5. This discussion is not trivial for our rongorongo studies. We belong to another culture and we will be prone to misunderstand. We can see a Sign where none is intended. What we find unusual, or even very strange, may be totally insignificant for the one who created the rongorongo text.

An example: The system of writing rongorongo on a tablet is for us extraordinary, the text is beginning at the bottom end and is then undulating upwards like a vine. If it had been done somewhere in our own culture it would surely have been intended to draw attention, it would have constituted an intentional Sign. Not so if it was the general custom, as it was on Easter Island.

6. In order for a Sign to be effective it must draw attention. When the second text line from the bottom of a tablet is upside down we will surely notice it, but it would not draw the attention of an Easter Islander who was well familiar with the system. Instead he would definitely rise his eyebrows if it was not upside down.

Indeed, he would presumably find it quite outrageous and maybe even dangerous, something unnatural, something breaking a fundamental law. He would immediately throw the tablet onto the fire to get rid of the horror. That is what I think.