Blue is thought to mean "artistic convention," nothing more, but in the Vindobonensis there is a man painted blue and covered with stars, even to his sandals. So let us go to the beginning of the Conquest, when picture histories were destroyed as "works of the devil."
The Seven-Monkey (aka Domingo de Guzmán) Story
The post-Conquest drawing of Sr. Guzmán illustrates a small man with very out-of-proportion shoulders and hands, two fingers on one hand and one finger on the other are open. On each hand three folded down fingers are also illustrated. The three points of contact create the constellation configuration of the Summer Triangle. In the Florentine Codex, Sahagún also began with the number three to describe the location of the Three Hearthstones. So it is possible that both men were telling us something that is "in plain sight," posssibly "suspected," but not confirmed by their Inquisitors.
For starters, a Fray Guzmá probably was in charge of the monastery where Seven Monkey's children were schooled in the new religion.
This would give a date for Seven Monkey when he was able to alter or erase and repaint pages to the codex. His unfinished pages are Laminas 48, 49, 47, 54, 62, 64,76, 78, and 84.
Someone apparently accused him of practicing idolatry with twenty sacred bundles (probably similar to those seen in the Selden Codex, Lamina 3-l) when his situation changed from a good Christian helping to redraw the Nuttall Codex to a relapsed pagan. (J. Pohl, 1994:61 Zouche-Nuttall Workbook) The twenty bundles were supposed to have contained "gods," but it was more likely the magnetic stone "hearts of the gods" similar to the stone "god," Huitzilopochtli, who directed the Aztec miigration into Lake Texcoco from the bundle on the back of the priest in charge.
The question that arises about Eight-Deer, then, is "If his name and birth date was Eight-Deer, why is he seen with a jaguar claw in most of his appearances?" True, the claw could be part of the Jaguar pelt that he wears most of the time, and the color blue may just be an "artistic convention" of painting figures.
However, Seven Monkey claimed to be a direct descendant of Eight-Deer, an impossible event if Eight-Deer was only a sky personage and not a human. But logical if Seven Monkey was actually the ruler of the area. It seems that all ancient rulers, whether they be kings, or emperors, always claim their birth is part of the geneology of a god.
New information put on the web by the Greenwich Observatory in England on November 7, 2007 might give us the answer to this dilemna, while explaining many of the strange events in the other codices as well.
Greenwich informed us that the Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra became a visible nova about 1500 years ago or about 507 AD. This is close to the dates of the "Star Wars" in Mesoamerica according to Linda Schele.
Moving further north, the Hopi Indians, in their Prophecies insist that they came from the planet in Lyra, that was called the Ring Nebula. They also created a kachina doll with a blue star on a face without eyes or mouth that some Hopi say is a "chasing comet" and he always has a companion with him.
So even though the prophetic nature of the Hopi recorded by White Feather of the Bear Clan contains the seeds of aliens from outer space, it may not be any more than the statement made by Seven Macaw with the blue turquoise teeth who claimed:
I am like the sun and the moon for those who are born in the light, begotten in the light.
This is similar to our own children being called "little angels sent by God," at their conception or their birth dates. Or a new mother telling her child, "God sent you to me.)"
Theoretically, one can traverse the myths around the world and will find that there were once two sky dragons who fought over a flaming ball of fire; as in China, or as in the Maya Popol Vuh, two sky entities who played a ball game in Xibalba, as the father and uncle of the Twins, Hunaphu and Xbalenque and later the Twins themselves.
THe blue color of the jaguar claw socket, may have been the visual view of the Ring Nebula as it began to glow and grow, until finally a "claw" was seen shooting out from the star as it exploded. Until we see such an event in our lifetime, we may never know if this scenario is possible or not. What we do know is that all the codices that remain in Mesoamerica show a blazing star located within the Milky Way or at the edge of it (including the peck marks shown on side of the Aztec Sun Stone) and the color blue was not a day-time sky event, but a midnight view of a star heading toward Earth.
On the early pages of the Nuttall, it shows a similar "sun" star
moving away from Earth as glowing redder that fire at the edge of the Ocean.
(Lamina 9). Were there two different events, or did the meteor/star pass over the
Earth three times, as recorded by the Dogon tribes in Africa?
The above is the only manner in which Eight-Deer, as a blue meteor/star
entity, could have been shamed by the gods for eclipsing the face of the Sun God.
That only leaves two half-nephews of Eight-Deer, Six House and Ten Dog. In the
Nuttal Codex Ten Dog has the privilege of dying on the sacrificial stone in mock combat.
His eyes are dripping two star tears. Six House is shamed in death by dying with
arrows shot into his body. He has the same dripping two star tears from his eyes.
I propose that both were sacrificed according to their proper stations, one of
a coward who refused to enter "the oven of the gods" and the other who gladly threw
himself into that "god oven." In the Becker Codex the roles are reversed.
Only one manuscript is true. However; both may be illustrating the "death" of
astronomer/priests, in general, who were no longer permitted to study the heavens.
A fitting end to the Eight-Deer story.