Re: VMs: Goat vs. sheep

[Pamela Richards <spirlhelix@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Jorge

I'll look up those sites when I get to the library
later.

For now, I hope to clear up my apparent Euro-centrism:
I have assumed that we pretty much supposed the VMs to
be European; this being the presupposition, an absence
of knowledge of Western mythology is a fairly
significant educational gap.  And this guy finds some
significance in Western Zodiac symbols, but not enough
to follow up on his references and draw the right
animals.  A lack of exposure to sheep and goats simply
does not match the facts of European culture.  We know
this guy was at least exposed to vellum, which is
sheepskin . . . right?

Remembering that European late Medieval culture hardly
bothered to protect people from viewing the rather
earthy processes that provided them with wool, vellum,
mutton, goat milk, goat cheese or goat stew. 

So how does this hypothesis run?  This person who
spoke a language which no one understood was brought
to Europe where he saw European hairstyles, then
locked up in a room without windows so he could not
see sheep and given vellum and ink. . . ?

Or many European ladies with their various hairstyles
descended upon a Mexican tribe and attempted to
explain Western astrology to a man they presented with
Western-style writing tools, and asked him to write
them a book?

It's not that I think no one other than a European had
anything important to say.  I just think it makes more
sense to examine the possibility that the manuscript
has a European origin.  It seems a much cleaner
hypothesis.    

Thanks for being so tolerant of my skepticism, Jorge.

Warmly,

Pam

--- Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 
>   > [Pam:] I have a photograph of a goat that shows
> very clearly the
>   > "dew claws"; it is difficult to come up with one
> of a sheep which
>   > shows clearly their absence.
> 
> Just for the record, Aries always looked "goatish"
> to me too. Thanks
> for the info about dew claws, which turned that
> vague impression into
> an objective statement.
> 
> What I meant for "leg anatomy" is the way the legs
> bend, the 
> position of the knee, etc.. 
> 
> When people try to draw an animal for the first
> time, from memory,
> they often draw all four legs with a knee in the
> middle, that bend
> backwards like ours. The Aries in f70v1 has that
> feature; not so clear
> for the other Aries and the two Tauri. Can you tell
> us whether those
> legs are bending in an anatomically plausible way?
> 
> By the way, what about the Taurus images: are they
> bulls indeed?
> Do bulls have dew claws, too?  (Jacques, does "Bull"
> translate
> into Mandarin as "swamp goat", perchance? 8-)
> 
>   > So you don't think those illustrations of
> Renaissance ladies with
>   > their Renaissance hairstles locate the
> artist/author of the
>   > document in Europe?
> 
> The book is definitely an "European" artifact to
> some extent. The
> "nymphs" do seem to be European women in European
> dresses (or
> non-dresses 8-) -- unless the hair is a later
> addition. ... But that
> does not exclude an exotic language and a foreign
> author.
> 
> There are a number of examples of "transcultural"
> documents that would
> illustrate what I meant. For instance, there are a
> handful of
> Europeanish books and documents writen by Incas,
> Mayas, and Aztecs
> shortly after the Spanish conquest (Popol Vuh, a
> chronicle of the Inca
> empire, etc.). There is even a European-style herbal
> an Aztec doctor
> (Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis, Martín de
> la Cruz, 1552).
> Understandably, it did not have much success in
> Europe: can you
> imagine handling the village apothecary a
> prescription for a dose of
> Tlacuilolcuahuitl with some Piltzintecouhxochitl and
> Cuauhhuitzitzilxochitl -- in doctor's handwriting?
> 
> Also keep in mind the funny spelling of the month
> names in the VMS
> zodiac, and in the "michiton" text in f116v. (By the
> way, is the
> little animal in that page a sheep or a goat?).
> 
> To me, those clues hint at an author who was mostly
> illiterate, in
> Latin or in any other European language, but was
> fluent in Voynichese,
> and enough of a scholar to want to compose a
> 240-page book on various
> medico-astrological subjects. Why should we expect
> such a person to
> know the precise meaning of "Scorpio" and "Aries"?
> 
>   > If this is the best the VMs author can do with
> these
>   > illustrations, it seems to put the potential
> "sense" value of the
>   > text one or two notches up from glossalia.
>   
> Methinks there is a bit of Western-centric prejudice
> here. Just
> because the author had scant knowledge of the
> meaning and symbology
> of the European zodiacal signs, it doesn't mean that
> the book's
> contents is more nonsensical than, say, Dee's
> Angelic Diaries, or
> Kircher's "translations" of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
> 
> In fact, I cannot conceive a text that would be more
> nonsense than
> these two fine examples of European intellectual
> achievements. 8-)
> 
> All the best,
> 
> --stolfi
> 
> 
>
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=====
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing, than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."


		
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