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base pairs - baroque
WP Anderson (clay@SAIL.CUUG.AB.CA)
Tue, 12 Apr 1994 22:52:53 MDT
Dear fellow list members,
In one section of the novel I'm writing, a baroque scholar
(concocted from equal parts Athanasius Kircher and the great
Mexican, Carlos de Siqu"enza y Go'ngora) is labouring away
at a vast concordance between four mythical systems:
Egyptian / Greek / Christian / Aztec
A concordance which he attempts to depict as forming the
base of some great pyramid anchored in the _unus mundus_.
God, then, is to be found at the summit where these four
triangular faces meet.
(Here an ASCII line-drawing program would be helpful)
His ill-starred project is to "prove" a commonality beyond
inter-cultural contact - a universality beyond or beneath
syncretism - 250 years before Jung hit upon the mechanism of
the archetype.
Where I'm asking for help is in drawing up 4 lists of
correspondences between the base pairs.
Anything from the most *superficial* of coincidental
similarities to profound and *fundamental* affinities
between religious belief / myths / rituals / calendars etc.
of:
1. Egypt - Mesoamerica (preferably Aztec Mexico)
2. Egypt - Christianity
3. Greece - Aztec Mexico
4. Christianity - Mesoamerica (pref. Aztecs)
As an example of #1, one might cite the pyramids of course.
Or commonalities in Egyptian and Mayan embalming
practices, or similarities in Aztec and Egyptian
conceptions of the underworld ...
Of #2: Isis and Horus as a model for the Madonna and Child;
the resurrections of Christ and Osiris ...
Of #3: certain attributes of Apollo and Quetzalco'atl;
alternatively, the sacrifice of the Goddess's son-
consort as _interrex_ (Xipe Totec / Zagreus) ...
Of #4: the fusion of the Mary and Tonantzin in the Virgin of
Guadalupe; or Quetzalcoatl as St. Thomas ...
The lists needn't only contain information available in the
17th century. More recent discoveries (and debunkings)
would be welcome.
I'm aware that this ground has been covered, if not
exhaustively. However I lack the erudition to draw up these
lists myself. My reading just keeps taking me deeper, with
no end in sight.
So while sources (especially concise ones) would be
appreciated, where the Net could be truly invaluable is in
pooling even fragmentary knowledge / intuitions about these
particular correspondences, in order to draw up four lists.
I look forward to hearing from anyone who might spare a
minute to throw in even one or two items.
my thanks (yet again) to the global human database,
W.P. Anderson
clay@sail.cuug.ab.ca
(I'll be sending this posting to ANE, ANTHRO, MEDIEV,
AZTLAN, ANCIEN, FOLKLORE, FEMISA, NATIVE. Please
forgive the nuisance any duplication may cause.)
--
clay@sail.cuug.ab.ca (WP Anderson)
writer / student / teacher (on a good day): Calgary, Canada.
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