Inspired by
the 'dolmen' structure of the ancient Irish alphabet I
imagined a similar structure for the bird list in
Manuscript E:
|
kukuru toua |
white pigeon |
makohe |
frigate |
kena |
booby |
tavake |
redtailed tropic
bird |
|
ascending |
|
descending |
|
ka
araara |
sooty tern |
ruru |
black petrel |
|
te
verovero |
taiko |
|
kava eoeo |
sooty tern |
kumara |
white tern |
|
pi riuriu |
kiakia |
|
manu tara
erua |
2 sooty
terns |
tavi |
small
lead-coloured tern |
tuao |
dark brown
tern |
tuvi |
gray tern |
4 +
4 = 8 months for ascending and descending Sun
amount to 236 days (or to 240 if each month has
30 days, or to 248 if each month has 31 days, or
to 256 if each month has 32 days). 4 months form
the top of the year and possibly 5
(or 4?) extracalendrical days can be imagined in the
'subsurface' bottom line:
|
4 |
118 |
120 |
124 |
128 |
|
4 |
118 |
120 |
124 |
128 |
|
4 |
118 |
120 |
124 |
128 |
|
sum |
354 |
360 |
372 |
384 |
|
5
days added |
359 |
365 |
377 |
389 |
The
pair of manu tara 'parents' and their 4
offspring chickens maybe are depicted in
Aa1-3--8.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Aa1-3 |
Aa1-4 |
Aa1-5 |
Aa1-6 |
Aa1-7 |
Aa1-8 |
|
manu tara erua |
pi
riuriu |
kava
eoeo |
te
verovero |
ka
araara |
If
this is correct, then we can expect
tuvi, tuao, and tavi at the
preceding glyphs:
 |
 |
 |
|
Ab8-84 |
Aa1-1 |
Aa1-2 |
|
tuvi |
tuao |
tavi |
Tuao is the bird of central
importance among these 3. Tu-ao seems
to mean 'daylight' (ao) is 'rising' (tu),
and Aa1-1 is the 5th ('fire') glyph beyond
the 'egg' in Ab8-80 (where 8 * 80 = 640). If
we apply the structure of the Hawaiian Moon calendar there
should be 4 'ebb' glyphs before Aa1-1 brings
light, 4 glyphs for the time of 'incubation':
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
Ab8-80 |
Ab8-81 |
Ab8-82 |
Ab8-83 |
Ab8-84 |
Aa1-1 |
|
Tane
? |
Rogo
? |
Mauri ? |
Mutu ? |
Kea in Ab8-84 corresponds - it
appears - to the final black ('Saturn') night before a
new Sun emerges.
In Aa1-2 a rising Moon crescent is depicted,
but the 'chicken' in Aa1-1 has his back formed
like a waning Moon and his front is broken
in 2 places. Maybe it is the broken eggshell, from which
his head emerges?
8 * 85 = 680 (10 times 68) = 17 * 40.
Furthermore, 1335 = 5 * 267 (where 267 is 'one more'
than 266). If the little bird in Aa1-1 represents the
old year Sun, it could make us infer that marama
in Aa1-2 is the first glyph 'in the new season of light'.
Tuvi could be at Ab8-84 if the broken
little chicken in Aa1-1 announces the daylight
(ao) which will shine on Moon in Aa1-2:
|
end
of the back side |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ab8-80 ('zero') |
Ab8-81 |
Ab8-82 |
Ab8-83 |
Ab8-84
('tu-vi') |
|
start of the front side |
|
|
|
|
|
Aa1-1
('tu-ao') |
Aa1-2 |
Aa1-3 |
Aa1-4 |
With tuao = tu-ao it seems
unavoidable to read tuvi as tu-vi:
|
Vi
Pau.: To succumb. Ta.: vi,
to be subjugated, the beginning
of a retreat. Churchill.
Mgv.: 1. A fruit. Ta.: vi,
Spondias dulcis. Mq.:
vi, id. Sa.: vi, id.
Ha.: wi, the tamarind. 2.
A fish. Mq.: vi, id.
Churchill |
"WI,
adj. Haw., destitute,
suffering, starving; s.
starvation, famine; wiwi,
lean, meagre; hoo-wiwi,
to lessen, diminish.
Marqu.,
wiwi, poor, feeble;
wiwi-i, solitude. Tah.,
veve, poor,
destitute, bare; v.
to be in want.
Sanskr.,
vi, prep. 'compounded
with verbs and nouns it
implies: 1. separation; 2.
privation; 3. wrongness,
baseness', &c. (Benfey); as
vi-deha, without
body; vi-dharâ,
without man, a widow;
vi-dhantâ, poverty,
without wealth. Lat., ve
or vi, in compound
words, as ve-cors,
without reason, frantic;
ve-grandis, not large,
small; ve-sanus, out
of the senses, raving
unsound; vi-duus,
vi-dua, without husband
or wife, widower, widow. Of
other things, empty, void,
without. Goth, widuwo,
A.-Sax., wuduwa,
widow.
Benfey
(Sanskr. Dict., s.
v.) leads one to infer
that vi is but an aphærsis
of dui.
It seems to me that the
natural inference, and the
natural turn of men's
thoughts, would be that
dui,
two, implied addition rather
than diminution. It is
possible that the Sanskrit
dui
may have been 'worn down',
as Professor Sayce calls it,
to a preposition or mere
affix, not only in the
Sanskrit, but also in the
Gothic and Latin; but with a
substantial Polynesian
wi
still alive indicating
destitution, deprivation,
diminution, I incline to
consider the latter as the
base of, and proper relative
to, the Sanskrit, Gothic,
and Latin preposition or
affix." (Fornander)
|
When the old fire is 'starving' (wi)
it will soon turn into ashes. The time of
'retreat' (vi) is 'rising' (tu).
But tuvi could 'announce' the event one glyph
ahead of the actual retreat of the old fire.
Tavi
at marama in Aa1-2 must be something else than
tuvi and tuao:
|
Ta
OR. Write,
writing. The name of writing
before the term rongorongo
in 1871 became current. Fischer.
1. To tattoo (
= tatú), to tattoo
pictures on the skin, also:
he-tá ite kona, tá-kona. 2.
To weave (a net): he-tá i te
kupega. 3. To shake
something, moving it violently
up and down and from one side to
the other; he-tá e te tokerau
i te maga miro, the wind
shakes the branches of the
trees; also in the iterative
form: e-tá-tá-ana e te
tokerau i te tôa, the wind
continuously shakes the leaves
of the sugarcane. 4. To pull
something up suddenly, for
instance, an eel just caught,
dropping it at once on a stone
and killing it: he-tá i te
koreha.
Tá-tá-vena-vena,
ancient witching formula.
Vanaga.
1. Of. 2.
This, which. 3. Primarily to
strike: to sacrifice, to tattoo,
to insert, to imprint, to write,
to draw, to copy, to design, to
color, to paint, to plaster, to
note, to inscribe, to record, to
describe, number, letter,
figure, relation; ta
hakatitika, treaty; ta
igoa, sign; ta ki,
secretary; ta kona, to
tattoo; ta vanaga,
secretary. Churchill.
... the root
ta through its long
series of known combinations
carries a strongly featured
sense of action that is
peripheral, centrifugal, and
there seems to be at least a
suspicion of the further
connotation that the action is
exerted downward ... The
secondary sense of cutting will
easily be seen to be a striking
with a specialized implement,
and we find this sense stated
without recognition of the
primal striking sense only in
Mangareva, Nukuoro, Viti, and
Malekula. In Indonesia this
secondary sense is predominant,
although Malagasy ta may
come somewhat close to the
striking idea ... Churchill 2. |
Maybe
tavi means 'to strike down' (ta) the time of
'retreat' (vi).
|