Ba2.2 Then follows a structure with 38 glyphs incorporating a figure we can recognize from late in line Ba1:
These 8 birds are perched at the final position of sequences which are beginning with 'eggs':
Possibly these 8 sequences are meant to illustrate 8 subperiods in a month. In the C text we have seen such a description. If they should visualize subperiods in the month, we ought to be able to divide them in half, because basically the Moon has 2 Faces (phases), viz. Waxing and Waning:
The central triplet of moa figures have their eyes wide open.
Moa. Poultry (general term); moa to'a, rooster; moa taga, chicken, moa rikiriki, chick; moa tarapiko, old rooster (with much twisted spurs - tara ); moa gao verapaka, chicken with bald neck; moa va'e verevere, with feathers on its legs; moa pipipipi with multicoloured spots; moa garahurahu, colour of dark ashes; moa tea, white; moa totara, frizzy; moa tu'a ivi raá, with bright yellow back. Vanaga. Fowl; moa toa, cock; moa uha, hen; moa ohoa, crowing of cocks; moa manua, wild fowl; moa herea, tame fowl. P Pau.: moa, domestic fowl. Mgv.: moa, cock. Mq.: moa, hen. Ta.: moa, cock, hen. Churchill. Mgv.: Aka-moa, to cook. Mq.: haamoa, id. To.: moa, dried. Ha.: moa, to dry, to roast. Mgv.: Moaga, 1. a red beard. Mq.: moaka, very red. 2. a fish. Mq.: moana, id. Sa.: moaga, id. Ha.: moana, a red fish. Mgv.: Moake, east wind. Ha.: moae, the northeast tradewind. Churchill. Anciently the moai statues came alive - opened their eyes - twice a year: Moai. Statue, figurine, likeness of a person or of an animal; moai ma'ea, stone statue; moai miro, wooden statue, moai toromiro, toromiro figurine. Vanaga. H. Bending over, arching like a tree. Barthel 2. ... There is a curious tradition concerning these grizzled, otherworldly statues, solemn and powerful, with their blank, aloof eye-sockets gazing out over the limitless ocean. Like most of the other Moai of Easter Island the local belief is that they died, long ago, at the time when mana - magic - supposedly fled from the island never to return. However, in common with only a very few of the other Moai, it is believed that these particular statues still have the power, twice a year, to transform themselves into aringa ora - literally 'living faces' - a concept startingly similar to the ancient Egyptian notion that statues became 'living images' (sheshep ankh) after undergoing the ceremony of the 'opening of the mouth and the eyes'. Statues at Angkor were likewise considered to be lifeless until their eyes had been symbolically 'opened' ...
When the eyes are removed the empty holes will remain. We could possibly therefore understand the less prominent eyes in Ba2-21 as soon to change into empty sockets:
The old bird could offer his eyes (his life) in order to give life (eyes) to a new little one. For Metoro did not say manu rere but simply manu. Rere. To jump; to run; to fly. Rere-taúra, to carry a child astride on one's shoulder: ku rere-taúra-á i te poki e te matu'a ki te gao, the mother carries her child astride her neck. Vanaga. 1. To fly, to run, to leap, to scale, to be carried away by the wind; ika rere, flying fish; rere aruga, to rebound; hetuu rere, meteor, flying star. Hakarere, to leap. P Pau.: rere, to soar, to fly; fakarere, to precede. Mgv., Ta.: rere, to fly, to leap. 2. To come, to reach to. Mq.: éé mai, to come. 3. To swerve, to deviate. (4. Hakarere, to cease, desist, postpone, quit, vacation; tae hakarere, perseverance. Mq.: rere, to disappear. 5. Hakarere, to save, preserve, put, place, reserve, burden, destine. 6. Hakarere, to abandon, forsake, give up, depose, expose, leave, omit, abjure, repudiate; hakarere ki te hau, uncover the head; hakarere ki te vie, to divorce, hakarere ki raro, to put down, tooa te kiko e ivi i hakarere, to strip off the flesh. Mq.: éé, to run away, to escape. 7. Hakarere? Ikapotu hakarere, to abut, to adjoin; e tahi hakarere, synonym.) Churchill. Vi.: Lele, the end of a branch farthest from the body of a tree; leletha, to bend a branch in order to gather the fruit on it. Churchill 2. In the present phase of Polynesian lele so much means to fly that the plainest way of particularizing birds is to describe them as the flying animals, manulele. But to manifest that flight, an exercise or balancing of wings, was by no means the primordial sense, for how could that give rise to a description of water in the water-courses? It will be no end to mass the several significations which lele exhibits ... Flight of birds ... Wind drive ... Meteors ... To leap ... To run ... Flow of water ... To swim ... To sail ... These several activities are exercised in earth, air, and water. The common factor is the swift motion. The means of motion cut no figure. It is an invisible means in the driving of the wind, the flash of the meteor silent athwart the sky on its lethal errand, the slip and slide of the stream in its deep course, the set of the sea, the gliding of the canoe upon its surface. Churchill 2.
... When the man, Ulu, returned to his wife from his visit to the temple at Puueo, he said, 'I have heard the voice of the noble Mo'o, and he has told me that tonight, as soon as darkness draws over the sea and the fires of the volcano goddess, Pele, light the clouds over the crater of Mount Kilauea, the black cloth will cover my head. And when the breath has gone from my body and my spirit has departed to the realms of the dead, you are to bury my head carefully near our spring of running water. Plant my heart and entrails near the door of the house. My feet, legs, and arms, hide in the same manner. Then lie down upon the couch where the two of us have reposed so often, listen carefully throughout the night, and do not go forth before the sun has reddened the morning sky. If, in the silence of the night, you should hear noises as of falling leaves and flowers, and afterward as of heavy fruit dropping to the ground, you will know that my prayer has been granted: the life of our little boy will be saved.' And having said that, Ulu fell on his face and died. His wife sang a dirge of lament, but did precisely as she was told, and in the morning she found her house surrounded by a perfect thicket of vegetation. 'Before the door,' we are told in Thomas Thrum's rendition of the legend, 'on the very spot where she had buried her husband's heart, there grew a stately tree covered over with broad, green leaves dripping with dew and shining in the early sunlight, while on the grass lay the ripe, round fruit, where it had fallen from the branches above. And this tree she called Ulu (breadfruit) in honor of her husband. The little spring was concealed by a succulent growth of strange plants, bearing gigantic leaves and pendant clusters of long yellow fruit, which she named bananas. The intervening space was filled with a luxuriant growth of slender stems and twining vines, of which she called the former sugar-cane and the latter yams; while all around the house were growing little shrubs and esculent roots, to each one of which she gave an appropriate name. Then summoning her little boy, she bade him gather the breadfruit and bananas, and, reserving the largest and best for the gods, roasted the remainder in the hot coals, telling him that in the future this should be his food. With the first mouthful, health returned to the body of the child, and from that time he grew in strength and stature until he attained to the fullness of perfect manhood. He became a mighty warrior in those days, and was known throughout all the island, so that when he died, his name, Mokuola, was given to the islet in the bay of Hilo where his bones were buried; by which name it is called even to the present time ...
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