4. The word 'daybreak' apparently is picture language for daylight winning over (breaking the power of) the night. We can see this happen every morning. When night is 'falling' it is picture language for the 'black cloth' of darkness falling over us. In autumn the same concept is expressed by 'fall'. Already beyond noon (respectively midsummer), however, the moai (bending over) is beginning. When we say 'nightfall' the Polynesians would rather express it as 'sun is falling on his face' ('dying' at the horizon in the west). On Easter Island cardinal points for the sun are located in the east, 'birth', and in the north sun is fully grown and standing high, tagata:
At the horizon in the west 'death' is located and in the south is 'the land of the spirits'. Sun moves counterclockwise south of the equator. Each cardinal point could perhaps be regarded as a bay (haga) for the sun 'canoe' sailing across the sky. The explorers, lead by Ira, stayed and rested at both Haga Takaśre and Haga Hōnu. Possibly, therefore, the rongorongo calendars are using haga rave glyphs to mark cardinal points. |
