The rongorongo texts are possible to read in several different ways. If side a of G is its 'front side', then it ought to correspond to (or at least incorporate a list of) the waxing phase of Sun. It is possible to count 5 times 36 in order to reach 180, a number which can be motivated by the idea of Sun having only 1 'limb' (the other one he spends with his winter maid far in the north):
My arrangment in the table above shows how the pair of mama glyphs appear to correspond to the pair of puo (one real and one imagined) at the beginning of the front side. Although puo in Gb8-30 evidently is 2 (and also has been counted twice) it is equally clear that it is a single unit. It is the last glyph of side b but it has also been counted as the first glyph of side a. Otherwise it is not possible to reach 8 * 59 = 472. There are 106 (= 2 * 53, cfr for instance at kava) glyphs between puo as last glyph on side b and mama in Ga4-23 (or 106 glyphs between puo as the first glyph of the front side and mama in Ga4-24). Therefore it is not necessary to interpret the mama pair in Ga4-23--24 as a sign of the beginning of a waning phase. They could rather be regarded as marking the final of a waning phase, or at least located at the end of a season (cfr the location of mama in Wednesday). The double shape in puo at Gb8-30 seems to explain why there is a pair of mama in Ga4-23--24. The pair is possibly alluding to what happens when we turn the tablet from one side to the other - the side we just looked at is now invisible. 9 * 12 = 108. Considering puo as a sign of 'down in the earth' (like a kumara hilled up), we can imagine a development upwards to a final in Ga7-20, where a fist is held high like a fruit. The halfway point of this upwards movement occurs with the mama pair (Ga4-23--24), and 4 * 24 = 96 is equal to 192 / 2. Although my solution seems reasonable, we need to look at a few other aspects of our problem. |
