next page previous page home

The key word of item 14 is (n)goio, a word we have not met before:

4 Okahu a uka ui hetuu. 0
14 hatu ngoio a taotao ika. 10
24 ko ehu ko mahatua a piki rangi a hakakihikihi mahina 20

Let us begin, however, with the more familiar. Ika (fish or 'fish') at the end apparently is there in order to determine more precisely the quality of taotao in this instance.

Īka

1. Fish. 2. In some cases, animal in general: īka ariga koreh[v?]a, animal with the face of a koreva fish (name given to horses when they arrived on the island, because of the resemblance of their heads with that of a koreva). 3. Victim (wounded or killed), enemy who must be killed, person cursed by a timo and destined to die; īka reirei, vanquished enemy, who is kicked (rei). 4. Corpse of man fallen in war. Vanaga.

1. Fish, animal; ika rere, flying fish; ivi ika, fishbone; mata ika, pearl. P Pau., Mgv., Mq.: ika, fish. Ta.: ia, id. 2. Prey, victim, sacrifice; ika ke avai mo, abuse; hakarere ki te ika, to avenge. T Mgv.: ikaiara, to quarrel; ikatamamea, to be angry because another has handled one's property. Mq.: ika, enemy, what causes horror. Ma.: ika, the first person killed in a fight. Mangaia: ika, a victim for sacrifice. 3? matamata ika, snow. Ikahi, to fish with a line, to angle. Mq.: ikahi, id. Ikakato, to go fishing. Ikakohau, to fish with a line, to angle. Ikapotu, cape, end of a voyage, destination; ikapotu hakarere, to abut, to adjoin; topa te ikapotu, id.; tehe oho te ikapotu, id.; mei nei tehe i oho mai ai inei te ikapotu, as far as, to. Ikapuhi, to fish with a torch. Mq.: ikapuhi, id. Churchill.

Both ika and tao are labels for glyph types:

ika tao
'rising fish' 'hot bun'

Item 14 is 'halfway' to Rano Raraku and also the 1st item beyond the 'bad day' (kino) for the Sun king, when I imagine his 'beastly apparel' was magically 'strangled' (here) by kaikai strings, stopped in his fierce growing ('kai') because his 'fire' would otherwise consume the whole island.

1 ko apina iti.ko rapa kura.he oho mai he 12
12 vai poko aa raa mata turu
13 ko te hereke a kino ariki
14 hatu ngoio a taotao ika. 15
28 ko tongariki a henga eha tunu kioe hakaputiti.ai
ka haka punenenene henua mo opoopo o
29 ko te rano a raraku.

The Inuit peoples, who live practically alongside the Polynesians (because the ocean is no obstacle but an easy route for travellers, as Heyerdahl has taught us), had quite similar views regarding how Sun should be afraid of string games. The following are relevant excerpts from Arctic Sky:

... string games could be resumed after it was clear that the Sun had managed to leave the horizon and was rapidly gaining in altitude: 'Before the sun starts to leave the horizon ... when it shows only on the horizon, ... then string games were no longer allowed as they might lacerate the sun. Once the sun had started to go higher and could be seen in its entirety, string games could be resumed, if one so wished. So the restriction on playing string games was only applicable during the period between the sun's return and its rising fully above the horizon ...

... I knew of two men who lived in another settlement on the Noatak river. They did not believe in the spirit of the string figures, but said they originated from two stars, agguk, which are visible only when the sun has returned after the winter night. One of these men was inside a dance-house when a flood of mist poured in ... His two companions rapidly made and unmade the figure 'Two Labrets', an action intended to drive away the spirit of the string figures, uttering the usual formula ... but the mist kept pouring in ...

... Again, in a diary entry dated 18 December 1913 Jenness notes the same Alak telling him that 'they never played cat's cradles while two stars called agruk were visible, just before the long days of summer... They played other games then, like whizzer [a noise maker] ...

... Alak's comments indicate that, for the Noatak area at least, the appearance of Aagjuuk, rather than the Sun, signalled the end of the string-game season. And the opinion ... that string figures came from, and are therefore related to, Aagjuuk may have given rise to the prohibition against playing them after the solstice appearance of these stars. It is also possible that the string game mentioned by Alak - 'Two Labrets' - rapidly made and unmade in an attempt to drive off the 'string figure spirit', was intended to symbolize Aagjuuk's two stars and so confound the constellation with its own likeness or spirit.

... Etalook refers to the 'aagruuk' as 'labrets' (the circular lower-lip ornaments of some Western Arctic Eskimo groups, certainly evoke an astral image if we recall that early Inuit gaphic representations of stars were usually circular ...) giving them, it seems, an alternate name, ayaqhaagnailak, 'they prohibit the playing of string games': They are the ones that discourage playing a string game... That's what they're called, ayaqhaagnailak, those two stars... When the two stars come out where is no daylight, people are advised not to play a string game then, but with hii, hii, hii... toy noisemakers of wood or bone and braided sinew...

We should notice that the skin of Sun can be lacerated by kaikai strings, which idea might explain hereke (in item 13) - translated as 'festering wound, cracked skin' by Barthel. Possibly the women on Easter Island had to sing the right songs together with the proper kaikai games at midsummer. Among the Inuit Sun was female and Moon male, which probably explains why men could play with string games.

12 indicates the cycle of Spring Sun, the 'beast'. Then comes woman, man, and the gods:

In this version of cosmos a woman is at top center and the turtle at the base is oriented horizontally. Instead of 3 'costumes' for Sun (spring, autumn, winter - in high summer he is decapitated) Moon has 7 'attires'. Her necklace forms a double 'zero':

puo vaha kai

I suggest the 'rising fish' in item 14 is Moon at the time of her 'birth', i.e. when she has stopped the voracious spring 'beast' and taken charge of the threatening situation (by using her invisible strings).

In the picture above she is born at left, where the woman is standing, reaches her full moon phase at center (at winter solstice), and during the season of the beast (spring) she generates offspring. The multiple heads of the serpent illustrates the season of plenty.

The double-oval necklace is a sign which is carried from the woman at left and up to the time when Sun is reborn at the beginning of spring. The world mountain in the background is encircled by clouds.