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GD43
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hoea |
When Metoro used the word hoea a few times at this type of glyph it could have been because he saw a connection between an instrument for tattooing (hoea) and darkness. |
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1. The glyph type suggests a hanging fruit and may therefore indicate a season late in summer. In hua poporo there are 4 hanging 'fruits', and from the summary can be quoted: ... The 'berries' in the hua poporo glyphs indicate how the 'fruits' are ripe for harvest, they will fall and a new dark season will enter (popo). The 'balls' (popo) announce the coming drops. Maybe - as if by sympathetic magic - the fruits will fall with the rain ...
In hua poporo there is a central 'stem' growing from a kind of nut. In hoea the opposite stage could be meant, where the fruit (carrying a nut in its center) is ready to drop to the ground as a prelude to next generation. The idea of a ripe fruit soon to fall and how the next generation is depending on it is beautifully described in the Hawaiian myth about Ulu and Mokuola: ...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 ... The fall happens when the year has reached a ripe age (the time of the 'dark cloth' for the year), when the year will 'fall on its face'. The association to hoea (tattooing instrument) is relevant - by tattooing darkness is created. Furthermore, with old age breath tends to wheeze with fatigue (hoe). And at the final comes Hatinga Te Kohe, the 'breaking of the bamboo' (or at least some kind of plant, kohekohe): Hoe 1. Paddle. Mgv.: hoe, ohe, id. Mq., Ta.: hoe, id. 2. To wheeze with fatigue (oeoe 2). Arero oeoe, to stammer, to stutter; Mgv. oe, to make a whistling sound in breathing; ohe, a cry from a person out of breath. Mq.: oe, to wheeze with fatigue. 3. Blade, knife; hoe hakaiu, clasp-knife, jack-knife; hoe hakanemu, clasp-knife; hoe pikopiko, pruning knife. 4. Ta.: oheohe, a plant. Ma.: kohekohe, id. Churchill. |
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