Labyrinth of the Scarlet Thread Knights
http://www.ajmorris.com/a06/GhostDance.htm
Labyrinth. Rosamond's Labyrinth. Greel warriors. Rosamond, note ball
of red thread. Ariadne)
"Who are you, and what is your name?" were the first questions asked
her. Drawing herself to her full stature of nearly six feet she told
her name, then, bending slightly forward with her hand pointed
upward, she said in a low tone, with intense earnestness: "I am the
mother of Christ who is now upon this earth, making preparation for
rebuilding it."
Scarlet Woman from Rosebud.
The Carians were conquered by Cyrus the Great, the `King of Kings',
and the Messiah of the Jews. They began to worship Ahuramazda and
follow the teaching of Zarathustra. Before that, they worshipped Zeus
Labraundeos at Labraunda. The double bladed axe, the Labrys, was the
symbol of this cosmology that honored the Great Goddess and Earth
Mother, also known as `The Mistress of the Labyrinth'.
While the Jews were in the wilderness, they asked Aaron to make gods
to go before them.. I suspect these gods were the Labrys the axe of
the Earth Mother. If so, then Aaron was a priest of On-Heliopolos as
was Joseph before him, and is of Carian descent – as is Moses who
establishes the Nazarite Order of Judges to rule over the multitude.
The Nazarites ruled Judea before the first king, Saul.
King Henry the second claimed he descended from the Kings of Troy who
were allied with the Carians who guarded the Silk Road. Henry built a
labyrinth for Fair Rosamond who was discovered via the clue of a
scarlet silk thread.
There is a new Christian prophecy about the Scarlet Thread and a
lineage of King David. However, this prophecy does not entail a
second coming of a Savior or Messiah BORN OF WOMAN. The evangelicals
have adobpted the wierd teaching of John Darby who has Jesus coming
out of a cloud and raising up the new temple with evangelicals
within. Mother Mary has been left out of the second coming. Pope
Ratzinger ignores this elimination of the Catholic Mother Mary in the
grand scheme of things, and goes after Matthew Fox for including many
women from all walks of life in the Rebirth and Spiritual
Creativeness and Reconstruction of the Earth and the Rosa Mundi.
"She refused to tell any thing about the orgie of the Ghost Dance
beyond the fact that she had been proclaimed by the members of the
order to be the Virgin Mary."
When Scarlet Woman from Rosebud announced she was the Virgin Mary,
and had given birth to a Christ who would save her people, the
President of the United States sent an Army to put down the Ghost
Dancers. The Knights of Rosamond will take an oath to protect any
woman who claim she is the mother, or, is about to become a mother of
a Savior-Messiah. Like the Curetes and Corybantes, we will form a
protective circle around this woman, and shield her from anyone who
means her harm.
To all those who are being hounded and hunted by the Radical Male
Seeds of Abraham, may you find sanctuary in the epicenter of the
Scarlet Thread Labyrinth where wait the the Rosa Mystica, the
Mistress of the Labyrinth. May a new dance sweep over this Nation and
World.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2007
http://rougeknights.blogspot.com
"Roman de la Rose
In the century that followed Henry and Eleanor, the rose garden
metaphors associated with Fair Rosamond and courtly love were adapted
by the most famous of French medieval poems, Roman de la Rose.
In this allegorical dream-poem, the lover tells of his quest for the
rose (his love) inside the walled garden. After he is shot with an
arrow by Cupid, he has to deal with characters like Idleness,
Jealousy and Foul Mouth who are in the way (Jealousy actually locks
the Rose away in a tower). For all the inspiring allusions to the
Garden of Eden and the Virgin Mary, the sexual innuendoes of plucking
her rosebud ensured it remained popular for centuries."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corybantes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02kj7RqITm4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEPdrTLK2Vo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-bL-ZtoBIA
"And he brought out the king's son, put the crown on him, and gave
him the Testimony; they made him king and anointed him, and they
clapped their hands and said, "Long live the king!"
Karl Kerenyi (and Robert Graves) theorize that Ariadne (which they
derive from a Cretan-Greek form for arihagne, "utterly pure" ) was a
fertility goddess of Crete, "the first divine personage of Greek
mythology to be immediately recognized in Crete" (Kerenyi 1976, p
89), once archaeology had begun. Kerenyi claims that her name is
merely an epithet and that she was originally the "Mistress of the
Labyrinth",
According to the legend, Minos attacked Athens after his son was
killed there. The Athenians asked for terms, and were required the
sacrifice of seven young men and seven maidens every nine years to
the Minotaur. One year, the sacrificial party included Theseus, a
young man who volunteered to come and kill the Minotaur. Ariadne fell
in love at the first sight of him, and helped him by giving him a
magic sword and a ball of the red fleece thread she was spinning, so
that he could find his way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth.
PYRRHIKHOS (or Pyrrhichus) was the leader of the Kouretes, the shield-
clashing Daimones (Spirits) which guarded the infant god Zeus on
Mount Ida in Krete.
He was named for the pyrrhikhê, a Greek war dance of clashing spear
and shield. According to Aristophanes it was performed beside the
funeral pyres (pyrrhos) of great warriors who fell in battle, hence
the name "fire-dance".
Labrys is the term for a doubleheaded axe, known to the Classical
Greeks as pelekus πέλεκυς[1] or sagaris, and to the Romans as a
bipennis.
This is not the first use of the symbol. Representations of the
labrys are on paleolithic and Neolithic finds of "Old Europe" often
associated with the worship of the Great Goddess and similar Earth
Mother goddesses who were the deities of most early cultures. The
labrys symbolism is continued in Minoan, Thracian, Greek, and
Byzantine religion, mythology, and art that date to over three
thousand years ago. The labrys also appears in African religious
symbolism and mythology (see Shango). In English the first appearance
of "labrys" is reported in OED from Journal of Hellenic Studies XXI.
108 (1901): "It seems natural to interpret names of Carian
sanctuaries like Labranda in the most literal sense as the place of
the sacred labrys, which was the Lydian (or Carian) name for the
Greek πέλεκυς, or double-edged axe." And, p. 109, "On Carian coins
indeed of quite late date the labrys, set up on its long pillar-like
handle, with two dependent fillets, has much the appearance of a cult
image."
The non-Greek word "labrys" first appears in Plutarch as the Lydian
word for axe (Greek Questions, 45):
Herakles, having slain Hippolyte and taken her axe away from her with
the rest of her arms, gave it to Omphale. The kings of Lydia who
succeeded her carried this as one of their sacred insignia of office,
and passed it down from father to son until Candaules. Candaules,
however, disdained it and gave it to one of his companions to carry.
When Gyges rebelled and was making war upon Candaules, Arselis came
with a force from Mylasa to the assistance of Gyges, slew Candaules
and his companion, and took the axe to Caria with the other spoils of
war. And having set up a statue of Zeus, he put the axe in his hand
and called the god, "Labrandeus," labrys being the Lydian word
for 'axe'[2].
Archeology suggests that the veneration of Zeus Labraundeos at
Labraunda was far older than Plutarch imagined. As with its apparent
cognate, "labyrinth", the word entered the Greek language as a
loanword, so that its etymology, and even its original language, is
not positively known. The loanword labyrinth was used in Greek, but
the designation "The house of the Double Axe" for the palace at
Knossos is an imaginative modern innovation.
In the Song of Solomon the Beloved says of His spouse, among other
things, "Thy lips are as a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is
comely (Cant. 4: 3).
Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day in all of
Judaism, and was central to the kapparah (covering) of the sins of
Israel. The scarlet thread, as explained in the above passage,
miraculously turned white if Adonai accepted the sacrifice, thus
indicating that He forgave the sins of the people. If the thread did
not turn white, then they were sad, as their sins were not forgiven.
"The scarlet line of Rahab is a symbol of her faith that God will
provide deliverance in the time of judgment. Throughout the
Bible 'scarlet' speaks of sacrifice made on the behalf of the
believer, and it is seen in the vestments of the tabernacle and in
the priestly garments in Exodus" (ibid., note on Joshua 2:18-21).
This message is not based on Dr. Criswell's famous sermon, "The
Scarlet Thread of Redemption," but the basic idea came from it.
Rahab was saved from destruction because she had enough faith in God
to hang a red rope out of her window. This blood-red rope is a type
(or picture) of the blood-red scarlet thread that runs through the
Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. The Scofield note on Joshua 2:21
says, "The scarlet line of Rahab speaks, by its color, of safety
through sacrifice (Hebrews 9:19, 22)." That red rope pictures the
scarlet thread that runs from one end of the Bible to the other.
The colour "scarlet" represents dominical rights, and it is at once
remarkable and instructive to see how the thought of supremacy in
relation to Christ runs through Scripture like a "thread of scarlet."
This beautiful thought is introduced in what is perhaps one of the
darkest chapters in the Old Testament, Genesis 38. In dark, sordid
circumstances an element which has power to "break through' and "rise
up" (as the names of the twins suggest) is in evidence, and this
culminates in a generation from which David springs (Ruth 4: 18-22).
Thus God's king, the man after His own heart, to whom the throne and
its rights can be entrusted, comes to light.
www.matrifocus.com/BEL02/spotlight.htm
http://www.explorecrete.com/history/labyrinth-myth.htm
http://messianicart.com/chazak/anti/scarletthread.htm
http://www.stempublishing.com/authors/hughes/THREADSC.html
http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/ml/ml22.htm
http://www.sexualfables.com/the_woman_in_the_bower.php
The Woman in the Bower
Swinburne's choice of the "rose of the world" as one of his first
subjects for verse suggests that he associated his conception of
Rosamond with courtly love allegory, specifically the Roman de la
Rose, in which the rose is the eternal symbol of the beloved and of
the perfect beauty that is fearfully transient but simultaneously
immortal.3 As in Swinburne's later lyrics "Before the Mirror"
and "The Year of the Rose," Rosamond's central symbol is the rose,
and, like them, this play recapitulates the major preoccupations of
courtly love poetry: the apotheosis of beauty; love as the necessary
consequence of beauty fear of mutability; and a final insistence on
the immortality of both love and beauty, which can be attained,
paradoxically, only through death.
http://victorian.lang.nagoya-
u.ac.jp/victorianweb/authors/swinburne/harrison/2.html"Many men say
that there is nothing in dreams but fables and lies,but one may have
dreams which are not decietful, whose import becomesquite clear
afterward." Thus begins the 'Romaunt of the Rose' by Chaucer, that
ends thus... "The ending of the tale you seeThe Lover draws anigh the
tree,And takes the branch, and takes the rose,That love and he so
dearly chose."
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the
mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said
unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this
Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know
not what is become of him.
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.vi.xxxiii.htm
http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah/messiah_04.html
Furthermore, I resettled upon the command of Marduk, the great lord,
all the gods of Kiengir and Akkade whom Nabonidus had brought into
Babilani to the anger of the lord of the gods, unharmed, in their
former temples, the places which make them happy.[7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_in_the_Judeo-Christian_tradition
In the seventh year Jehoiada sent and brought the captains of
hundreds; of the bodyguards and the escorts; and brought them into
the house of the Lord to him. And he made a covenant with them and
took an oath from them in the house of the Lord, and showed them the
king's son. Then he commanded them, saying, "This is what you shall
do: One-third of you who come on duty on the Sabbath shall be keeping
watch over the king's house, one-third shall be at the gate of Sur,
and one-third at the gate behind the escorts. You shall keep the
watch of the house, lest it be broken down. The two contingents of
you who go off duty on the Sabbath shall keep the watch of the house
of the Lord for the king. But you shall surround the king on all
sides, every man with his weapons in his hand; and whoever comes
within range, let him be put to death. You are to be with the king as
he goes out and as he comes in." So the captains of the hundreds did
according to all that Jehoiada the priest commanded. Each of them
took his men who were to be on duty on the Sabbath, with those who
were going off duty on the Sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest.
And the priest gave the captains of hundreds the spears and shields
which had belonged to King David, that were in the temple of the
Lord. Then the escorts stood, every man with his weapons in his hand,
all around the king, from the right side of the temple to the left
side of the temple, by the altar and the house.
1. (13-14) Joash, the rightful heir, is revealed to Athaliah.
Now when Athaliah heard the noise of the escorts and the people, she
came to the people in the temple of the Lord. When she looked, there
was the king standing by a pillar according to custom; and the
leaders and the trumpeters were by the king. All the people of the
land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets. So Athaliah tore her
clothes and cried out, "Treason! Treason!"
Cyrus the Great figures in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) as the
patron and deliverer of the Jews. He is mentioned twenty-three times
by name and alluded to several times more. [1] From these statements
it appears that Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, was the monarch
under whom the captivity of the Jews ended, for in the first year of
his reign he was prompted by Jehovah to make a decree that the temple
in Jerusalem should be rebuilt and that such Jews as cared to might
return to their land for this purpose. Moreover, he showed his
interest in the project by sending back with them the sacred vessels
which had been taken from the temple and a considerable sum of money
to buy building materials with.
The personage of Cyrus the Great is unconditionally praised in the
Jewish sources (as mentioned above). It is likely that, after the
Persian conquest of Babylon, Cyrus had commenced his relationship
with the Jewish leaders in exile,[2] and that he later was considered
as a messiah sent by Yahweh.[3] Daniel was in the favor of Cyrus, and
it was in the third year of Cyrus that he had the vision recorded in
his tenth chapter.
Cyrus issued the decree of liberation to the Jews,[4] concerning
which Daniel had prayed and prophesied.[5] The edict of Cyrus for the
rebuilding of the Second Temple at Jerusalem marked a great epoch in
the history of the Jewish people
The Persian period
Meanwhile, their homeland had been subjected to the Lydian king
Alyattes, and, later, to the Persians. This happened after the
Persian king Cyrus the Great had defeated the powerful king of Lydia,
Croesus, who had had some influence in Caria. Thi is usually dated to
547, but this is probably inaccurate. Next year, the Lydians
revolted, but Cyrus sent his general Harpagus, who subjected them
again. This time, he also took the Greek cities on the coast and then
moved to the south, where he subdued the Carians and the Lycians.
The Carians offered their services to their new masters. They are
mentioned in cuneiform documents from Borsippa in Babylonia and from
the Persian capital Persepolis.
In a vision (more...), Zarathustra was ordered by a spirit named Good
Thought to start preaching against the bloody sacrifices of the
traditional Iranian cults and to give aid to the poor. Gradually, the
prophet began to understand that Good Thought had been sent by the
supreme god Ahuramazda, a name that can be translated as Wise Lord.
Zarathustra sometimes addresses his god as Ahura, lord, and as Mazda,
wisdom.
From the Gâthâ's, we learn that Zarathustra started to preach that
Ahuramazda had created 'the world, mankind and all good things in it'
through his holy spirit, Spenta Mainyu. The rest of the universe was
created by six other spirits, the Amesha Spentas ('holy immortals').
However, the order of this sevenfold creation was threatened by The
Lie; good spirits and evil demons (daeva) were fighting and mankind
had to support the good spirits in order to speed up the inevitable
victory of Ahuramazda. The believer could side with Ahuramazda by
avoiding lies, supporting the poor, several kinds of sacrifices, the
cult of fire, et cetera.
http://www.williamjames.com/transcripts/fox1.htm
Original Blessing
Like all works of genius, the thesis is simple and elegant. Fox's
central claim is that Christianity in the west (not so much in the
orthodox east) has focused upon the nonscriptural notion of original
sin at the expense of scripture's exuberant message of joyful
original blessing. Original sin, which appears to be the fifth-
century contribution of Augustine, generates a worldview centering
around a primordial fall salvaged by a bloody sacrifice (Christ's).
From this way of approaching reality, humans are depraved, the world
is fallen, and experiences such as beauty or the erotic are
immediately suspect as temptations. The original blessing model,
which Fox claims can be traced back to the Genesis account of God's
creation of a "good" universe, argues instead for a panentheism that
sees God--and God's goodness, light, beauty, and love--in (but not
exhausted by) the created order, thereby opening up the possibility
that humans are good because made in God's image, and that the world
and all of God's gifts should be celebrated rather than condemned.
Fox founded the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland,
California in 1996, which became Wisdom University in January, 2005.
The school advocated new forms of ecumenical worship and encouraged
combining liturgy like Christian (Catholic) Mass with Native American
rituals like sweat lodges and even pagan circle dances such as the
ones taught by Starhawk. Fox promotes the Techno-cosmic Mass.
Seeking to establish a pedagogy that was friendly to learning
spirituality, he established an Institute in Culture and Creation
Spirituality that operated for seven years at Mundelein College in
Chicago and twelve years at Holy Names College in Oakland. For ten of
those years at Holy Names College Cardinal Ratzinger, as chief
Inquisitor and head of the Congregation of Doctrine and Faith (called
the Office of the Holy Inquisition until 1965), tried to shut the
program down. Ratzinger silenced Fox for one year in 1988 and forced
him to step down as director. Three years later he expelled Fox from
the Order and then had the program terminated at Holy Names College.
Rather than disband his amazing and ecumenical faculty, Fox started
his own University called University of Creation Spirituality nine
years ago in Oakland, California. Fox was President and a member of
the Board of Directors for nine years. He is currently lecturing,
teaching and writing and is President of the non-profit that he
created in 1984, Friends of Creation Spirituality.The principle
objections from the Congregation of the Faith to Fox's work were that
he is a "feminist theologian;" that he calls God "Mother" (Fox has
proven the medieval mystical tradition did exactly that); that he
prefers "original blessing" to "original sin;" that he calls
God "child"; that he associates too closely with Native Americans and
people of the wikka tradition; that he does not condemn homosexuals;
that he has replaced the naming of the spiritual journey as
Purgation, Illumination and Union with the four paths of Creation
Spirituality:
3. (12) Joash is crowned and received as king.
And he brought out the king's son, put the crown on him, and gave him
the Testimony; they made him king and anointed him, and they clapped
their hands and said, "Long live the king!"
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the
mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said
unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this
Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot
not what is become of him. Acts 7:40
2
And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in
the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and
bring them unto me.
3
And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their
ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
4
And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving
tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy
gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
5
And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made
proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD.
6
And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings,
and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to
drink, and rose up to play.
www.sexualfables.com/the_woman_in_the_bower.php
It was widely known at the time, throughout both England and France,
that Henry was having an affair with young Rosamond de Clifford.
Eleanor's spies reported the goings-on to her in her castle at
Poitiers, to which she had now retired. It seems that as the affair
persisted, she became angrier, since Henry's past affairs had never
lasted long and this new infatuation appeared to be growing more
intense. Eleanor decided to act, stealing into England with her
knights, headed for Woodstock, where Henry had his mistress hidden
away. The palace was deep in the forest and its approaches were
constructed like a labyrinth designed to foil Eleanor, should she
ever decide to do what she was doing now. Alas for Rosamond, a silk
thread had become detached from a needlework chest that the King had
given her for embroidery. Once the Queen discovered it, she was able
to follow it to the heart of the labyrinth and surprise the young
woman. The Queen's soldiers quickly overpowered the single brave
knight who was there to protect her and at last Eleanor confronted
her nemesis. She offered Rosamond a choice between a dagger and a
cup of poisoned wine. Rosamond apparently chose the poison and died,
and that was the end of her, or so the story goes.
http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/1211.htm
http://www.livius.org/cao-caz/caria/caria.html
http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/ionians.htm
http://www.bibleorigins.net/BalaamsKittimOracle562BCE.html
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.vi.xxxiii.html
CREATION SPIRITUALITY with MATTHEW FOX, Ph.D.
JEFFREY MISHLOVE: Ph.D.: Hello and welcome. I'm Jeffrey Mishlove. Our
topic today is "Creation Spirituality." With me is Matthew Fox, who
is a Dominican priest and theologian and director of the Center for
Creation Spirituality and Culture at Holy Names College in Oakland,
California. Matthew is the author of numerous books, including
Original Blessing, A Spirituality Named Compassion, The Illuminations
of Hildegard von Bingen, Breakthrough, The Creation Spirituality of
Meister Eckhart, and books with such whimsical titles as On Becoming
a Musical Mystical Bear. Welcome.
MATTHEW FOX, Ph.D.: Thank you, Jeff.
MISHLOVE: It's a pleasure to be with you, Matthew.
FOX: It's good to be here.
MISHLOVE: You are a pioneer in developing a new kind of ecumenical
spirituality within the Catholic Church, one that seems to recognize
the spiritual thrust in many, in fact in all different religions and
cultures.
FOX: Yes, I call it deep ecumenism, and I think it's something that
is long overdue. You know, when the Western churches went out in the
sixteenth century and encountered the African, the Native American,
the native Asian religions, they had lost a cosmology, they had lost
their mystical traditions, and so the encounter was extremely severe,
of course, and it contributed to the genocide against these peoples.
I think when you're looking for wisdom in the world today, you have
to look at the native peoples the world over, the wisdom of their
religions, and this forces one to look at the wisdom of one's own. I
think this whole tradition of mysticism is something that's been
ignored in ecumenism. Ecumenism is not meant to be reading
theological position papers at each other. It would be best to meet
in sweat lodges, or in processes of ancient ways of prayer. We do
this in our Institute, and I think it's an essential part of
recovering a living cosmology, which I think is the only hope that
mother earth has of survival, frankly -- is the human race changing
its ways from violence to cosmology, to mysticism.
MISHLOVE: You seem to suggest in your writings -- and it's surprising
to me to read this in the writings of a Catholic priest -- that
religion itself works against genuine spirituality.
FOX: Well, it often has. Perhaps it doesn't have to, but I think that
religion often becomes a sociological phenomenon. You certainly see
it in your right-wing television preachers, and so forth, where
religion is being manipulated for political reasons and economic
gain. And of course it's what Jesus took on in his own day, and any
prophet does -- criticizing religion. Gandhi was in fact criticizing
the Hindu religion of his time in proposing the intimate connection
between social justice and moral development. Hinduism in his day had
split the two things, as religion does whenever it goes corrupt. So
the renewal of religion is always out of some kind of spiritual
awakening, of the community as well as of the individual.
Sioux Ghost Dance
The Ghost Dance movement was a religious belief system with Cargo
Cult elements that combined Christian dogma with traditional beliefs
and a yearning for the better days of bygone eras. It started in the
1860s and peaked in 1890. Government reaction to the movement was the
brutal massacre at Wounded Knee. To learn more, see:
The Ghost Dance: Ethnohistory and Revitalization
The Ghost-Dance Religion and Wounded Knee
Newspaper article from The Chillicothe Constitution [MO] 15 Nov 1890,
pg 4
THE INDIAN CRAZE.
Dramatic Scene Before AgentMcLaughlin.
AN INDIAN VIRGIN MARY.
She Claims to Be Mother of the Red Messiah -- Chief Gall, Though
Skeptical, Is Not Prepared to Say the Thing is Impossible.
Standing Rock Agency, N. D.,
Nov. 15. -- "Bring in the Virgin Mary" was the order of the Indian
who officiated as bailiff of the Indian court, of which Chief John
Grass and two other Sioux are members. Out from the murmuring crowd
in the large room came Waltitawin (scarlet woman), the wife of
Iikpoga and a member of the Walokpis band of Sioux Fearlessness was
the leading element of her attitude as she stood gracefully before
the railing, behind which sat the agent and his interpreter, and
looked indifferently at John Grass and the two other Indians who
composed the court.
"Who are you, and what is your name?" were the first questions asked
her. Drawing herself to her full stature of nearly six feet she told
her name, then, bending slightly forward with her hand pointed
upward, she said in a low tone, with intense earnestness: "I am the
mother of Christ who is now upon this earth, making preparation for
rebuilding it. The earth is to belong solely to his chosen people,
and this continent is to be extended much further west, taking in a
part of the great sunset water. The eastern part of the continent
will be abandoned, all but in the western part where great herds of
buffalo will wander as in days long ago, and with the disappearance
of the whites from the earth will come the resurrection of all the
Indians who now sleep, and forevermore they will wander over the
earth with no one to question their rights to kill the buffalo, none
to say: 'Do this or I will put you in the guard house.' "
With a gesture to attract the particular attention of Major
McLaughlin, she drew an imaginary line upon the floor and stepped
over it, saying: "In those days there will be no reservation, no
messenger from the Great Father to say to the Indians: 'Come back
here; stay on your reservation.' " She continued to expatiate upon
the rosy-tinted dawning of the Indians millenium morning until
stopped by the court.
She refused to tell any thing about the orgie of the Ghost Dance
beyond the fact that she had been proclaimed by the members of the
order to be the Virgin Mary.
Pending an interview with the woman's husband, and consideration by
the court as to the disposal of her case, she was sent to the guard
house, to which she walked with the air of a theatrical martyr. The
last case tried by the court for the day was that of an Indian who
blonged on the Rosebud reservation, and was wandering around among
the Indians of Standing Rock without a pass from the Rosebud agent or
commission from the agent at Standing Rock. He was supposed to be the
bearer of messages from the Indians of the Rosebud Agency relative to
the coming of the Messiah, and when arraigned before the court and
questioned as to his mission he explained that his wife belonged to
the Standing Rock Agency, and that he went to the Rosebud agent and
requested a pass to go visiting his wife's relatives, but that the
agent refused to give him permission. Then he concluded he would come
to Standing Rock to live, and he wished to be taken upon Major
McLaughlin's list. He was questioned as to his belief in the coming
of the Messiah, and it was found that he not only believed that the
Messiah was coming and that he would bring with him the buffalo, but
he would also have the power to furnish each Indian with a spring
wagon by the mostion of his hand. This man was sent to the guard
house to be confined until morning, when he was to be taken to the
line between the two agencies, and, after being warned not to return,
was to be turned loose upon his own reservation.
Chief Gall treated the matter very seriously and said to a
reporter: "I listen. Since this excitement has come upon my people I
sit and listen and wonder if these things can be possible. When they
tell me that the buffalo are coming back and that there is to be a
resurrection of our fathers I shake my head. They tell me that the
Messiah can make spring wagons with a motion of his hand. I think
this can not be. But sometimes I think of the wonderful things which
white men believe in their religion, and I am not so sure that these
Indians are wrong. I went to the office of a St. Paul paper and
talked through a machine to some one a long way off, and since then I
can not say that any thing is impossible. Your people believe that in
the beginning of the world wonderful things were done by men; the
Indians believe that in the future wonderful things may be done by
men. It seems to me tha the Indians are not justly accused of being
crazy, for believing that what has happened once may not happen
again, I listen. But I take no part in the dance, and I do not lend
my sanction to it. The Indians want the good old times, to most of
them known only by tradition, without stopping to think how much
better they are situated now than if the Government were to withdraw
its support. Yesterday 140 cattle were killed here and distributed
among the people. This shows to me that the Government does not want
the Indians to starve."
Caria: the southwest of modern Turkey, incorporated in c.545 BCE the
ancient Achaemenid empire as the satrapy Karkâ. Its capital was
Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum), which had been originally been founded
by the Greeks. In Antiquity, the Carians were famous mercenaries.
Early history
Caria and the Carians are mentioned for the first time in the
cuneiform texts of the Old Assyrian and Hittite Empires, i.e.,
between c.1800 and c.1200. The country was called Karkissa. They are
absent from the Egyptian texts of this period.
After a gap of some four centuries in which they are mentioned only
once (below), the first to mention the Carians is the legendary Greek
poet Homer. In the Catalogue of ships, he tells that they lived in
Miletus, on the Mycale peninsula, and along the river Meander. In the
Trojan war, they had, according to the poet, sided with the Trojans
(Homer, Iliad, 2.867ff). This is a remarkable piece of information,
because in Homer's days, Miletus was considered a Greek town; the
fact that it is called Carian indicates that the catalogue of ships
contains some very old information. In the fifth century, the Greeks
thought that the Carians had arrived in Caria from the islands of the
Ionian Sea, whereas the Carians claimed to be indigenous. Homer
confirms their story.
Early history Pharaoh's mercenaries The Persian period The Hecatomnid
dynasty
The Carian coast north of Bodrum
It is also confirmed by modern linguistics: the Carian language
belongs to the Hittite-Luwian subfamily of the Indo-European
languages. It is related to Lycian and Lydian, the languages spoken
to the southeast and north of Caria. Had the Carians arrived in their
country from the west, their language would have been closer to
Greek.
It seems that the Greeks settled on the coast in the dark ages
between c.1200 and c.800, where they and the Carians mixed. The Roman
author Vitruvius mentions fights at Mycale (On architecture 4.1.3-5).
According to the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fifth
century BCE), the inhabitants of Miletus spoke Greek with a Carian
accent (Histories 1.142). Herodotus himself is also a good example of
the close ties between the Carians and Greeks: his father is called
Lyxes, which is the Greek rendering of a good Carian name, Lukhsu.
Because of his descent and birth place, Herodotus is one of our most
important sources.
Caria is, like Greece, a country of mountains and valleys, poor in
agricultural and other resources - in comparison with Egypt and
Babylonia a backward country. Hilltops were fortified and there were
several villages in the valleys, but there were hardly any cities.
Because of their disparate country, the Carians were divided; when
they learned to read and write, every village used its own version of
the Phoenician alphabet.
What united the Carians, however, was their religion. One of their
ritual centers was Mylasa, where they venerated a male supreme god,
called 'the Carian Zeus' by Herodotus. Unlike his Greek colleague,
this Zeus was an army god. One of the Carian goddesses was Hecate,
who was responsible for road crossings and became notorious in Greece
as the source of witchcraft. Herodotus calls her Athena and tells
that her priestess got a beard when a disaster was appending
(Histories 8.104). On mount Latmos near Miletus, the Carians
venerated Endymion, who had been the lover of the Moon and had
procreated as many children as there are days in the year. Endymion
was sleeping eternally, a story that the Greeks told about Zeus'
father Kronos.
Pharaoh's mercenaries
Like the Swiss, the Gurkha's, and other mountain people, the Carians
were forced to become mercenaries. Their country was too poor to
maintain a large population, and younger sons went overseas to build
a new future. They were military specialists and it is no coincidence
that Herodotus writes that the Greeks had been indebted to the
Carians for three military inventions: making shields with handles,
putting devices on shields, and fitting crests on helmets (Histories
1.175). Because of this last invention, the Persians called the
Carians 'cocks'.
The first reference to Carian mercenaries can be found in the Bible:
in 2 Kings 11.4, we read about Carians in Judah. (This may look
strange, but it fits the picture: according to 2 Samuel 8.18, king
David had a guard of Cretans.) The books of Kings were probably
composed in the sixth century, but the information stems from older
sources; this is the only mentioning of the Carians in the dark ages.
The Carians, however, were especially famous because they served the
Egyptian pharaoh. Our main source is, again, Herodotus. He tells us
that the first to employ these men was pharaoh Psammetichus I (664-
610; Histories 2.152), probably at the beginning of his reign. Some
circumstantial evidence supports Herodotus' words, because
archaeologists have discovered several settlements in the western
part of the delta of the Nile that were founded by people from the
Aegean. These settlements can be dated in the seventh century.
The Carians remained active in Egyptian service. They are known to
have fought against the Nubians (in modern Sudan) in c.593; on their
return, they visited Assuan and left inscriptions. According to an
Egyptian stele now in Cairo, they played an important role during the
coup d'état of Amasis (570), who gave the Carians a new base near the
Egyptian capital Memphis.
When the Persian king Cambyses invaded Egypt in 525 BCE, the Carian
contingents were still there, serving king Psammetichus III.
According to Herodotus (Histories 3.11), they sacrificed children
before they offered battle against the invaders.
They managed to switch sides, however. (They were not the only ones:
even the commander of Egyptian navy, Wedjahor-Resne, deserted his
king.) In Egyptian sources from the Persian age, we still find
Carians, now serving a new lord. One of the latest examples is an
Aramaic papyrus dated to January 12, 411. Seven years later, the
Egyptians became independent again; this time, the Carians were
unable to switch sides. The collaborators must have been dismissed.
A Carian. Relief from the eastern stairs of the Apadana at Persepolis
The Persian period
Meanwhile, their homeland had been subjected to the Lydian king
Alyattes, and, later, to the Persians. This happened after the
Persian king Cyrus the Great had defeated the powerful king of Lydia,
Croesus, who had had some influence in Caria. Thi is usually dated to
547, but this is probably inaccurate. Next year, the Lydians
revolted, but Cyrus sent his general Harpagus, who subjected them
again. This time, he also took the Greek cities on the coast and then
moved to the south, where he subdued the Carians and the Lycians.
The Carians offered their services to their new masters. They are
mentioned in cuneiform documents from Borsippa in Babylonia and from
the Persian capital Persepolis. When the Macedonian king Alexander
the Great conquered the Achaemenid empire, he discovered a Carian
settlement in the neighborhood of modern Baghdad. These Carians can
not have been deported from their homeland, but must have formed a
military colony, because it was a very strategic place, commanding
the Silk road.
Initially, the Carians seem to have retained some kind of
independence. In the Behistun inscription, which was made in 520 BCE,
they are not mentioned among the nations subject to king Darius I the
Great, but an inscription that was made about five years later, known
as DPe, does mention them (go here for these Empire texts.)
After 499, they joined the revolt of the Ionians against the
Persians. (go here for Herodotus' story and a brief comment.) They
were twice defeated by the Persians, but in a third battle they
annihilated their enemies - not even their generals survived.
Although Darius and his successors have claimed overlordship, it
seems that the Carians were always able to keep some degree of
independence. The Persians knew that they were good soldiers, and
after all, their country was poor, so there was no need to really
conquer it.
However, the Persians were present. In 1974, archaeologists have
found a threelingual inscription from the time Artaxerxes IV Arses
in Xanthus (in the southeast) and one of the languages was Aramaic,
the language of the Persian bureaucracy. The center of the Persian
administration in Caria was Halicarnassus. The Carian queen Artemisia
loyally supported the Persian king Xerxes when he invaded Greece in
480.
However, after 469/466, parts of Caria were conquered by the
Athenians. They remained more or less loyal to these Greeks until
412, when they returned to Persia. Again, they retained some
freedom.
Maussolus (British Museum, London)
The Hecatomnid dynasty
At the beginning of the fourth century, the Carians gained even more
independence: they were ruled by satraps of Carian descent. The first
of these was Hecatomnus of Mylasa (391-377), who was not only satrap
of Caria, but also of Miletus. He seems to have been fascinated by
Greek culture, but was loyal to the Persian king and -from a
religious point of view- always remained a Carian.
He was succeeded by his son Maussolus. When he became sole ruler, the
Achaemenid empire was in decline, but Maussolus remained loyal. For
instance, he fought for the great king against Ariobarzanes, a rebel
satrap in the northwest of modern Turkey (365). But almost
immediately after this war, he took part in the Revolt of the
Satraps: Maussolus, Orontes of Armenia, Autophradates of Lydia and
Datames of northern Turkey joined forces against their king, with
support of the pharaohs of Egypt, Nectanebo I, Teos, and Nectanebo
II. Although they were defeated, king Artaxerxes III Ochus had to
reinstall Maussolus as satrap of Caria. Even though the Persians
retained a garrison at Halicarnassus, Maussolus had in fact become
independent, and several ancient sources call him 'king'.
Halicarnassus
One of the most remarkable aspects of his reign is his strict
adherence to the ancient cults of Caria. Although it was not unusual
for the dynasts of what is now Turkey to sacrifice to the Persian
supreme god Ahuramazda, or to venerate the Greek gods, none of these
religious beliefs can be attested for Maussolus.
In 357, he helped the Athenian allies, who had revolted against
Athens. Some of these allies -Chios, Kos, Rhodes and Byzantium-
became federates of Maussolus. This was his usual policy: he ruled
Caria, had allies abroad, and left the towns in his territory more or
less autonomous. This model was copied by later rulers.
The Mausoleum (design M. Larrinaga; ©!!!)
Between 370 and 365, Maussolus returned the Carian residence to
Halicarnassus. (His father had resided in Mylasa.) The city was
fortified with modern walls and received many new inhabitants. Its
most famous building was the monument that the satrap built for
himself, which has become known as the Mausoleum. It was considered
one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Maussolus died in 353. He was succeeded by his sister (and wife)
Artemisia -she invited Greek artists to finish the Mausoleum-, his
brothers Idrieus and Pixodarus and finally his younger sister Ada.
They were quarreling. When Alexander the Great approached Caria in
334, Ada opened negotiations and became the new queen of Caria.
Ahuramazda: The 'wise lord', the supreme god of the Persians, whose
cult was propagated by the legendary prophet Zarathustra.
Zarathustra's teachings: the Gâthâ's
The Avesta is the holy book of the adherents of Zarathustra, the
Zoroastrians or -as they call themselves today- Parsi's. The Avesta
was codified c.600 CE, but this library of sacred texts contains
older material, such as the Gâthâ's. These hymns were perhaps written
in the fourteenth or thirteenth century BCE, almost two millennia
before the codification of the Avesta, and most scholars think that
they were composed by the prophet Zarathustra himself. (It must be
stressed that the date in the third quarter of the second millenium
is uncertain; a date in c.600 BCE can also be defended.)
In a vision (more...), Zarathustra was ordered by a spirit named Good
Thought to start preaching against the bloody sacrifices of the
traditional Iranian cults and to give aid to the poor. Gradually, the
prophet began to understand that Good Thought had been sent by the
supreme god Ahuramazda, a name that can be translated as Wise Lord.
Zarathustra sometimes addresses his god as Ahura, lord, and as Mazda,
wisdom.
From the Gâthâ's, we learn that Zarathustra started to preach that
Ahuramazda had created 'the world, mankind and all good things in it'
through his holy spirit, Spenta Mainyu. The rest of the universe was
created by six other spirits, the Amesha Spentas ('holy immortals').
However, the order of this sevenfold creation was threatened by The
Lie; good spirits and evil demons (daeva) were fighting and mankind
had to support the good spirits in order to speed up the inevitable
victory of Ahuramazda. The believer could side with Ahuramazda by
avoiding lies, supporting the poor, several kinds of sacrifices, the
cult of fire, et cetera.
Zarathustra also warned the people that there would be a Last
Judgment. At the end of times, angels were to lead all men and women
across a narrow bridge, where they would be judged by Spenta Manyu
(which is described as a beautiful maiden); the friends of The Lie
would fall into a large chasm of fire called Worst Existence, but the
followers of Zarathustra were to reach Paradise, which goes under the
name of House of Best Purpose.
It is impossible to establish how much of this is original.
Zarathustra says in the Gâthâ's that the innovative aspect was the
demand for social reform, which brought the prophet into conflict
with representants of the established cult, the priests of the god
Mithra and the goddess Anahita. What strikes us is the radical
dualism; Zarathustra demands that the pious choose for the good and
against evil, and promises that they will be rewarded at the Last
Judgment (text...).
Angra Mainyu, demons and gods
The Gâthâ's are only a small part of the Avesta, and it is possible
to distinguish (on linguistic grounds) between old and young texts.
The most important innovation by Zarathustra's disciples is the
personalization of evil. According to Zarathustra, the enemy of the
divine order had been The Lie, an abstract concept. There are several
texts, written in the same language as the Gâthâ's, which give evil
its name: Angra Mainyu, 'the hostile spirit'. He is described as the
leader of the demons.
It may be doubted whether Angra Mainyu has ever figured in
Zarathustra's own thoughts. The fact that he does not mention this
demon in the Gâthâ's is significant; there are seventeen Gâthâ's and
they are of a considerable length, so it may be argued that
Zarathustra had sufficient opportunity to mention Ahuramazda's
opponent. Instead, he speaks consistently of The Lie.
On the other hand, the name Angra Mainyu is very old. It is,
therefore, either a very early innovation, or it was a very common
name which Zarathustra sought to replace by the more abstract concept
of The Lie, which implied a greater personal responsibility. However
this may be, it seems certain that the name of the hostile spirit was
not very important to Zarathustra.
Another important question is whether Zarathustra was a monotheist.
In the Gâthâ's, he gives special attention to Ahuramazda and almost
ignores all the other gods. They figure in other Avestan hymns, the
Yashts, which are dedicated to lower deities. The Zoroastrian
tradition is univocal that the Yashts were composed by Zarathustra,
which would make him a polytheist. European scholars, however, have
argued that the Yashts were not written by the prophet himself,
because they are written in the language that is also known from the
cuneiform texts of the Achaemenid empire written between 521 and 331
BCE. However this may be, it is certain that under the Achaemenid
empire, Zoroastrianism was polytheistic.
Zarathustra (Greek Zoroaster): legendary religious teacher from
Bactria, founder of Zoroastrianism.
Hardly anything is known about Zarathustra's life. For example, it is
uncertain when he lived. The ancient Greeks speculated that he lived
six thousand years before the philosopher Plato and several scholars
have argued for a date at the beginning of the sixth century BCE.
Other scholars accept that Zarathustra is the author of the Gâthâ's
(a part of the holy book of the Zoroastrians, the Avesta), which they
date, on linguistic grounds, in the fourteenth or thirteenth century
BCE.
It is also unclear where Zarathustra was born and where he spent the
first half of his life. Every tribe that converted to Zoroastrianism
made up legends about the prophet's life, and nearly all of them
claimed that the great teacher was "one of them". On linguistic
grounds, we may argue that author of the Gâthâ's belonged to a tribe
that lived in the eastern part of Iran, in Afghanistan or
Turkmenistan. This fits neatly with a tradition that connects
Zarathustra with the ancient country named Bactria and a cypress at
Kâshmar (below), but it hardly proves Zarathustra's Bactrian origins.
The Gâthâ's are not a great help either. They contain some personal
information, but are hardly the stuff that biographies are made of.
The Denkard, a late Avestic text, contains a summary of an older
biography. It contains many legends and the reliability seems not
very great. The following reconstruction of Zarathustra's life is,
therefore, not to be taken as the very truth.
Zarathustra was born in Bactria (or Aria) as the son of a not very
powerful nobleman named Purushaspa and a woman named Dughdhova.
Zarathustra was the third of five brothers. He became a priest and
seems to have showed a remarkable care for humans and cattle. The
family is often called Spitama, which is a honorary title
meaning 'most beneficient', but was later taken for a family name.
Zarathustra's life changed when the god Ahuramazda granted him a
vision. A spirit named Good Thought appeared and ordered Zarathustra
to oppose the bloody sacrifices of the traditional Iranian cults and
to give aid to the poor. In one of his own compositions, Zarathustra
says:
Thee I conceived as holy, O Ahuramazda, when thy Good Thought
appeared to me and asked me: 'Who art thou? And whose is thine
allegiance?' [...] Then I answered: 'Zarathustra am I; to the false
believers a forthright enemy, but to the righteous a mighty help and
joy. [...] Thee I conceived as holy, O Ahuramazda, when thy Good
Thought appeared to me. [...] A difficult thing it seemed to me, to
spread thy faith among men, to do that which Thou didst say was best.
[Yasna 43.4]
Zarathustra started to preach that there was a supreme god, the "wise
lord" Ahuramazda, who had created the world, mankind and all good
things in it through his holy spirit, Spenta Mainyu. The rest of the
universe was created by six other spirits, the Amesha Spentas ('holy
immortals'). However, the order of this sevenfold creation was
threatened by The Lie; good and evil spirits were fighting and
mankind had to support the good spirits in order to speed up the
inevitable victory of the good.
A remarkable aspect of Zarathustra's teaching is that he employs
special words to describe the demons. Their names are remarkably
similar to words from the Indian Rigveda. Now it is reasonably
certain that the language of the Rigveda was spoken in eastern Iran
at some stage in the history of the second millennium BCE. We may
assume that Zarathustra opposed the old religion, which was to
flourish in the Punjab.
It was the duty of the believer to side with Ahuramazda, which was
possible by avoiding lies, supporting the poor, several kinds of
sacrifices, the cult of fire, et cetera. Zarathustra warned the
people that there would be a Last Judgment, where the friends of The
Lie were to be condemned to Hell and the pious allowed to enter
Heaven (text).
This new teaching caused a conflict between Zarathustra and the
priests of the god Mithra.
The Enemy has ever fought with me [...] he is most powerful. [...] O
Ahuramazda, aid me; obtain for me with thy Good Thoughts his defeat.
[Yasna 39]
There seem to have been some fights, and Zarathustra was forced to
leave his country. Not even his family wanted to assist him.
To what land to turn? Whither shall I go? Kinsman and friend turn
from me; none is found, to conciliate, to give to me; still less the
false-believing chiefs of the land. This I know, Ahuramazda, why I am
powerless: because my flocks are diminished and my followers are few.
Therefore I cry to Thee: Lord, look upon it.
[Yasna 46.1-2]
Finally, Zarathustra obtained asylum from a king named Hystaspes; he
may have ruled in Chorasmia or Aria. At his court, the prophet
debated with the priests of Mithra; on an official gathering, they
discussed thirty three questions, and Zarathustra's opinions
prevailed. According to legend, the cypress at Kâshmar (in northeast
Iran) commemorates this event (or another important event). The
Denkard tells more about this event (text).Many noblemen followed the
example of Hystaspes to convert to Zarathustra's new religion. From
now on, Zarathustra lived at the court of Hystaspes, until he was
killed at the age of seventy-seven by invading nomads. Some locate
his death at Bactra (Balkh, near modern Mazâr-e Sharîf) in
Afghanistan.
Zarathustra's teachings are strongly dualistic. The believer has to
make a choice between good and evil. Zoroastrianism was one of first
world religions to make ethical demands on the believers.
Zarathustra was not the inventor of monotheism, although several
European scholars have thought so. More information can be found here.
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