Taotao ika, with double tao, possibly indicates a negation in the same way as kaikai evidently is related to the defeat of kai. Taotaovere means 'small red spots showing the approach of death':
Maybe a double form refers to Moon (who is twofold).
Barthel 2: "... The additional name 'fish are prepared in the earth-oven' may be a euphemism for cannibalism." Did they eat the spring sun? Having caught him in the net of kaikai strings, why not? December, Ko Koró, is a month of feasting. We should remember the disgusting feastings in Europe once upon a time (cfr at pare): ... At mid-summer, at the end of a half-year reign, Hercules is made drunk with mead and led into the middle of a circle of twelve stones arranged around an oak, in front of which stands an altar-stone; the oak has been lopped until it is T-shaped. He is bound to it with willow thongs in the 'five-fold bond' which joins wrists, neck, and ankles together, beaten by his comrades till he faints, then flayed, blinded, castrated, impaled with a mistletoe stake, and finally hacked into joints on the altar-stone. His blood is caught in a basin and used for sprinkling the whole tribe to make them vigorous and fruitful. The joints are roasted at twin fires of oak-loppings, kindled with sacred fire preserved from a lightning-blasted oak or made by twirling an alder- or cornel-wood fire-drill in an oak log. The trunk is then uprooted and split into faggots which are added to the flames. The twelve merry-men rush in a wild figure-of-eight dance around the fires, singing ecstatically and tearing at the flesh with their teeth ... By the way, I just happened to notice that Parehe is the name of one of those 3 mountain tops on which the Spaniards marked their possession of the island in 1770. "On the following day, 20 November 1770, Commander José Bustillo took formal possession of Easter Island 'in the name of the King and of Spain, our Lord and Master Don Carlos the third', renaming the island 'San Carlos'. Several hundred Rapanui - probably members of the Koro 'o 'Orongo tribe of the eastern 'Otu 'Iti - observed the ceremony not far from Poike's parasitic cones Parehe, Teatea, and Vai 'a Heva, on the tops of which the Spaniards had planted three crosses. Following three boisterous 'Viva el Rey!' for each cross, the land party let off three salvos of musketry, whereupon the two Spanish vessels San Lorenzo and Santa Rosalia responded with 21 cannon salutes. Spain's foremost historian of the Pacific, Francisco Mellén Blanco, has written of the event: 'The spectacle must have been awe-inspiring for the islanders. The parade of uniformed soldiers; the fluttering flags; the chaplains in their surplices chanting out the litany; the beating of drums, and the trilling of fifes must have left a lasting impression on all the natives who witnessed the procession' ..." (Fischer) This triplet of mountain cones in the northeast resemble the triplet of islets in the southwest, and the Spaniards may have thought it remarkable enough to use the similarity for their ceremony. My point is that once there was much in common between Polynesians and Europeans. |