[Aztlan] nuttall's fundamental principles

[martha noyes]

After Bob Hall's references to Nuttall's book The Fundamental Princples of Old and New World Civilizations I ordered the book.  It arrived yesterday.  I'm incredibly happy to have it and it's a fabulous wealth of material.

If I were ever to teach astronomy in myth this book would be required reading.

You know, most of the folks on this list have the advantage of the works and discoveries of the last fifty years.  There is no such body of work for the geographical area that's the main focus of my work.  I have to rely on publications that were written between the time of contact and 1920.

But there's an upside to this.  I have to work to understand the principles underlying celestial gods and characters and then struggle to discern like principles within the myths of the cultures within which I work.  Then I have to check what I think I've found against the cosmology of the cultures and check and recheck, and go talk to elders and the few kahuna trained in the old ways (precious few of them now), and go back and repeat the whole process again and again.  

The downside, of course, is that there's darned little material to quote regarding any specific analysis or interpretation I might develop.

Nuttall's book is a gold mine.