Lost in the history of modern man’s beginning is the origin of a universal worldview of a Cosmic Mountain centering the world, the axis mundi, topped by the Tree of Life with a bird at its apex and a body of water or four rivers emanating from its roots. The mountain (or surrogate pyramid) can also be viewed as the Earth Mother (“Mountain Mother” is an early epithet for her), the tree as the sky-pole inserted to separate heaven (generally male), and earth (generally female) as the initial act of creation. At the same time both pyramid and tree bridge the two worlds. The bird is the hen that laid the Cosmic Egg. Its halves became the earth and the sky and its contents the geographic and celestial features of the earth, as well as plants and animals. The bird, however, also symbolizes air, the breath of life, and the vehicle of souls. The water is the place of emergence for mankind into the present world following creations and destructions of previous worlds by a creator attempting to...
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This entry has been abstracted in part from Spider Grandmother and Other Avatars of the Moon Goddess in New World Sacred Architecture (Journal of the Southwest, special edition, Vol. 54, No 2, 2012).
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Schuetz-Miller, M. (2014). Geometry and Architecture in the Americas. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10233-1
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