"Mermaid's purses (also known as Devil's Purses) are the egg cases of skates, sharks and rays. They are among the common objects which are washed up by the sea. Because they are lightweight, they are often found at the furthest point of the high tide. The eggcases that wash up on beaches are usually empty, the young fish having already hatched out." (Wikipedia)
4. At this stage we have become accustomed to the fact that glyphs mostly are composites, creations which ingeniously - and often playfully - are using more or less subtle signs. Nevertheless we would like to identify a glyph type with some known entity, instead of being a collage. For ika hiku we can use a mermaid's purse as a mental crutch:
When the spring shark (vaha kai, the youngest sun of king Hotua Matua) has eaten enough it is time to spawn. |