Izanami giving birth to Kagutsuchi / Fire - Shikanda.net

owls, 34 and Indonesian musical instruments and boat types, and a stray Roman coin
found at Buea, Cameroon, having reached Southern Africa, and then West Africa,
from South and West Asia via the Indian Ocean and the East African coast).
3.2.2. Indications of the transformative cycle of elements in Ancient Egypt
In various Egyptian cosmogonies such as they were codified in the Old Kingdom (3rd
millennium BCE), personalised and narrative, mythical evocations of a classification
scheme can be detected which, in effect, look like a four- or five element systems.
Claims to this effect were already made by the pioneer Afrocentrist writer Diop
(1991: 377f) but were unjustifiably ridiculed – even though Diop, as a physicist, was
eminently placed to appreciate the natural-science implication of this proto-scientific
classification.
Fig. 4. Four elements underlying the Heliopolitan cosmogony of Ancient Egypt
Re c -Atum (the Hidden One)
|
_______|___
| |
Shu (Air) x Tefnut (Moisture / Water)
|
____|______
| |
Geb (Earth) x Nut (Sky)
|
____________|____________________________________________________________
| | | | |
Osiris (]Nile] Water) x Isis (Land/Earth) Sutekh (Desert/Fire) x Nephthys (Desert Fringes) [ Horus ] (Aether)
|
[Horus ] (Aether)
34 An interesting case can be made for wooden divining bowls, such as attested in historical times
(mainly from the nineteenth century CE on) both in Southern Africa and on the Bight of Benin (Nigeria);
cf. Bent 18XX, Frobenius XXXX. Skinner XXXX. [ give illustrations ] . Soon after their discovery
the signs in the rim were interpreted as some kind of zodiac, but scholars were puzzled by their
sheer number: well over thirty, rather than the 12 one was accustomed to on the basis of Western,
South Asian, and Chinese astrology. The solution to the puzzle probably lies in early Chinese astrology.
In earliest times the well-known Chinese zodiacal cycle of 12 animals spanning 12 years (not
months) was depicted as comprising not 12 but 36 animals, both real and fabulous. These animals were
represented on the rim of a Chinese divination board, i.e. a planisphere which must be considered a
predecessor of the well-known L’o Pan [ add chinese chrs ] geomantic compass which is still in use
among the practitioners of the well-known Chinese spiritual location method called feng shui 風水. A
similar (but not identical) list of c. 36 animals is containing in a mystical work on the five elements by
Hsiao Chi, 小琪 of the middle of the first millennium CE (Sui dynasty 隋朝 581-618 CE); cf. Walters
1989: 80. Numerous finds from East Africa (first of all those from Great Zimbabwe) testify to the
considerable extent of Chinese trade with Africa, which makes it quite possible that Chinese divination
temple blocks have been inspired into African divination tablets (but very similar tablets are found
among the inhabitants of North America: Culin 1975), and nautical compasses have inspired divining
bowls among the South African Venda and at the Gulf of Guinea, which look surprisingly similar
(however, there is also an Ancient Graeco Roman parallel, cf. Davis 1955). Very striking is Hook’s
(1975: 22f) well-informed report, on a South African diviner who used three sticks in a manner highly
reminiscent of yi jīng, and who was aware of Taoist turtle numerical symbolism
20