into English can be found in Radin, The Road of Life and Death, 301-307.
13 Jipson, Story of the Winnebagoes, s.v. wank-shig-ho-ee.
14 "And Nih’ā́ⁿçaⁿ gave the Arapaho the middle of the earth to live in, and all others were to live around them. Since then there have been three lives (generations); this is the fourth. At the end of the fourth, if the Arapaho have all died, there will be another flood. But if any of them live, it will be well with the world. Everything depends on them." George A. Dorsey and Alfred L. Kroeber, Traditions of the Arapaho (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997 [1903]) 16, and for the length of a life (generation), see 16 nt. 2.
15 Reverend James Owen Dorsey, "Migrations of Siouan Tribes," The American Naturalist, 20, # 3 (March, 1886): 211-222 [221-222].
The Hį Tree.
1 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from Spiro, Part 2, Plate 236.
2 Only Radin-Marino have this double meaning in their lexicons. However, the word with this meaning is embedded in a number of other words: hį-są, "down feathers" (Marino); hi-są-na, "feathers" (George); hį-są-ra, "the feathers" (q.v.); kšo-hį́, "cattail, prairie chicken down" (Miner); wa-hį-są́, "down feathers" (Jipson); wa-hi-sǫ́-sga, "white feathers" (q.v.); wa-hį-sǫ-sǫ, "fine soft feathers" (Marino).
3 Osage hiⁿ, "hair, fur." La Flesche, A Dictionary of the Osage Language, 59a s.v. hi, 60a s.v. hiⁿ. Nothing is said of hiⁿ meaning "feather" under the word itself, however elsewhere we find that it does exists in that sense. There is the personal name Wá-zhiⁿ-ga-hiⁿ, "Feathers-of-a-bird" (210b s.v.); wa-zhiⁿ´-ga hiⁿ shtoⁿ-ga, which La Flesche breaks down this way: "wa-zhiⁿ-ga, bird; hiⁿ, feathers; shtoⁿ-ga, soft: the soft downy feathers of a bird" (210b s.v.). The Dakota cognate denotes down feathers: hiŋ, "hair, fur, down." Riggs, A Dakota-English Dictionary, 146a s.v. hiŋ. Williamson, An English-Dakota Dictionary, 65a s.v. "feather" gives maġahiŋ, with Riggs, 303b giving the meaning of maġa as "goose" (s.v.). Williamson also gives for the verb "to feather," hiŋ uya (65a s.v. "feather"), and Riggs has u-yá with the meaning "to become" (487b, s.v.). For "feathered," Williamson gives hiŋ yukaŋ (65a s.v.), and Riggs defines yu-kaŋ´ as "to be" (628b s.v.). See also, Osage hi, "stalk, trunk of a tree or vine" (La Flesche, A Dictionary of the Osage Language, 59a s.v. hi); but the Common Central Siouan appears in this case to be *hu.
4 George E. Lankford, "World on a String: Some Cosmological Components of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South (New Haven: Yale University Press and The Art Institute of Chicago, 2004) 206-217.
5 "Eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) is the most widely distributed tree-size conifer in the eastern half of the United States." James P. Lassoie, Phillip M. Dougherty, Peter B. Reich, Thomas M. Hinckley, Clifford M. Metcalf and Stephen J. Dina, "Ecophysiological Investigations of Understory Eastern Redcedar in Central Missouri," Ecology, 64, #6 (December, 1983): 1355-1366 [1356]. Elbert Luther Little, Jr., 1971. Atlas of United States Trees. I. Conifers and Important Hardwoods. United States Forest Service Miscellaneous Publication Number 1146 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971).
6 Fletcher, "Symbolic Earth Formations of the Winnebagoes," 396-397.
7 The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs: An Essential Guide to Trees and Shrubs of the World (MobileReference, 2009) s.v. Juniperus virginiana.
8 Henry W. Hamilton and Charles C. Willoughby, The Spiro Mound, Missouri Archaeologist, 14 (1952): 68.
9 Samuel D. Robbins, Jr., Wisconsin Birdlife: Population and Distribution Past and Present (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991) 454-455. It should be mentioned that in a study of the roosting behaviour of the pileated woodpecker, the western red cedar was preferred as a roosting site in 42% of the time. Keith B. Aubry and Catherine M. Raley, "Selection of Nest and Roost Trees by Pileated Woodpeckers in Coastal Forests of Washington," The Journal of Wildlife Management, 66, #2 (April, 2002): 392-406 [397-398, 402].
10 Ron J. van Ommeren and Thomas G. Whitham, "Changes in Interactions between Juniper and Mistletoe Mediated by Shared Avian Frugivores: Parasitism to Potential Mutualism," Oecologia, 130, #2 (January, 2002): 281-288 [282]. They rely on red cedar berries primarily in February, but generally have a preference for other kinds of fruits. These include hackberry, holly, Chinese juniper, crab apple, mistletoe, and pyracantha among others. Jean M. McPherson, "A Field Study of Winter Fruit Preferences of Cedar Waxwings," The Condor, 89, #2 (May, 1987): 293-306.
11 Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 102-105. He is followed in this by George Lankford, "Some Cosmological Motifs in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex," in Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography, edd. F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007) 8-38 [32-33].
12 Alice C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe, 2 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press: 1992 [1911]) 1:217-219.
13 Robin Ridington, "A Sacred Object as Text: Reclaiming the Sacred Pole of the Omaha Tribe," American Indian Quarterly, 17, #1 (Winter, 1993): 83-99 [93]. Lankford, "Some Cosmological Motifs in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex," 33.
14 Fletcher and La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe, 1:217. Hall, An Archaeology of the Soul, 104. Lankford, "Some Cosmological Motifs in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex," 32.
15 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from Spiro, Part 2, Plate 236.
16 Thomas Foster, Foster's Indian Record and Historical Data (Washington, D. C.: 1876-1877) vol. 1, #1, p. 4, col. 4. See also, Oliver LaMère, "Clan Organization of the Winnebago," Publications of the Nebraska State Historical Society, 19 (1919): 86-94 [92]. Oliver LaMère was a member of the Bear Clan. This function is encoded into the Bear Clan personal name Maįnukonuga, "In Charge of Land." Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 189.
17 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 236 column b.
18 The meaning of rejų́ as "root, descendant," is found in Marino and in a couple of literary sources. Cp., "I shall bless you with this dance for as far as your rejų́na extend, that is how far I bless you." R. G., "Ghost Dance," in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1909?) #79, 1-5 [2] (q.v.). "In time I will go as far as your rejų́na extend, as far as they sit, I will not tread upon them." Sam Blowsnake, The Warbundle Feast of the Thunderbird Clan, in Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, 399-481 [426].
19 Phillips and Brown, by a different line of thought, acknowledge the same conclusion: "It has been suggested, for example, that the opposing treatments here symbolize the tree as it is in summer and in winter — the crested songbirds would of course be on the summer side — or, as Hamilton would prefer, sunlight and shadow." Henry W. Hamilton, "The Spiro Mound," Missouri Archaeologist, 14 (1952): 68. Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 2, Plate 236.
20 Oddly enough, among the Osage it is the sky moiety that is identified with the left, and the earth moiety that is identified with the right. This would, at least, be in keeping with Morning Star being left handed. Francis La Flesche, "Right and Left in Osage Ceremonies," in Holmes Anniversary Volume. Anthropological Essays Presented to William Henry Holmes, ed. Frederick Webb Hodge (Washington: J. W. Bryan Press, 1916) 278-287.
21 "Mountains are often looked on as the place where sky and earth meet, a 'central point' therefore, the point through which the Axis Mundi goes, a region impregnated with the sacred, a spot where one can pass from one cosmic zone to another." Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 99-100. See also, Eliade, Shamanism, 266-269. On the relationship between the mountain and the tree, he remarks, "... the symbolism of the World Tree is complementary to that of the Central Mountain. Sometimes the two symbols coincide; usually they complete each other. But both are merely more developed mythical formulations of the Cosmic Axis (World Pillar, etc.)." Eliade, Shamanism, 269. For the concept of the Centre and its associated symbolism, see Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 81, 367-387; Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane. The Nature of Religion. The Significance of Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, Inc., 1959) 40-42, 49, 57-58, 64-65; Mircea Eliade, Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1969) 42-43; William C. Beane and William G. Doty, edd., Myths, Rites, Symbols: A Mircea Eliade Reader, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1975) 2:373; Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees, Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales (London: Thames & Hudson, 1961) Ch. VII.
Redhorn, Morning Star, and the Identity of the Birdman.
1 George E. Lankford, Reachable Stars: Patterns in the Ethnoastronomy of Eastern North America (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2007) 117-119.
2 We see the assumption, "Morning Star (known by the Winnebago as Red Horn)," Carol Diaz-Granados and James R. Duncan, "Reflections of Power, Wealth, and Sex in Missouri Rock-Art Motifs," in Carol Diaz-Granados and James R. Duncan, edd., The Rock-Art of Eastern North America: Capturing Images and Insight (Tuscaloosa & London: University of Alabama Press, 2004) 146, and 148-149 (where, curiously, they say he is also called "Hawk"), 150 (where one of his sons is identified with Morning Star), 203. The identity is maintained elsewhere by Diaz-Granados, Brown (where he is also said to be identical to a falcon-like Birdman), and F. Kent Reilly, who goes so far as to call Sam Blowsnake's Redhorn Cycle, "the Morning Star myth" — see James A. Brown, "The Cahokian Expression: Creating Court and Cult," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, caption to Fig. 1, 115; Carol Diaz-Granados, "Marking Stone, Land, Body, and Spirit: Rock Art and Mississippian Iconography," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 148; F. Kent Reilly, "People of Earth, People of Sky: Visualizing the Sacred in Native American Art of the Mississippian Period," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, 133.
3 Harrison, The Giant or The Morning Star, 92-117.
4 "Reason for Milky Way," in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3862 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago I, #3: 105, 107b.
5 In speaking of the Morning Star, the Crow Wyola reported,
[My grandfather] said, "Don't point at that star. He is sacred." Baptists told him it is the Devil. We don't know for a fact, but they said that it is the Devil. Bird Far Away [a Baptist lay-minister at Lodge Grass in the 1920s] spoke to him about it. He told my grandfather that the Morning Star may have a lot of different stories about it, but it is the Devil. Maybe Baptists are afraid of this star [laughs].
This suggests that Christian ministers were substituting their own mythology in order to discourage the worship of Morning Star. McCleary, The Stars We Know, 34.
6 Phillips and Brown, Pre-Columbian Shell Engraving, Part 1, 91a Fig. 117. Imagine that the Police have a description of a suspect who is blonde, blue eyed, white, wearing jeans and sneakers, but has a very distinctive feature — he's 8 feet tall. They come across a man who is blonde, blue eyed, white, wearing jeans and sneakers, but is only 5 feet tall. What will they do? Apparently, if they've had any training in archaeology, they're going to arrest the man.
7 John Harrison, The Giant or The Morning Star, translated by Oliver LaMère, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3892 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society) Winnebago III, #11a, Story 8: 92-117 (q.v.).
The Moundville Pendants
1 Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plates 109 right, 110 below.
2 Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 110. William S. Webb and David L. DeJarnette, An Archaeological Survey of Pickwick Basin in the Adjacent Portions of the States of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Smithsonian Institution Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 129 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942) 297.
3 Schaafsma, Krupp, Milbrath, Mathiowetz, and Hall, White Paper: The Role of Venus in the Cosmologies of Mesoamerica, West Mexico, the American Southwest, and Southeast, 14. See also Seler, Collected Works, 4:188-190.
4 Burial 2 in Mound H at Moundville. "Near the right elbow were thirteen pendants of sheet-copper, all similar, but no two exactly alike, each in the form of an arrowhead, bearing a repoussé eye. These lay with the bases together, the pointed ends spread in fan shaped fashion as if the bases had been strung together through a perforation in each, and the points had spread somewhat on the arm." Moore, "Certain Aboriginal Remains of the Black Warrior River," 196-198; see 197 Fig. 104. Quoted in Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plate 109. Ala-Tu-M162 and Ala-Tu-M163 [pictured] belong to this set. Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 328 (Ala-Tu-M162), 329 (Ala-Tu-M163).
5 Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 329. Fundaburk and Foreman, Sun Circles and Human Hands, Plates 110 below.
6 This copper pendant was lying on the face of the adult of Burial 164 south of Mound D, Moundville. The "V" is described as "a fenestrated scalp motif." Brain and Phillips, Shell Gorgets, 322. Vincas P. Steponaitis and Vernon James Knight, Jr., "Moundville Art in Historical and Social Context," in Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South (New Haven: Yale University Press and The Art Institute of Chicago, 2004) 166-187 [175 Fig. 15, 176].
7 Vernon James Knight, Jr., and Vincas P. Steponaitis, "A Redefinition of the Hemphill Style in Mississippian Art," in Visualizing the Sacred. Cosmic Visions, Regionalism, and the Art of the Mississippian World, edd. George E. Lankford, F. Kent Reilly III, and James F. Garber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010) 220 Table 9.1, 221-222.
8 Brown, "On the Identity of the Birdman," 99.
9 Knight and Steponaitis, "A Redefinition of the Hemphill Style in Mississippian Art," 223 Fig. 9.19.
10 The six spokes or rays could represent the four cardinal directions plus up and down. The eight spokes could stand for the four cardinal points plus the four ordinal directions. Knight and Steponaitis, "A Redefinition of the Hemphill Style in Mississippian Art," 215.
11 Knight and Steponaitis, "A Redefinition of the Hemphill Style in Mississippian Art," 219-220.
12 Ronald
Goodman, Lakota Star Knowledge: Studies in Lakota Stellar Theology (Rosebud
Sioux Reservation: Siñte Gleska University, 1992) 22, 38.
13 Goodman, Lakota Star Knowledge: Studies in Lakota Stellar Theology, 39. Bear's Arm, "3. The Sacred Arrow," in Martha Warren Beckwith, Myths and Hunting Stories of the Mandan and Hidatsa Sioux, Publications of the Folk-Lore Foundation (Poughkeepsie: Vassar College) #10 (1930): 22-52 [42].
14 Sahagún, General History of the Things of New Spain, 6:167.
The Devil's Sun
1 Louis L. Meeker, Siouan Mythological Tales, Journal of American Folklore, 14 (1901): 161-164.
2 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, 167b-168a, s.v. "Tlaltecuhtli." Karl A. Taube, Aztec and Maya Myths (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995) 37.
3 Taube, Aztec and Maya Myths, 37.
4 Miller and Taube, Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya,168a, s.v. "Tlaltecuhtli."
5 Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, Ch. 4, p. 619, in History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings, translated and edited by Henry Phillips Jr. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 21 (1883): 616-651.