[Aztlan] CHUM did not evolve into circle-in-circle

[ECOLING at aol.com]

Gary writes:

<<The CHUM glyph could have evolved in countless ways...
but it just so happens that it evolved into this 
circle-in-circle design which may have star associations.
>>

Where does this come from?   
Only from insisting on a particular result, 
no matter what the data say?

Body parts are marked with something like a circle inside an arc 
at one edge of a glyph, rarely (?) as circle-within-circle.   
I am not aware of professionals in epigraphy who equate that
body-part marker with any symbol for star, even the circle-in-circle.

If I were to *guess* (but it is only that, one can so easily
be wrong when leaping without direct evidence),
the marker of body part might originate in a generalization from
a view of the end of a bone protruding from a detached limb.   

Most important to the logic though, and back to what we can
observe in the data,
CHUM is merely one body part.
It is the body-part which relates to what I think Gary is
treating as the same as circle-within-circle.
It is not the CHUM meaning which has that association.
CHUM has its own distinctive character, and the core of
that is not anything like a circle-within-circle.   Rather it 
has to do with various views of sitting, viewed from front
or side or even rear.   The glyphs representing that do evolve
from a more representational to a more abstract form.
The earlier forms look *less* like mere circle-in-circle.

The meaning "sitting" and the meaning "star" do not have
anything obviously in common.   

I think Gary keeps insisting they do because he wants a particular
piece   of iconography on a rock to mean something specific
which he has already decided on, forget any actual data
which would be needed to support that.
He indicated something along those lines far back in
these discussions.

The best way to get relevant insights would be for Gary
to post a good photo or two of the rock in question somewhere
where lots of people can look at it.   Not a *drawing*,
which is so subject to distortion to fit the preconception
of anyone drawing it, but photographs of the original.

Best wishes,
Lloyd

Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics
PO Box 15156
Washington DC 20003
ecoling at aol.com
202-547-7683