[Aztlan] Aztlan as Big Dipper not Pleiades ?

[ECOLING at aol.com]

In response to two messages from Martha Noyes, I composed two days ago
some general thoughts on the difficulties of archaeoastronomy and 
ethnoastronomy.   Those two messages from Martha Noyes were not explicit
that a previous message she referred to was about the location of Aztlan.
I did not go back farther and did not know she was commenting on lack of 
public response to a message on a possible astronomical location for Aztlan.

Bob Hall did not know I was unaware of this, and replied (I think it was
referring to me) with these words:

<<
I have been disappointed by, though not entirely surprised by, 
some of the response to Martha Noyes’ "silly question." 
Though presented as cautionary tales, the response does not, 
as Martha has pointed out, reveal much interest in such questions as, 
"Is the mythical Aztlan to be sought among the stars in the northern night 
sky?"
>>

Since Martha's messages I read did not refer to Aztlan, my own message 
is very far from demonstrating any supposed lack of interest in such a 
question.  
I find the question very interesting indeed.
I also wrote to Bob Hall privately and said that I wish he could live
another 80 years to continue accumulating these sorts of possible parallels.
I meant that.

The recent flurry of messages about Aztlan are carefully archived on
my computer, but I did not open any of the recent ones yet because none
of their titles suggested anything new, and the topic of Aztlan's 
location in the real world has been beaten to death many times.
A title such as I have used here
(Aztlan as Big Dipper not Pleiades)
would have grabbed my attention, because it *presupposes* something,
the Pleiades identification, that I was unaware of, and proposes to 
overturn that, and because it clearly would not have been just one more
in a long string of rehashings.   Such a title is my phrasing of the main 
point
(if I understood him) of an earlier posting by Bob Hall.
I attempted to pack maximum information into just a couple of words
which would fit a title.   I profoundly wish that everyone on Aztlan
or elsewhere would think long and hard about their message titles
to do something like that.   It would make sorting through messages
for the ones we are interested much easier, whatever the areas of our
interests.   

Bob's earlier message reveals several aspects of the difficulty
of this field which I did not deal with in general terms.   So here some
substantive response.   If I am not convinced yet, it is not because I don't
want Bob's hypothesis to be true (I am a researcher who does not think
I have the right to preferences in such matters).   I will be delighted if
we eventually find enough evidence to be fairly sure it is true.

Bob's reference to evidence that places of "origin" are sometimes uncannily 
like 
places of arrival and settlement is of great importance, since it may imply 
that the places of origin are partly contrived to justify possession of 
current
territory or at least to give them a cosmological support.

Bob's elaboration of the reversal of directions of motion in some
ceremonies referring to the "other" world instead of this world is
something to keep in mind in interpreting any directional reversal,
as a possibility.

Regarding Bob's earlier post (of 27 July), here are a few comments
and questions I can add.   As you can see, they do not contribute
very much.   The vastness of knowledge required is one reason
most people may feel they have little to say on a subject like this.

Did Zelia Nuttall get the idea of seven Chichimec tribes coming from
the seven stars of one of the Dipper constellations from the very
North American parallels that Bob then cites?   Or where did she get it?

In Mixtec studies, we have long been taught that "bent mountain"
(Colhuacan etc.) is a rebus pun for "big mountain".   Bob Hall
gives a different explanation, comparing with Choctaw "Nanih Waiya"
"bending-over mound".   Such a parallel could of course be real
(I mean historically grounded, not mere accidental mean-alike).
How can we figure that out?   By providing context sufficient
to show it is part of a larger narrative which shares other equivalents.
That is not done in Bob's message, and I don't know whether it
can be done.   Even if it cannot be done, the hypothesis might still
be true, simply unprovable because of historical loss of information.
But it might also be false.   How can we make any progress on this,
other than by building much stronger structures, finding more patterning?

(When I look at an analytical book to decide whether I want to read it or to 
purchase it, the first thing I look for is whether the authors are able to
integrate large quantities of data in charts and graphs and tables, so as to
make it easier for me to access the important evidence and findings
than it was for them before they started their investigation.   That is
my first measure of the effectiveness of the book in helping me to
understand something new at the smallest cost in time.
Can they demonstrate *patterning* of evidence for their conclusions?)

I do not, in isolation, find the couple of mentions of dogs to constitute
an obvious cultural parallel.   They may or may not be.
I find the comparison of "bent-over mountain" with standards of crook
shape unconvincing, without further evidence on what both the crook and the
mountain are taken to be, recurring in similar contexts in different 
cultures.
Again, might or might not be valid.

So I go back to my main point, that the quantity of both evidence
and reasoning which are needed to make a convincing argument
in the field of archaeoastronomy is so enormous, and so
enormously difficult to gather, that I do not see how it can be done
in a message on Aztlan.   How can any of us comment fruitfully?
As you can see, I am basically unable to add much of anything
to this one message by Bob Hall.   Yet I can take away from it several
interesting ideas to be on the lookout for.
I am constantly on the lookout for evidence of much more
sophistication on the part of ancient cultures everywhere,
and to the extent my finite reading time can get me there, 
also for modern cultures.   I envy those with better memories.

One of the reasons this is so difficult is that hypotheses about
archaeoastronomy are inherently hypotheses about *cultural thinking*,
the concepts and structures in the *minds* of ancient people,
and the distance between that and physical evidence which has survived
till today is vast.   With ethnoastronomy we are in better shape,
since living people carry cultures including astronomical knowledge
and practices.   But the cultures of living people are not identical
with those of ancient peoples.   They are merely related in ways
whose details we cannot know a priori.

Difficult?   Yes.
Worth pursuing?   Absolutely.   
More power to those who try carefully.
  
Again I wish Bob Hall and those who work on similar topics
long lives and many fortunate discoveries.

Best wishes,
Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics


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