Great Lemurs - No.1: Katak

Posted by: Nick Land

Mesh-14. Katak (5::4)

The Call and its Numbers

The Lemur of the 5::4 rift is called Ktt’skr in the Ur Nma Tongue. Her name in modern Munumese is Katak which Stillwell translates into English as The Desolator.

In the name Katak, Horowitz finds the phonic molecule kt’k, which he associates with ‘ideas of falling or sinking.’
This connection leads him to postulate an archaic numogrammatic source for the Greek prefix of descent Kata- (as in catastrophe, cataclysm, catatonic, catabolism, catadromic …).

In a marginal comment on Geotraumatics, DC Barker relates the name ‘Katak’ both to the K/T missile, which terminated the age of giant saurians, and also to Krakatoa (which decimated the Dib-Nma).

The Tzikvik identify her with the Kattku (or ‘madness of the great worm’).

In the book of children’s fables compiled from Nma sources by Echidna Stillwell’s sister Medusa she is called ‘Takka’.

Katak’s net-span, 5::4, bridges the smallest interval and places her in the centre of the Barker Spiral. She is described variously as ‘tightly bound, coiled or knotted’, ‘wound up’ or ‘compacted’. The Cthulhu Club write of a ‘Katak effect,’ when the smallest difference (5::4) has the greatest impact.

Positioned on the ‘5th Brink’ (as ultimate Lemur of the 5th Phase), Katak is the only Syzygetic Lemur to be ‘poised at the edge’ of her domain, linking her to imbalance, thresholds and phase-changes.

Katak’s net-span (5::4) ciphers the Ultimate Gate, or Gate of Pandemonium (Gt-45), which begins and ends in Zone-9 and echoes the completed Matrix of the Lemurs. This suggests an all-encompassing reach to the powers of Katak (which, in combination with Katak’s ‘Global Rite’, comprises what the Tzikvik call ‘the Fatal Secret of the Kattku’).

Katak’s mesh number (14) ciphers the 7th Lemur, Sukagool (4::1), who haunts the Gate of Submergence (Gt-10). This further consolidates Katak’s connections with collapse and inundation. The resonance between the Katakite Sink Current and the Sunken Track attests in certain respects to monotheistic, monopolistic or totalitarian ambition and reduction to unity, but also to a return to simplicity, search for origins or slippage into indifferentiation.

Katak’s Sarkon-Tag is 0047.

Quantities and Traits

As a Syzygetic Lemur, Katak has null pitch. She is thus characterized by perfect poise. Despite her manifold associations with extreme excitability, crisis, furor and the tempestuous, along with her four Syzygetic systers Katak occupies the ‘Numogrammatic Plane’ or ‘Great Plateau’ of continuous cosmic intensities.

Katak hosts 10 imps, which aligns her with decimal numeracy (while also further reinforcing her decimally-mediated relation to unity).

Katak feeds the Sink Current (flowing from the Falling Drift to Zone-1).

In Vysparov’s Pandemonium Matrix, Katak is entitled the ‘Syzygetic Chronodemon of Cataclysmic Convergence’.

Rites of Katak

The way of Katak has two paths or routes. These follow her syzygetic crossing [5//4] and her singular minor rite [418725].

In the Book of Paths, Katak’s Syzygetic Rite is described as follows:
30. Coiled Fervour.
Endless waiting in the Falling Drift.
The path favours patient activity.
Superior subtlety leads nowhere.
Poised entanglement.
Twinned tests make the way.
Between burning excitment and arid tension.

Katak is alone among the Syzygetic Lemurs in having a nonsyzygetic rite. The uniqueness of this rite is compounded by the fact it encircles the entire Hex or ‘time-circuit’, traversing complete sequence of past and future lives and
‘seizing the whole of time and fate.’

On the basis of this rite Katak is portrayed chasing her own tail, and in its ophidian manifestation (as the barking snake) coiled back into itself as an Ur-Oroborus, the Thothtodlana of the Tzikvik.

In the Book of Paths, Katak’s Global Rite is described as follows:
31. Eternal Revolution.
Advance prolonged by waiting brings fractured completion.
The path first favours subtlety, then repeated patience and activity.
Superior subtlety opens the first hidden road.
Resistance prevails.
Five tests on the way.
Breakthrough into immersive nightmares spawns promising developments.
Fluid evolution leaves a dubious inheritance.

The Lair of Katak
In the Lemurian Planetworks, Katak’s domain (5::4) is situated between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter (classically identified with war and sovereignty). Astronomically, this band coincides with the asteroid belt, considered by some to be the pulverized remnants of a destroyed planet.

The Katak Card
In the full Decadence pack Katak, as a Syzygy, is only included as one of the five (eliminated) jokers.
On the Atlantean Cross she corresponds to the Third Pylon, named Apocalypse, decamantically associated with destructive influences.

Tales

Tzikvik (traditional):

When the world was born Thothtodlana entered into the secret of the Kattku and - confusing herself with the universe - circled the whole of time. That was when she swam through living flesh, her hunger unlimited and furious. She seemed doomed to devour herself forever. The dead knew no rest, and the earth shuddered. It was then that Ooqvu the worm-witch arrived amongst us. It was Ooqvu that found the pattern in the folds of Thothtodlana's skin, and followed it back to Tchukululok. It was Ooqvu that called to Thothtodlana from deep in Tchukululok, and released her from the Kattku. That is why we still carry the marks of Ooqvu on our skin.

Hackhammer (on the Nma, contemporary):

It had all gone to hell out there.
The Sumatran expedition rotting down to disconnected threads of fever,
madness, and atrocity.

Tak-Nma: a tribe of aggressive head-hunters abhorred through the area (and
since eradicated).
They had greeted him as Katak.
Ominous rumblings from out in the Sunda Strait.
August 1883.
Pounding solar waves mix with the ceaseless delirious dance-beat of the
Tak-Nma.
Unthreadings into mosquito-fogged heat.
Shimmerings.

As Curtis records the disintegration of his soul, the name Katak
increasingly cross-links with everything that burns, raves, and devastates.
Everything that ends in blackened threads. Everything ...
The Tak-Nma seem to revere rabid dogs. They call them Katak.
There is an internally dislocated hydrophobic bark that is peculiarly Katak.
Blood-stained claws are also Katak.
At midday, when the sun is silent rage, it is Katak.
Katak is the trampling, inarticulate flood-tide of malaria.
Out in the strait, Katak growls, and smokes.
Katak has come.
Katak is soon to come.
Katak comes.
Katak comes.

Incessant drumming of Katak coming.
Drumming, pounding ...