It doesn't matter what animal symbolism we're talking about. Its connection
with sacrifice is the most important. Its form (buffalo, horse, ram, goat,
etc) is less important to the myth. We could associate the Twins with pretty
much any animal and still convey most of the original themes of the Creation
myth. However, I do think that a horse equation is the most appropriate
because of the *Ek^womedhus festival, their sun mother who is also
associated with a horse (or chariot), and the evidently large importance
placed on the horse in IE culture (cf. the Kurgan culture). Why would the
horse be so important if not as a symbol of earth and the creation of
humankind itself? IndoEuropean speakers would, in effect, view the horse as
their very own brother! Quite the importance indeed!
>Your concept of *Manus is becoming very expanded: Manu, God Twins,
> >Herakles.
So then you admit that you like to start with a large and complex theory
first before arriving at a simple one. How illogical :(
>Gayo Maretan means "Mortal Life"
That's right. *Manus is the mortal hero. Do you ever think that maybe
there's a reason why we have a figure that's both acclaimed to be mortal and
acclaimed to be heroic at the same time? Why was he mortal? Because he was a
god once. Why was he a hero? Because he fought against monsters even with
his mortality. But why did he?
Now stop and think about that question. Why? Why should he bother to attack
these monsters? Why him? There has to be a reasonable motivation, and even
if Heracles was just a good ol' soul, it still doesn't explain why the
monsters existed in the first place. Why would he have been ignored by the
godly society as he was battling these ferocious monsters worthy of gods?
Why did he have to do the labours? Why was Hera always torturing him? She
had other extramarital spawn of Zeus to hate too but why didn't she go after
them?
There's no other explanation: *Manus the moral hero comitted a serious crime
and all the gods hated him for it. This is why Hera hated him. The
motivation for his heroic acts are then obvious: He was once a god but was
dethroned at some point by his crime. The inhuman acts can only serve to
prove that he is worthy to be given his divine status back, the one he lost.
The monsters are created by *GWo:uXanos (Hera-Juno), and are only there to
serve up punishment to *Manus. Note how none of the other gods directly help
him to slay anything! Cuz the gods hate his guts, that's why. At most, they
might give him _some_ help, but he has to do the work himself.
*Dye:us represents Law & Order while his spouse, *GWo:uXanos, represents
Justice or rather, the Maintenance of Law & Order. This is clear by her
jealous fits over Zeus' frequent adultery. She exacts revenge and punishment
to people who cross the societal line.
Now, Greek myth has none other than Zeus fathering Heracles, proving that
his birth is definitely otherworldly, and the Hindu counterpart, Indra, is
even a _full_ god, period! Even if we pretend that he's not a dethroned god,
Heracles certainly ends up being one again when he marries Hebe, daughter of
Hera, in the afterlife after all his labours are done and his punishment is
over. So we know that Heracles starts out with a divine birth and ends up
with a divine afterlife with mortal trouble and punishment in the middle.
So if the God Twins are immortal and Heracles also has a divine birth and
one of the Twins commits murder and Heracles ends up mortal and doing
labours... what am I supposed to think? The two stories are connected
perfectly like a jig-saw puzzle.
Joao, try and picture this: *Manus and *Yemos, our accepted Horse Twins, are
playing around one day on one of the great branches of the Great Tree. Then
all of a sudden when *Yemos isn't looking, *Manus takes his bow and arrow,
shoots his brother in the heart and then slices him up into three or more
pieces. This is the standard IE myth about our rivaling brothers.
Now tell me, Joao. Do you think *Manus should go unpunished for his crime? I
doubt you'd say yes. Most sane people would say, "No, fry the
son-of-a-bitch!" and that would be the correct answer if you respect law and
order like the IEs obviously did. Since you seem to think that *Manus and
Heracles aren't the same, I'm curious... why don't you tell us how *Manus is
sentenced by the gods if not by a loss of his immortality. How else could he
possibly be punished for such a serious crime? Support this convincingly
with mythological evidence from various IE cultures. If you cannot, you
either have to accept that IE culture supported fratricide... or.... accept
my connection as valid.
>Other problems is the identity (if it'll be possible to define) of >Manu's
>wife. A goddess? A river-goddess? Three river-goddess (The >Matronae,
>Matris, Celtic Matrona/Marne) ? A female twin of Manu, like >Yama/Yami?
It certainly would have to be a goddess since only *Manus was human. He was
also very much male (a hunter) and not a he-she melange. This brings us to
another important point. *Manus would not only have been punished with
mortality himself, but his sons, the sons of his sons and the sons of his
grandsons. There is Biblical precedent for this in Genesis when Adam is
punished. So we can conclude that his offspring, no matter how divine the
consort would remain mortal like him. That was part of his punishment.
Theorizing a special wife-twin over and above his existant brother twin is
over-doing the twin theme, don't you think? I suspect *Xste:r was the
consort and "Eve". You see, *Xste:r is the goddess of love and who better to
give birth to children (cf. Venus and Cupid) and further, who else better to
sympathize with *Manus but a love goddess. All the other gods hated him for
his murder of the Perfect Child (Dumuzi), the earth, *Yemos. Only *Xste:r
could be the goddess of mercy.
Another reason to expect *Xste:r is the mother of mankind is the fact that
this creates a beautiful symmetry between the Old European goddess aspects,
Creatrix & Destructrix. *Xste:r is the old Creatrix and *GWo:uXanos is the
Destructrix. *Xste:r offers mercy and forgiveness to *Manus and *GWo:uXanos
exacts never-ending revenge on *Manus.
>I have the personal opinion that the Celestial Twins were not the >same
>pair *Yemos - *Manus. How can a Hermaphrodit Giant and the First >Mortal
>Man be twins? But surely there must be a relation - maybe >*Manus was born
>from *Yemos's blood, or from the earth.
You see? Your ideas don't solve as much because you're losing yourself in
unnecessary complexity. It's obviously simpler and wiser to start with _one_
set of twin brothers and prove your way to two or three, rather than
starting with a hundred and working your way down. Your arguement for more
than one male-twin set isn't convincing enough.
>I'm interested on the "Cycle of *Manus". Did the First Mortal Man >died? He
>was killed?
This is what I can solve through-and-through with my connections. It would
appear *Manus was NOT killed and DID regain his immortality because the gods
felt that he had been punished enough by his labours. So, *GWo:uXanos'
ceased her punishment (cf.Heracles married Hera's daughter in Greek myth).
Take a look at Sumerian Utnapishtim (Noah). I'm sure that this is a related
character. He is the oldest man, the one who lived through the flood, the
one that gained immortality. Does this ring a bell? Sounds like *Manus all
over again doesn't it?
- gLeN
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