[Aztlan] Aztlan as Big Dipper not Pleiades ?

[martha noyes]

Opps, kala mai (sorry) if my use of subject header wasn't right.  I  
was just trying to keep the thread intact.

I'm so glad you contacted Dr. Hall.  His contributions are invaluable.

It is important in analyzing and interpreting myths and legends to  
have familiarity with the culture, that's true.  But there are also  
some principles for celestial interpretations that are not entirely  
culture-bound.  I'll quote from an email I sent to Elaine who was  
polite enough to reply to me even though I'd meant my email to be a  
post to the list (middle-aged presenility perhaps):

> It's so true that moving back and forth between macro and micro -  
> and also
> between and among disciplines - is extremely fruitful in gaining
> information, knowledge, and insight.
>
> It's especially true in what for lack of a better or more accurate  
> word we
> call native or indigenous cultures, whether of the past or present.
>
> There is, however, quite a difference between sky knowledge as  
> native people
> know/knew it and what we call astronomy today.  One need not be an
> astronomer to learn this sky knowledge.  In fact there are many  
> accomplished
> astronomers who would miss much of the import of sky knowledge.
>
> One important thing about sky knowledge is that it is nearly  
> universal.  The
> sky is the sky wherever on earth one is.  The basic "rules" of the  
> sky's
> behavior are therefore also universal, not only across cultures,  
> but across
> time.  The ancients of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Persia had  
> skywatchers
> who observed the same phenomena the Skidi (Skiri) Pawnee, the Maya,  
> the
> Inca, the Chumash, and Polynesians observed.
>
> The solar year, the lunar month, the annual track of the sun (the  
> ecliptic),
> the unmoving Pole star(s), the "turning" of the sun at its northern  
> and
> southern limits (the solstices), the midway point between these  
> when the
> length of the day equals the length of the night (the equinoxes),  
> that the
> planets "wander" among the "fixed" stars, that the earth has an  
> axis around
> which the sky turns, that the sun rises on a slightly different  
> point on the
> horizon each day of the year, and so on were all easily observable  
> to people
> of old, just they are to us.
>
> More than just the architecture and mechanics of the sky are/were  
> common
> across cultures and time.  Some myths/legends were celestial, and  
> there are
> keys to recognizing them as celestial.  Not surprisingly, just as  
> the sky is
> universal, so, too, are some of these keys.  The presence of twins  
> at the
> beginning; association of kings and high chiefs with the sun; Venus  
> as a
> major player, often having to do with war or ritual violence; the  
> moon's
> association with water and dragon/lizard/crocodile type creatures;  
> celestial
> crosses - the Southern Cross, the crossing of the ecliptic and the  
> Milky
> Way, and other crosses; the death and rebirth of the sun, usually  
> at the
> winter solstice; a boat or canoe in the sky; a path or entry to the  
> realm of
> souls/the deceased in the sky; a tree or pole or mountain or heap  
> of stones
> as the axis; North as up and South as down; a bird at the top of  
> the axis
> when the axis is a tree, and so on.
>
> Time, cycles, and measures were of particular significance to  
> ancient and
> native people.  It wasn't so much that it was esoteric knowledge as  
> that it
> was secret, privileged knowledge.  That's why it was couched in  
> language of
> story, metaphor, analogy, pun, and symbol.  It's also part of why  
> it became
> obscure, almost forgotten - when the conquering began the secret  
> knowledge
> was, as it had always been, in the minds of the those of the elite  
> who had
> been trained in it.  As they succumbed for whatever reason, the  
> keys to the
> language began to be lost with them.  But it was never really gone;  
> it was
> in the myths and legends all along.
>
> Phew.  Sorry to have gone on and on.

On Aug 4, 2007, at 5:30 AM, ECOLING at aol.com wrote:

> 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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