A Sooty Moon But Not an Eclipse

Anthony Aveni (1980) in his book Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico," (page 27), quoted Fray Sahagún:
When the moon was eclipsed, his face grew dark and sooty; blackness and darkness spread. When this came to pass, women with child feared evil; they thought it portentious, they were terrified [lest], perchance, their [unborn] children, might be changed into mice; each of their children might turn into a mouse. And because they feared evil, in order to protect themselves; in order that this might not befall [them], they placed obsidian in their mouths or over [their pregnancy,] because with this, their children might not be born with mouths eaten away‹lipless, or they would not be born with noses eaten away or broken off, or with twisted mouths or lips; crossed-eyed, squint-eyed, or with shrunken eyes, nor would they be born monstrous or imperfect. (Sahagún, (1953) pp. 8, 10.)1

When I checked my book of Sahagún, I found that it was #33. This number turns up for three different cities in the longitude and latitude list of Abraham Zacuto, circa 1460, when the Inquisition was censoring all texts. Those cities with a latitude of 33 degrees were Babylon, Damascus, Ankara, and Jerusalem. Thirty-three in Muslim medieval numbers has a special definition of "hidden." Did Sahagún recognize the need for concealing the fact that the Moon was NOT in an eclipse mode? Because of this, he added the concept of a sooty, ashy darkness over the face of the moon; the same sooty, ashy darkness that I witnessed in July, 2004.

As it was, Mr. Aveni also commented that comets (citlalimpopoca, or the stars that smoked) are represented frequently in the surviving historic documents, usually by a stellar image on a blue background with emanating streams of smoke. He used Figures 9-e and 9-f from the Codex Vaticanus and Figure 9-g from the Codex Telleriano-Remensis as his examples.

The above information struck a chord in my memory. Last year, on July 20, 2004, about 10:15 pm, I saw a burnt orange sliver of a moon in the sky about 15 degrees from the western horizon. The moon seemed to be enveloped in an ashy [or sooty] cloud of some sort. Although it was barely visible, it could be seen. Suddenly at the bottom right edge of the sliver, there was a brilliant red flash [of fire]. This was not an eclipse event. Does this have anything to do with last year's color alterations of the sooty moon? It appears to be happening again: the clear band of light around the outer edge of the moon3 To date (2007) nothing serious has occurred in the skies, except for the ice comet the following year. No telling what the skies have planned for us in the future.

1 de Sahagún, Fr. Bernardino, (1956) Historia General de Las Cosas de Nueva España, vol. II, Libro Septimo, Capitulo II, # 33, p. 262."Cuando la luna se eclipsa parece casí oscura, ennegrécese, párase hosca, y luego se oscurece la tierra; cuando eso acontecía las preñadas temían de abortar, tomábales gran temor, que lo que tenían en el cuerpo se había de volver ratón; y para remedio de esto tomaban un pedazo de itztli en la boca, or poníanlo en la cintura sobre el vientre, para que los niños que en el vientre estaban no saliesen sin bezos o sin narices, o boquituertos, o bizcos, o para que no naciesen monstruos."
2 Bodley Codex, A Mixtec History. Lamina 35, top register, left side.
3 Watching the sun through a simple hole in a card, I have been seeing the sun with a band of clear light at the edge, but the center is filled with boiling, roiling activity. Is this the reason the sun has been so cold this year up to the end of April, and why there are snow storms across the Middle Eastern states at this time?