A Map of Oaxaca with its Sky Chart

A Map of Oaxaca and It's Sky Chart

Mixtec map of Apuala and Tilantongo with Dynastic Rulers.
Slide available at the Benson Library at the Univerity of Texas at Austin.

      When I was in John Pohl's class, we all bought the above slide at the Benson Library. It was the map of  the Mixtec area of Apuala and Tilantongo.  At that time, I was only mildly interested in "La Cuna" [cradle] at the northwest corner of the map under a giant sun. Since cartographers many times put a sun onto their maps, I did not even notice it as anything notable.

The Fifth Sun With its Last Trajectory Across the Mixtec Sky

          The Ring Nebula is no more than a beautiful rose near on at the edge of the Sky Tree called the Milky Way.  Orion became the Tree of the Warrior in the History of the Mexicans. [3] At that time, I had not yet re-compiled the translated texts of the Popol Vuh. I had no clue at all about why the sun was northwest on the map. The location was verified by the glyphs of the Dynastic rulers to the left of the map. But that was "corrected" when in my very first class on Aztec history. I amwas informed that "North" for the Aztec/Mixtec world was actually called "East and the arc above the map was an older location called Elotepec, that passed to other dynastic rulers.

   

     The most popular map of Texcoco proved it, until I realized that that map was in Italian and printed reversed AND upside down. the word at the top is "Austro," meaning "South" or South Wind. Since a Mixtec map has little to do with an Aztec map. it never occurred to me to question that sun.

       Even after I re-organized the Popol Vuh, and thought I understood it as an astronomy book,  I was too amazed by a definition of Mary Ellen Miller and Karl Taube in their book about the Maya Gods and their definition of Tlaltecuhtli, a goddess whose arms and legs were torn apart and carried to Earth. [1] I had acquired that particular book when my friend died close to the year 2000. I never took the time to look into it except for the gods and goddesses i was familiar with.

      Later, INAH discovered in the Great Temple at the main plaza or Zocalo of the city of México, a battered statue of Tlaltecuhtli. I had never heard of her, so I looked into Miller and Taube's book to see if she was there.  She was, with even a better preserved statue from years previous. Also, in my bookcases, I also found a xerox copy of a full booklet about Tlaltecuhtli. It had been in with the books that I had gotten when my friend died. So, my friend, Jan A, had found something important about Tlalteuhtli, but during all our telephone and Fax discussions, she had never once mentioned that particular goddess to me.

      What surprised me about Tlaltecuhtli was that Miller and Taube's description proved to be the same as I had discovered regarding the destruction of a nova when the double comet called Hunahpú and Xbalenqué passed (here near the Great Star of Sahagún) and interacted with its failing gravity. The comet passed by twice so the natives below believed it was two separate ball games in the courts of Xibalba.

       The first game included a knife that came out of a spinning ball. It was meant to kill Hunahpú. He afforded it easily. In Astronomy, the knife was actually a bi-polar jet with gasses coming out of the north and south poles, and had the appearance of a knife. This is similar to the one in McNeil's Nebula that NASA mistaken called a "Toddler Star." It actually was a "dying star."

        The second run of the double comet, Xbalenqué tied a turtle carapace over the ball court and then threw a stone at it. The carapace broke into hundreds of pieces; it appeared to be seeds of a calabasa.

      On its third run, after the double comet neared the burning star, its gravity pulled them in and pushed it away. It was like a ball game in the sky. During that time, the dying star also expelled debris that was picked up the ball-playing double comet. The debris created a rainbow of colors in its tail.

       The colorful blue-green serpent in the sky, then passed by the earth and unloaded first burning ash from its tail, and the meteorites and even larger rocks fell after that. According to the information gathered about the Sun Stone by M. Leon-Portilla, and other scholars, the water from the gulf poured over the land and went over the mountains that stood in its way. Both the men of mud died at that time, and so did the wooden manikins.

       The last run of the double comet passed even closer to earth when it came over the western horizon. It was so bright and stayed so long that people had to remain in the caves until it passed by. It was called "the Birth of the Fifth Sun," that "was not the sun we see in the sky" at the present time. [2]

      Two or more years passed until I had finally found the time to put Jan's loose papers into proper booklets (the year 2013), at least twelve years had gone by much too fast.  I typed out a list of titles for the various bits and pieces and came upon the picture of the map of Apoala and Tilantongo. Again I was shocked.

        There in full view of the Mixtec world was the Birth of the Fifth Sun and its trajectory across the sky from its birthplace at "La Cuna." Does one need proof,  well, it is there. It crosses the Milky Way and passes Lyra [and the Ring Nebula as a bright star near Vega] and goes over the now dead serpent Draco, in his role as the North Star.

     The Ring Nebula was discovered with the help of the Hubble Satellite Telescope by Greenwich/Chandra Observatories. [3] Its appearance as a 'rose" is amazing. I would guess that this star was the nova, that exploded and became the great gaseous cloud that we now call a nebula.

        Another constellation appeared in the new leg of the Milky Way. It was, in fact the same spiral, but the lower register of that part of our galaxy.

       On the Apuala/Tilantongo map, a prominent constellation is drawn out. It also has a very bright star at its feet. One could identify Orion with Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, since these glyphs are all above a trajectory line from one side of the world to the other. [4]

       It seems the other two Sky Trees that hold up the world had not yet been seen.  Or they were not invented by the Aztec or Mixtec astronomers, and only later identified and included in the Borgia Codex.

      There can be no conclusion here. The comet's third trajectory was "the Birth of the Fifth Sun. " It is up to the reader to decide if it was even possible.

       However, one only has to read some of the comments made, on July 17, 2008, by radio and television stations in the area about a comet that came from the northwest and sped over Oregon, Washington, and Southern Canada, and possibly into Idaho a few years ago.  The comment made by a person who saw it all, claimed that it looked and sounded as if a 1,000 transformers had exploded all at once. [5]  The report of the Aztec world was that the sky was red [during the day] for a long time, until a human took a rabbit and threw it at the blazing sun (here the double comet). [6]

      Thus, the "sun" in the northwest was a comet. And the Native Americans, the Aztec,  the Maya,  the Mixtec,  and the Zapotec, etc, all knew without a doubt, that the "real" sun always rose in the east. , even though it was "born' in the west. During that time when the comet was brighter than the sun, it actually met the real sun in the middle of the sky, at noon time. Since the comet was brighter, it overrode the light of the "real sun" with its powerful fiery brilliant tail as it sped eastward to the true home of the Sun we know today.

__________________________________________

[1]  Miller, Mary Ellen and Taube, Karl (1993). The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. 

      London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd.

[2]  Tedlock, Dennis, (1996, 161) Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the 
      Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings. New York: Simon and Schuster.

[3]   Greenwich Royal Observatory, London, England. The Night Sky for November 2007.

[4]  Phillips Jr., Henry, (trans; ed.) (Appendix 21) The History of Mexicans as Told by Their  

      Paintings, also known as the Codex Ramirez, (Translated and edited by Henry Phillips Jr.) Read  

      before the American, Philosophical Society, October 19, 1883, In the Proceedings of the American

      Philosophical Society XXI, 616-651 19 X 1883. Edited by Alec Christenson [on  MesoWeb.com] 

[5]  Spokane, Washington Radio and Television Stations, Meteor Seen Across Pacific Northwest: The Associated   

      Press, Posted: 6:56 am PST February 19, 2008  UPDATED: 5:18 pm PST February 19, 2008.
[6]  Read, Kaye Almere, (1998). Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos. Bloomington & Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana University Press.  p. 56: VI. Lines 14-20.

      

The Rulers Send Son South to School

Bodley Codex 26-I:  Papa Seven Serpent and his wife, Three Tiger, send their son to study
Astronomy and Triangulation of the stars on Observation Hill at Sandy River. He is to
be the next ruler after his parents.

       Three Dog is the son of Mixtec rulers of the Hill of the Mssk. Thei rulrr's name was Seven Serpent, and his wife, was called Three Tiger. One can see the umbilical cord from the mother to the son on a  separate path that goes under their journey to the Hill of the Mssk. The crossed sticks with an eye under his body in this codex, indicates he is going where the stars are viewed up-side down [My Note: According to the wife of my dentist, all constellations are up-side down south of the Equator.]

One of two Radishes below the Great BIrd at Nasca, Peru.

        As the time for him to replace his parents at the Hill of the Mask nears, he must learn more about astronomy and the prophetic star fortunes of mankind in order to fill the role of ruler. So by Chapter IV, 22-I, Three Dog begins his journey to Observation Hill on Sandy (or Chalk) River (Caso, 1960, 69) where he is to learn astronomy and probably triangulation of the stars. His companion on that journey is Six Tiger, who carried an incense-burner, and an idol repreesenting the goddess, Nine Reed or "Headdress of the Intertwined Serpents." (1960, 71) She, of the Intertwined Serpents, seems to be the goddess of the constellation Lyra. [My Note: Because of the headdress of the goddess sped away to the south, she later became associated with the Radish Festival in the Mixtec city of Oaxaca.] Interesting.

The Galapagos: Guardian of the Americas

                                                       Galápagos

Goode's Atlas of the World (1957, 100)

       Old Names     New Names  [1957]   Newer Names [2003]

San Cristóbal                                      Chatham *

Genovesa                                           Tower      *                                           

Española                                             Hood     *

Rábida                                                Jervis     *

Marchena                                            Bindloe  *
Chavez                                                Isla Santa Cruz / Indefatigable / 
                                                       / Chavez = Isla Sta. Cruz = Indefatigable
San Salvador                                       James       *      San Salvador = Gone

Santa Maria                                         Charles     *      Sta. Maria   = Gone

Santa Fe                                              Barrington*

Fernandina                                          Narborough *

Isabela                                                 Albemarle*

Pinta                                                     Abingdon *

Isla Santiago                                        James        *

Pinzon                                                  Duncan     *
Baltra                                                    South Seymour   Isla Baltra = No name

Floreana                                               Santa Maria, Charles-Floreana = Charles

Point Espinoza                                      ———    *

Puerto Velasco Ibarra                           ———            Pto  V. Ibarra = Gone

Puerto Baquerizo Moreno                     ———            Pto. B. Moreno = Gone

Wenman / Culpepper                            ———     Wenman/Culpepper = Gone

Cerro Azul                                        ———      *

Puerto Villamil                                       ——— *

Puerto Ayora                                         ———  *  [All marked * remains same]

On the tourist map of 2003, the Volcanoes  are: Volcán Cerro Azul;  V. Wolf;  V. Darwin, V. Dragon, V. Santo Tomás and V. La Cumbre.  The main island is called Isla Mariela, while  Isla Bartolomé is new.

      For years the story of Columbus and his "discovery of America has been hidden from the world. No one ever knew the real story of the meeting with King Ferdinand and his Queen Isabel. Only the actors were identified. Yet, the actors in the story were locked away on a group of islands no one ever wanted to visit. The name of those islands is the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador. The story itself is either non-existent, or hidden away. 

      Years ago, in 1954-1955, I was in Ecuador with my husband and my daughter Maria del Carmen. It was a bit difficult until the America soldiers came by on Thanksgiving to visit.  They offered us a new world, in the Galápagos Islands, but not being an Islander on any island North America, or anywhere else for that matter, my husband and I decided against such a proposition. If we had gone, probably I would still be there and by now, we would have been hosting the many tourists that visited the island group today. 

      Not only would the Islands be famous, I would never have learned why the islands were so important to the cartographers who named them. In a very round-about lifetime, I attended the University of Texas at Austin and I attended a basic geography class. The professor was giving away the outdated Goode's Atlas's. I still have the copy that was given to me. I carried it, as part of my library, for years. When I was in Germany It was joined by another old atlas of the world, but in German. It also became part of my traveling library. Other atlases joined the party. And one book, in particular that I had absolutely no interest in.

     That book was a book about Africa, and about various European explorers of that continent. I read it and commented to whoever would listen that I did not like the book. René, one of my apartment managers, said he would buy it from me. Although  I said I would think about it, the exchange never happened. I finally moved into a small house and set up an office in the living room.  By that time I had acquired a computer and that went into the other room with my "library, out of sight. That room was used for "desk-top-publishing" that during those early computer days was a lucrative business venture.

     I was still attending classes at UT even though I had graduated in 1979, with a BA in Humanities.  One day I decided to try geography one more time. In my first class in that subject, I had gotten interested in the Idrisi map and was convinced that the map was being presented upside-down. By that time, I had begun to collect many xerox copies of ancient maps, and a smattering vocabulary of various languages. 

      Speaking with a professor, one day, I tried to give him an idea of what I was planning on writing. There was something wrong with the first voyage of Columbus. His first question was "Did Columbus know anything about Ptolemy? That question started me on a search for Ptolemy, but I was too lazy to go to the school library. I decided to start first with my own collection. The collection of maps turned up very little information about the astronomer-cartographer, so I went to other books where I had seen maps. 

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** 

        One of the last books I had looked at was the African book. It had a Ptolemy map. An excellent map that was part of a complete renaissance "coffee-table" atlas done maybe in 1460 or so. The map of Arabia Felix was 100% wrong. There is no such land configuration in the Middle East. It seemed to be of the same genre that the Columbus abattoirs list of the Galápagos Islands.

        Nevertheless, the old names remained in the Goode Atlas until the 1978 or so.  In 2003 there were some slight changes, but not many. Even so, most of the Columbus entourage disappeared from the world atlas. It acquired new, more modern names.

       However, when I checked the expert's book on cartography I discovered that the Ptolemy had primitive equipment and for that reason the piece of land could never be found. Again, it was just as the Islands were never considered important enough to be taught in schools because. . . . who would ever want to visit such an isolated place or, for that matter, look for a badly drawn map of nowhere?

         So there are two mysteries, that have no answers:  Columbus circle of financial friends, and a map done by Ptolemy?  Such mysteries can be solved, but it would take many more years than I have left.  The name changes of the Galápagos Islands, are now extinct.  Most of the new names have the word Isla or Is. attached to them.

        Both maps have [or had] valid information for future readers. However, the no readers were interested in that kind of history, after all. EVERYONE knows what Christopher Columbus did in 1455, Oops, wasn't the discovery in 1492?  Then why did Portugal use the year 1455 the same year that Columbus used the year 1493 on his return journey to Spain?  H.m.m.m.m!

Cenotes: Sacred water holes, or Swiss Cheese?

      When one thinks of "cenotes" one thinks of the Chichen Itza in the Yucatan.  There are various names for cenotes in Mexico:

  In 1936, F.G. Hall,  named various types of open wells found in the Yucatan; i.e. Cenotes-cántaro: Jug, or Pit cenotes have a surface connection much smaller than the diameter of the body of water below; Cenotes-cilíndricos: Cylinder cenotes  have vertical walls; Cenotes-aguadas: Basin cenotes only have shallow water while grutas: Cave cenotes usually have a horizontal entrance with liveable areas around pools of clear water filtered through the cave ceilings. [1]

      In Mexico, some "cenotes" were once used  as  living quarters. In 1985, Charles Gallenkamp, wrote such a descriptions of certain caves four miles east of Chichén Itzá at Balankanché (Translated as "throne of the Balam" [Yucatec].)  One such cave had a stalactite in center of a room from floor to ceiling. It is similar to one posted during the year 2008. The description of a cave with a stalactite carved to resemble Itzamná the Lizard. [2] It is the same as the central pole ceremony of the house that was being built, even though the house did not carve the pole into the icon of Itzamná.

      Thor Anderson once studied in Chiapas, in the Maya village of Kruston. Even though he did not hear of any cenotes in the mountainous region where he was working, he did learn caves in the nearby hills may be limestone. However, he also was reminded by his co-workers that those caves were taboo.

       So, instead of exploring the land,  he worked hard with the builders and learned quite a bit about house construction. Being so close to the natives and interacting with them, he also learned a bit about their idioms [modismos] and semi-mythic history. His description of how the central pole in Maya houses, dedicated to Itzam-ná, god of the earth and the sky, was a lesson in Astronomy and Geology, even so, I was clueless when I finally walked in those caves. [3]

      It was years later, when I was in San Cristobal with Socorro, we toured several of those caves. They were immense caverns, with pure water in deep pools, that because of their clarity seemed to be shallow. The cave guide informed us differently. The pool we admired, was very very deep. Water filtered through the limestone roofs from the land above created the depth of the pool because of the moisture that dripped from the ceiling above the pool.

Where Cenotes became Swiss Cheese holes in the Land

      The Maya knew there was some reason for the cenotes to exist. Never were they surprised when a sinkhole appeared, i.e.: as when the Sacred Pool at Chichen Itza lost its roof. Since it was never a constant threat to the land, the pools were treated as "donated" by the gods, to help the native population survive where water was scarce on the tableland itself.

     Technically, sinkholes appear in limestone country all over the world. Heavy rains, a burst drainage pipe, anything can cause such an unexpected hole in the ground. However, in spite of the verification of its limestone base, Florida is made up mostly of coral rock. Basically, the peninsula was built on old island-type atoll formed by coral  reefs of long, long ago. Southern Florida, south of Miami, there is a coral rock castle, built by a recluse who liked the ease of digging up the rocks and easily carving them into massive structures of his own design. 

      Several science magazines and newspapers, including the small map above, have commented on the loss of coral reefs in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and off the coast of Hawaii. They found that the water was acquiring more acid and was eating away huge areas of coral. The skeletal remains of coral also began to disintegrate. New reefs for fish who had fed off the coral were created from old cars, and other types of debris. Such action seemed to solve the problem. It did not. The living coral that fed and protected the various species of fish is no longer alive, teeming with fish and living coral.

     As the acidity of the waters continued to grow, rain became scarce on the mainland, especially the Florida peninsula. Scientists found that certain chemicals could expand clouds so that they could produce rain. Vapor trails covered the skies when rain was scarce. And abundant rains fell, somewhere else!

However, since clouds are driven by the air currents, the rains seldom fell where the vapor trails were first seen. Has anyone noticed that Texas had 100 days with temperatures over 100° during one summer without rain? Or was it only 99 days? Does it matter? 

From:   os-florida-sinkholes-map-20130812

     Florida has acquired a new problem. Since 1954, more than 500 sinkholes have appeared in a single county. It is not attributed to the gods, and there is nothing sacred about them. They are destructive, and at times, take a victim. The only entities that reacted, were insurance companies who were deluged with sinkhole damage claims statewide. The State decided in 2010 to create statute of law that would require people to pay for insurance to cover future claims.[5] The people pay the fees and, in turn, recover part of their losses. However, no one has managed to recover those lives that had been lost.

". . . a sinkhole – a hazard [now] so common in Florida that state law [now] requires home insurers to provide coverage against the danger.. ."

"Acidic rain can, over time, eat away the limestone and natural caverns that lie under much of the state, causing sinkholes. Both extremely dry weather and very wet weather can trigger sinkholes, [an investigator] said ."

More than 500 sinkholes have been reported in Hillsborough County alone since the government started keeping track in 1954, according to the state's environmental agency..," 

and

"There have been only three deaths ever in the state related to sinkholes in Florida, but there were others in other states, countries,i.e. Canada, and  even our own Hawaii."

"There are more than 15,000 verified sinkholes in Florida, including 23 sinkholes within a mile of the one that took Bush. There are more sinkholes in Florida than any other state, according to the firm."

      Mother Earth is crying and no one is listening.  Does not anyone ask why?  Does anyone really care?  If the Sky, the Ocean and the Land are all in trouble, what are we doing wrong?  Why is Florida turning into a slab of Swiss Cheese?

_________________________________

[1]  Hall, F.G. (1936) Physical and chemical survey of cenotes of Yucatán, Carnegie Institution of Washington; Publication 457, 5-16.

]2]  Gallenkamp, Charles (1985, 203) The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization: Maya, (Third Revised Edition) Published in conjunction with the Exhibition Maya: Treasures of an Ancient Civilization.  Within a description of caves east of Chichén Itzá. (4 miles East) at Balankanché (meaning "throne of the Balam" [Yuctaec])  one cave had a stalactite in center of room from floor to ceiling. It was similar to the current (year 2008) description of a cave with a stalactite carved to resemble Itzamná the Lizard.

[3]  Anderson, Thor (1975, 162) Kruston: A Study of House and Home in a Maya Village. Thesis,  Harvard University. "The sixth question [claims]...This is what the trunk of the pochote tree is: it is a lizard. [i.e. iguana]. . . This is the trunk of the pochote tree, the base of the tail of a lizard. The language of Zuyua."

[4] O'Meara, Chris and Lush, Tamaraush (03/01/13)  Florida Sinkhole: Rescue Crews Try To Reach Man Swallowed By Massive Chasm, Web News.

[5] FL STATE  69J-9.001 Section 627.7065(2), F.S., requires the Department of Financial Services ("DFS") to consult with the Florida Geological Survey ("FGS") and the Department of Environmental Protection ("DEP") to implement a statewide electronic .... 7783297 10/16/2009 Vol. 35/41. 

The next year LAW:   69J-9.001 was proposed and confirmed. "The proposed rule amendment revises the rule to change the time period and restrict database submissions to only those claims that involve sinkholes and catastrophic ground cover collapse that were 'closed' and 'confirmed' ....' 9227239  10/8/2010"