Chapter 15: Place of the 7 caves, Aztec

     Hello, welcome back to obscure mythology. I apologize again for the delays in my postings. I am trying to get back to some sort of schedule to not only finish this part of my blog but to get my head back in the game as well. This summer has been an emotional roller coaster and the fact that it has rained for about 90% of it doesn’t help. I am normally a creature of habit but these past few months have admittedly thrown me into a funk that has been very hard for me to get out of. I have always used my writing and research as a way to keep my mind from funking out like this but I had a flood of problems come at me like I haven’t had to deal with before. I haven’t been this inundated in a long time and I honestly didn’t know how to deal with it and I still don’t but I do know that writing and research has been my outlet and it needs to be again. Its like I have been shooting down a raging river being pulled toward a waterfall and I have finally just managed to grab onto a limb from a passing tree on the riverbank. I haven’t managed to get out of the river yet but at least I have anchored myself and can start planning on my escape back to solid ground. My family and friends are my anchor while this blog and my research are my escape. I would rather die trying to escape the river than to let the river take me over the edge of the falls and into oblivion. When I get depressed or start questioning everything I like to recite my favorite poem, Invictus by: WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Out of the night that covers me, 

      Black as the pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

      For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

      I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

      My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

      Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

      Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 

      How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 

      I am the captain of my soul. 

The last two lines are my absolute favorite. Anyhow, I’ve wasted too much time with this long winded apology, I need to get back on track. Today’s post, The Place of 7 caves caught my eye because of its mention of Atzlan, the same name as the park here in Wisconsin that I believe has to do with ancient copper miners and perhaps even giants!

I have written about both a few times in the past and when I came across this mention of Atzlan in the Mythology Dictionary, I had to use it. Here is what the dictionary had to say about the Place of 7 caves.

Place of seven caves; Central American

In Aztec lore, the place where the tribes which emigrated from their homeland, Atzlan, split up and went their separate ways. (Dictionary of Mythology, an A-Z of themes, legends and heroes. J.A Coleman)

The mainstream belief is that the mound building people of ancient , in Illinois at Cahokia and Atzlan, left their well established homes and cities (Cahokia, itself was home to upwards of 10,000 people at its peak) and migrated south ending up in present day Mexico. They became the Aztec empire in the years that followed. An ancient Aztec text described how their ancestors followed the maize (corn) from their homes in the south to their new home in Central America. I am torn when it comes to this supposition, I do believe that the people of Atzlan and the Aztecs were related but I don’t believe the mainstream timeline or supposed path they took. There is much more to pre-history (this is how I refer to history before the mainstream believes the written word was discovered, normally up until about 2000-1000 bce.) than we have been told and much of our ancient history has been intentionally suppressed or outright erased. When the Conquistadors invaded and subsequently conquered the Aztec and Incan civilizations their missionaries destroyed everything they deemed was against the church, needless to say anything with any kind of religious tone was destroyed. Less than twenty authentic Incan religious texts have survived until today. I wonder what they might have held. So, back to the Place of the Seven Caves, I began to think that this may be an actual place that exists, where the tribes did converge and then disperse across not only North America but Central America as well. Perhaps this place is somewhere in the American Midwest or Southwest, it makes me want to go search Google Earth! This is why I do the research I do, it opens up so many more doors and makes me ask so many more questions and as long as these questions remain unanswered I will search for the answers. I hope you continue this journey with me and once again thanks for your patience when it comes to my posts. I cannot wait to post again and I’m glad I grabbed onto that branch! Until the next time, which will be sooner than three weeks, have a great day and as always, PEACE!!!!!!!! 

Obscure Mythology Chapter 15: Otherworld, the Celtic afterlife.

     Hello, first of all I want to apologize for being gone for so long, life has been throwing me a lot of curveballs and unfortunately, I can hit a fastball but not the off-speed stuff. The two people who influenced my life the most are gone and I still not sure how to cope with these losses. My Grandfather passed away a few weeks back, he was responsible for showing me the beauty and importance of the Natural world, I will miss him dearly. The other, my Grandmother is still alive but her mental capacities are gone for the most part, it was her fanciful bedtime stories that sparked my imagination and gave me my love for story telling. She was my spiritual and intellectual inspiration while my Grandfather was my natural tutor and instructor. I am who I am because of them and this is by far the most heartbreaking and emotionally draining experience I have ever been forced into and it isn’t even over yet. The hardest day of my life was walking into my Grandmother’s room and seeing her so helpless. It is hard to describe in words how utterly devastating it is to see someone you love so much in such a state. All I could think about was how much she did for me when I was growing up and how I couldn’t do anything for her. I stayed by her side for quite a while just holding her hand as she slept. I still feel horrible for pulling my hand away when it came time to leave. Yes, I had to pull my hand away from her because her grip was so tight, the woman who raised me, who held my hand when walking or squeezed them not so gently when I started acting up in church (which was a lot) didn’t want to let go of my hand. Although she will not remember my visit or that incident it will never leave my mind and I will always feel regret for leaving her.  I always knew that days like that would eventually happen but no matter how hard I tried to be prepared, I wasn’t, at all. I can see why people use the saying, “When it rains, it pours.” I have been drowning in sadness, hopelessness and fear these past few weeks and I needed to escape. Writing and research is how I do that and that is why I had to get back to my blog. I need to keep on pushing through these dark days and understand that everything happens for a reason and that the best way for me to battle is to do what I love doing. I had been scouring the Mythology dictionary for a good entry for today for a few weeks and even had about eight different choices to try to narrow down, until I opened the book today. It opened directly to the O section but more importantly right to today’s entry: The Otherworld, the Celtic version.  I’ve probably mentioned this a time or two but according to a few different DNA screens I am a full 25% Irish/Scottish so it only seems fitting that I try to understand death and rebirth through the eyes of my ancestors. I hope you enjoy this post.

Otherworld[=Avalon, British=Ard mhac leinn. Tir inna N’og, Irish] Home of the fairies: land of the Gods

A place where another existence, in many ways similar to this life, awaits those who died. A death in this life meant a rebirth in the Otherworld and vie versa. It is said to become visible to mortals at the feast of Samhain.

That place sounds okay to me, hell for all I know this is the Otherworld. It has the same sort of cyclical reincarnation theme that Eastern religions have as well, like I suspected it would yet it still holds a hint of a realm for the dead like the place Heaven was patterned after. I like the mention of Samhain as well, being a Wiccan, this is an important holiday or Sabbat as we call them. It is the one day of the year that the veil that separates the realm of the dead and the living is extremely weak. When the Catholics incorporated Samhain into their religious pantheon they renamed it All Saints Day, they claimed it was a day when the veil that separated Heaven and Earth was the weakest. It is of course most commonly referred to as Halloween today. Yes, they stole it and assimilated it into their own practices to make the transition from “heathen” to righteous Christian, but again I am digressing and showing my utter contempt for organized religion. I think I’ll end this for today thinking about my Grandfather working hard in his garden in the Otherworld waiting patiently for my Grandmother to bring him a glass of lemonade. Someday I’ll show up to pick a tomato or two but for now I can be happy knowing he is happy and doing what he loves doing. Have a great day and thanks for supporting me and my endeavors. As always: PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

above image: the different levels of punishment in Nork

 Obscure Mythology Chapter 14: Nork

Cambodian hell or home of the damned.

     Welcome back. Today I went for something a little different. Up until this point I have been looking more at figures and myths and not places, so when I came across Nork, I had to share it. I grew up Catholic so the thought of going to Hell was always in the back of my mind. It was the fear of being sent into eternal damnation that made me a pretty good kid and what made organized religion like Catholicism so powerful. Did you know that back in Medieval times when a church or cathedral was being built the Catholic church would offer Sunday’s as a day of penance, meaning if you stayed after mass and helped to build the new church all of your sins for the past week or longer if you’d not been going to mass would be forgiven? All your sins, as long as you helped build the new church. It kind of made the fear of Hell a little less foreboding so it was stopped. I will not get into my views on organized religion, I am here just to share and research. Many people assumed it was the Catholic church that “invented” Hell, but most ancient myths had a special horrible place for bad people. As with the flood myth it seems as if Hell or a similar variation can be found in just about every civilization. I knew of the Norse version which just so happened to be called, Hel. Coincidence? Absolutely not. It was more than likely stolen from Norse Mythology to help the founders of Christianity describe their terrible awful place of eternal damnation. It should also be noted that not all underworlds were considered bad. In many ancient cultures, the Underworld was the place where all the dead went. There is one big difference between the Christian Hell and Cambodia’s Nork but I’ll wait until after I share the entry before I get into. Well, let me stop my ranting and introduce you to the Nork, Cambodia’s Hell.

Nork: hell, the home of the damned. Cambodia

This realm, which has eight levels, lies below the earth and the torment inflicted on sinners increases with the depth. The lowest hell is called Avichi. Each level is divided into sixteen separate hells with increasing levels of torture.  Spirits who have suffered torment appropriate to their sins are reborn. (The Dictionary of Mythology an A-Z of themes, legends and heroes, J.A. Coleman).

Just as many ancient myths had a Hell, they also had many different levels like Nork. I believe the Christian version started out multileveled but was later condensed into the Hell we envision today. Dante’s famous medieval book The Inferno, tells of the supposed layers of the Christian Hell but modern religious teachings don’t mention layers  when speaking of the Christian Hell. The one major difference that I was speaking of was the way the Cambodian’s incorporated reincarnation into their Hell. It is an interesting aspect and it keeps with the Eastern philosophies while still scaring people with horrible damnation and torture. I am uncertain if other Eastern philosophies have their own versions of pre-reincarnation Hells as well. Again, this is another reason why I do this kind of research, it opens up so many of doors to look into. The reason I chose Nork over many other deserving candidates was because of the way it incorporated both Christian and Eastern mythology. I’ve learned so many new things since starting this little adventure and I love sharing them with you the reader. I appreciate everyone who reads this and I’m glad that you’re sticking around to see what’s next. I have 12 more instalments of the A-Z mythology and then I will get back to my other stuff and believe me I have got a lot including my ground breaking new theory on the Voynich Manuscript, if you are unfamiliar with it I urge you to look it up and then be prepared to be wowed when I present my theory. Until next time, thank you for reading and as always: PEACE!!!!!

PS: while searching for images to go with this post I found out that nork is a derogatory term for North Koreans (sorry, not my intentions) and  another name for a woman’s breast! See what kind of fun stuff you can find while doing research?

Obscure Mythology Chapter 13: Michabo

Creator-God of the Algonquins

     It’s time for another installment of obscure mythology and today we are officially half way through the alphabet! Although I must admit, I have screwed up the chapter number for a post more than once but I always go back and fix it. At least I think I have all the chapter numbers right, I’ll go back and double check after I finish this. Anyhow, back to the post. It took me almost three days to pick one of the many interesting entries I found in the Mythology dictionary under M and after much contemplation I chose Michabo for a few reasons, first because there is yet another reference to a great flood from a different part of the world, this time North America. I had no idea that most if not all Native American creation stories talk of a great flood. The second reason was a little more personal. I recently found out that my Great-Great Grandmother was Algonquin. I had grown up knowing that she was a Native American but up until about a month ago I didn’t know what tribe she had come from or where she was originally born. Recently a family member had found some papers stating her history and a lifelong mystery was solved. It ends up that she was born in Algonquin territory in Canada and moved to South Dakota in the 1880’s. I was really happy to finally get some answers about that side of my family since not much is known about our history at all, unlike my Father’s side of the family which can be traced back to Scotland in the 12^th century.  I have been keeping an eye out for the story from the Algonquins to share with everyone and I do believe this is a good one to start with. I know I will be doing much more research on the Algonquins in general know that I know that I have connections to them. It is really exciting to make connections like this and it is one of the reasons that I love doing this kind of work. I also could not believe how the flood myth had ties to North America as well. I knew the Hopi and Navaho had a flood myth but I had no idea that it spread across the entire North American continent. While researching this entry I came across a Native American myth that strongly resembles the tower of Babel story. How crazy is that? It truly intrigues me how all of these different ancient peoples had the same myths or at least the same basis. I am currently reading Graham Hancock’s, Fingerprints of the Gods, and he has found mythological connections between most ancient civilizations from the Sumerians to the Aztecs. I highly recommend reading his book if you have not already, I only have a few chapters left and I can honestly say no book has ever made me rethink ancient history and civilizations like this book does. Well, I believe I have said enough in the intro so let’s get to it. I give you Michabo, a creator-god of the Algonquin people.

Michabo: [Great Hare. Lord Hare. Lord of the Day. Messon. Messibizi. Missabos. Missiwabun]

a creator-god of the Algonquins, chief of the 5 gods of the tribe, son of Kabun, brother of Chokanipok.

Michabo often descended to earth to hunt and, on one occasion, his hunting pack composed of wolves led him to a lake. When he followed them into the lake, the water overflowed and flooded the whole earth. Both the Raven and the otter failed to find any dry land but the muskrat brought up mud from the bottom and Michabo made a new world, mating with Muskrat to start the human race.

He killed Chopanipok and scattered his entrails to create vines.

He is said to have invented the fishing net and instructed his people in the art of fishing.

The clouds in the sky are fumes from his great pipe. (The Dictionary of Mythology an A-z of Themes, Legends and heroes, J.A. Coleman)

     So there you have it, Michabo, the creator-god of the Algonquin. It seems as if he was the one responsible for the flood in this myth but it led to the creation of people so I guess it was a good thing. In all of the other entries I’ve seen when it comes to the Native American flood mtyh was the fact that the Muskrat found mud to reform earth, no matter what tribe was telling the story. So these myths must have come from the same source and then spread amongst the other tribes. Like I said I think there is definitely something to the fact that so many, if not all ancient civilizations have a flood myth. I believe that some time long ago in human history a catastrophic flood had to have taken place. That story was passed down by the survivors for generation after generation. As we humans began migrating across the world we brought our ancestors ancient tales with us and assimilated them into our culture to help better keep them alive. My personal theory is that somewhere around 50,000 years ago or so the land that separated the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic (where the straights of Gibraltar is now) gave way and sent billions of tons of the Atlantic crashing into the Mediterranean basin. The sea levels would have risen by hundreds of feet and any city, village or tribe living in the area would have been blasted away in a tidal wave of water. The Mediterranean basin is where most ancient civilizations settled down and became civilized around 5,000-6,000 years ago according to main stream historians so why couldn’t they have been there before? I can bet that there are many things hidden in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea right now. I should also say I am not the first to think this, as a matter of fact I think I saw that theory in a show on the History channel, it makes a lot of sense if you think about it though. Mainstream historians say that the Atlantic broke into the Mediterranean way earlier than 50,000 years ago and humans would have still been monkeys in Africa when this happened but many researchers including Graham Hancock believe that humans or some other species were as advanced if not more so now before the flood and that the flood myths are stories to keep their memories alive. There is geological proof that the Sphinx in Egypt is thousands, if not tens of thousands of years older than it is purported to be and there are ancient maps that exist today that show the coast line of Antarctica before it was encapsulated in ice! The most famous ancient map that is highly detailed is the Piri Ries map, it is worth looking into, and it was supposedly created from even older maps. It was these older maps from the First age of humans that showed the Antarctic coast and even detailed areas of South America. The Piri Ries map was made a hundred years before the Spaniards had reached the area. How is this possible? The only explanation is that someone or something in our ancient past was much more advanced than mainstream historians and anthropologists want to admit. I am kind of getting off topic, all of this stuff I just typed is out there for you to find if you want. In conclusion I do believe that the flood myth and many other famous stories and fables are connected because they are stories that actually happened to our very ancient ancestors. That is why I love researching this stuff as I have mentioned. I have more questions every time I research mythology looking for answers! I do not believe it is just a coincidence that so many civilizations and cultures share the same myths. It can’t be and anyone who believes it is, is too afraid to search for the truth. I think we should be actively searching for these ancient ancestors instead of suppressing them and calling anyone who believes in them crazy or fringe researchers. The truth, the ancient truth is out there and our ancestors wanted us to find it that is why they left us with the stories and the many clues to their existence that they did. I would rather find the truth and rewrite the history of Homo Sapiens than keep it hidden and follow a false history. We owe it to ourselves and our ancient forebears to find  their secrets. Well I hope my mostly off topic rant didn’t scare you all away and I promise to get right back on track with the next installment of Obscure Mythology, until then take care and seek the truth but most importantly: PEACE!!!!!!!