Jewel Eye: Seven Macaw

Seven Macaw: Jewel Eye and Turquoise Teeth

     The Popol Vuh is explicit. Seven Macaw was quite proud of his metallic Jewel Eye and his Turquoise Teeth. In the picture above, there is a broad line between a nighttime fire rains [thought to be burning turpentine, or hot resin] and the following fall of the meteorites, here shown as arrow points. Seven Macaw, tied in knots by the twin comet, Hunahpú and Xbalenqué, is about to lose his metallic eye decoration and his life.

     Such images of this once beautiful bird of turquoise teeth and a single jewel eye, was rampant in the codices. The Nuttall Codex was the most surprising. On Lamina 55, there is a small identification glyph with the burning star at the bird's ankle instead of in his barely decorated star-eye. It could be an eagle not a macaw, but the fire star,. like an insect, is to be found at its ankle. The "ankle" or "wrist" of the appendage is an important key to finding out who or what Seven Macaw really was in the night sky. The war path glyph behind the bird is a convulsing constellation which identified its home; probably the upper left quadrant where his one eye is located.

Seven Macaw with the insect like star at its "ankle" and 
having the appearance of an eagle on a crossed War Path glyph.

     Here more that a simple identification glyph for the larger figure near it, we see a graphic description of what occurred just before he died. The gradual disappearance of his eye decoration.  It also has a numbered name, that of Thirteen Deer, in this instance a Doe, probably an indication of its androgynous status.  The Old Fire God, in a previous post, shows not only his ancient age, but also his similar bi-sexual status by showing his pendulous dry breasts, no longer capable of supplying milk for babes.

     The Laud Codex, related to the Borgia group not only has several representations of the Jewel Eyed bird, but also contained another surprise related to a bird, This bird, golden in color [Lamina 30], was feeding a golden, nude, pregnant woman. Since this bird image is so similar to brilliant shining angels,  it may have been a monk in a monastery attempting to Christianize the codex by inserting a "virgin birth" scenario that the natives would understand immediately.  The art work is isolated from each other and not the type used in the older codices,. Such Codices have images compressed into smaller and smaller areas, so that all the historic details would never be forgotten.

     Is it a blatant assumption without evidence, that the Jewel Eyed bird is sitting upon the Northern Cross, as Cygnus? Maybe, but if one considers how important astronomy was to the natives, both for horoscopes and for strange sky events, like the ball game in their Popol Vuh, where most of the story revolves around a great sky event. The Aztecs called such a sky event, the arrival of Quetzalcoatl and his twin Xolotl, So it is not difficult to translate the star information into the story of the young, brash Twins, Huanhpú and Xbalenqué who dared to engage the Lords of the Underworld in a ball game. by which they finally lost their lives in the "fire cauldron of the Gods."  That "fire" might well be in the great bowl tied to the forehead of the Fire God'.

     The question then remains, when exactly do the glyphs, both carved into stone and drawn in the codices, remain names and when do these glyphs become statements of location, of events, or just of rainy days during the year?  It is my opinion that each glyph is actually but a small part of a larger picture story that could be told if we understood them better.