So far evidence has pointed at vae possibly meaning 'going away'. Initially the question was raised: Does vae mean 'full stop' or 'go ahead'? The answer may be an intermediate 'go away', not a stop but moving (although not ahead). Aa1-15 and Bb12-26 are located at the end of text cycles which tell about how the old year is at its end. The alternative 'go ahead' (as when Ure Honu found the skull of king Hotu Matua) is therefore eliminated. It is significant to find vae close after pure ('empty shell'):
The other side
of the tablet has a similar sequence:
Side a of
Tahua probably describes summer and side b presumably
winter. Ordinal numbers 5-72 and 7-84 for the ariki glyphs
(Aa5-72 and Ab7-84) are clues to be interpreted with that in
mind. At winter solstice, we can infer, there are 365 - 360 = 5 'dark
days', and 72 can be read as twice 360, a coming
together of two years.
84 suggests 3 *
28 or three months, a lunar measure. In Ab7-82 there is a
little moon sign. The bottom part of Ab7-84 can also be
read as a moon sign, a sign of a 'dead (upside down) canoe'. Moon close to the horizon
always looks as if riding right side up. The sign in
Ab7-84 is therefore a powerful signal of 'end' (for the moon).
We have seen earlier (at tara) that the last glyph in line
b8 also has ordinal number 84:
Relevant in
determining a connection between moon and number 84 is also the found
84-glyph differences between the 'moon mauga' and its
'antipode' Eb3-8:
B and R have glyph sequences
parallel with Aa5-68--73.
Both on side a
and side b of Tahua are riddles embedded, which when
solved give the solution 6 * 84.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
