Who was Maui

[KaWaiAwaAwa]

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So one of the more well known legends is the capture of the sun. This is a Herb Kane painting. (Look him up if you haven't seen his work.)

Across Polynesia, the details vary, but the story is essentially the same.

Maui's mother (Hina - who is a symbol of the moon and all things female) has not time to dry the kapa. Kapa is the barkcloth that clothing was made out of. There is a good deal of symbolism there also as the female is the one who clothed humans literally.

Hina is also a reference to the moon.

Maui listens to his mother's complaint and devises a plan to slow the sun's movement (or make it take more time to cross the sky).

Lots of people have seen this as a reference to the winter solstice when days are short. Some of the specifics are tied to local geography in an amazing way (depending on where you live).

Some of the legends have Maui using his famous hook (manaiakalani) to snare the sun. Interestingly, the constellation (scorpio) rises on the solstice with the sun sitting on its barbed point.

In the end, Maui is able to force the sun to agree to move across the sky slower (which it does after the solstice).


This is one of many stories where Maui (known as a trickster) performs a feat that helps mankind in general (apparently).

In this one, it is a force or power that stands between the interests of his "mother" who is also the moon and the sun (which is his father in some cultures.

I guess I should have said that the constellation Scorpio is one and the same as Manaiakalani or Maui's hook.

 

[gnosisxsophia]

So one of the more well known legends is the capture of the sun. This is a Herb Kane painting...

Across Polynesia, the details vary, but the story is essentially the same.

Looking at the orientation of that painting (the Pleiades at 'his' back) realised I probably should have qualified the 'red toe' reference - the star Rigel obviously being blue...

Whereas, anthropomorphically, Southern ''Orion's'' foot, in contrast, Betelgeuse;



And although, to me, still an 'Archer';



Can also see where a story of capturing the sun with a net, or fishing line, could come from;





The 'toe nail' of fire story also perhaps an echo of the Old Norse tale of 'Aurvandill's toe', maybe even another reference to Aldebaran - coincidentally the Japanese apparently seeing the Hyades as both fishing net and Carrier basket?

The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades

The legends of the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades that poets, priests, prophets, shamans, storytellers, artists, singers, and historians have told throughout time are retold in this compilation of the stories that have found their inspiration in nine beautiful stars clustered together in the...

books.google.com.au

Maui appears to reference a force or natural power

Yeah I would agree;

Scholars agree that Ēarendel was chosen in Crist I as an equivalent of the Latin Oriens, understood in a religious-poetic context as the 'source of true light', 'the fount of light', and the 'light (which) rises from the Orient'.

Ēarendel is traditionally taken to personify, in Crist I, either Christ or John the Baptist, figuring him as the rising sun, morning star, or dawn. He is portrayed in the poem as the "true light of the sun" (soðfæsta sunnan leoma) and the "brightest of angels [≈ messengers]" (engla beorhtast), implying the idea of a heavenly or divine radiance physically and metaphorically sent over the earth for the benefit of mankind. The lines 107b–8 ("all spans of time you, of yourself, enlighten always") may also suggest that Ēarendel exists in the poem as an eternal figure situated outside of time, and as the very force that makes time and its perception possible.

O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae et sol justitiae: veni et illumina sedentem in tenebris et umbra mortis

Bloody 'fishermen' are everywhere aren't they!

 

[KaWaiAwaAwa]

Thank you for your manao (thoughts, but more than that, thoughts of power is really what it means).

The seven stars (sisters) is interesting in the painting. I don't know why he put them there other than the fact that the Pleiades played a large role in the cultural explanation of where people came from (not so different from other cultures with the same attachment).

Just FYI, the Pleiades are called Makalii in Hawaii and something similar in most of Polynesia. Makalii can mean lots of things from small eyes to the eyes of the gods.

Still digesting your comments. I will probably post another feat of Maui (or maybe a few).

 

[KaWaiAwaAwa]

Maui Lifts the Sky



Another feat was lifting the sky. Apparently the sky was so close to the ground that people had to walk hunched over and leaves on trees were flattened.

Maui decided this was not a good thing and so he lifted the sky to its current location.

It's possible to read a lot of stuff into this legend, but it is still somewhat strange. Here again we have Maui fixing the natural world or acting as an intermediary force of some kind between the earth and that which is above for the benefit of the people.

 

[gnosisxsophia]

The seven stars (sisters) is interesting in the painting. I don't know why he put them there...

Perhaps the reasoning could lie as a locator in the 'lifting the sky' narrative?

Greek myth coincidentally identifying the Pleiades as not only companions to 'Artemis';



But also 'sisters' to the stars of Hyades (Taurus), all 'daughters' of Atlas - one who also 'carries' the sky.

The hero with 'upraised arms' obviously another cultural trope, a similiar posture also interestingly termed the Orant or Orante.

Session 11 August 2018

Thank you to the crew for such an interesting and timely session.

cassiopaea.org

'Noah';



Sumerian 'Noah' - 'Gilgamesh';



Incidentally equated by some commentators with 'Orion';

The Ancient Epic of Gilgamesh and the Precession of the Equinox: - 8 metals

Gilgamesh is the ancient Sumerian epic, written some 4,000 years ago on cuneiform clay tablets and rediscovered.

8metals.com

Also somewhat reminiscent of the asterism in Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi's book of fixed stars?



And later Persian copies;



Even the darling of the pre-Raphaelites - William Blake - seems to have something to say on the matter?

Blake's image was probably inspired by the constellations of Orion ('beautiful man') of Greek mythology, Canis Major (containing the dog-star Sirius), and Hydra (Serpent). Blake was quite familiar with the constellations, and a glance at a star-chart shows that they line up exactly as Blake pictured their representative characters.

Always found the tilted head, relative to arms, a curious detail myself...



And obviously holding up the sky another of 'Hercules' labours, even flavoured with elements of the 'Trickster' archetype (a la Odysseus and so on);

Atlas offered him help with the apples if he would hold up the heavens while he was gone. Atlas tricked him and did not return. Heracles returned the trickery and managed to get Atlas taking the burden of the heavens once again...