2. The Old Man on the floor of the sea gave young Raven 2 sticks: ... The old man gave the Raven two small sticks, like gambling sticks, one black, one multicoloured. He gave him instructions to bite them apart in a certain way and told him to spit the pieces at one another on the surface of the sea. The Raven climbed back up the pole, where he promptly did things backwards, just to see if something interesting would occur, and the pieces bounced apart. It may well be some bits were lost. But when he gathered what he could and tried again - and this time followed the instructions he had been given - the pieces stuck and rumpled and grew to become the mainland and Haida Gwaii ... This is the end of the mythical beginning and the story has reached the land where man is living. The fire plow is the typical Polynesian method to create fire, with one stick above and the other flat below: ... Another simple fire making tool using friction is a fire plow. It consists of a stick cut to a dull point, and a long piece of wood with a groove cut down its length. The point of the first piece is rubbed against the groove of the second piece in a 'plowing' motion, rapidly, to produce hot dust that then becomes a coal. A split is often made down the length of the grooved piece, so that oxygen can flow freely to the coal/ember. Once hot enough, the coal is introduced to the tinder, more oxygen is added by blowing and the result is ignition ... (Wikipedia) If, as I have suggested, light (fire) corresponds to land (meaning either 'land' in the sky or land down on earth), then the method to create land should be to use a pair of sticks. The black stick certainly is the 'female' stick and the multicoloured one the 'male' stick'. When the kuhane of Hau Maka circumnavigated Easter Island she first went along the southern coast, the night side of the island. By naming places she made the island more real, in a way she created the land. Makoi, on the other hand, went first along the northern, sunny, side of the island. Also his namegiving was necessary, and he in a way corresponds to the multicoloured stick. I guess the 'sticks' in front at Ga1-7 and Ga1-9 could have something to do with creating 'land':
The peninsula up high in the east, Poike, is land indeed. Roto Iri Are (with Ga1-6 showing signs of 'eye in the mud') is located at the beginning of 'land-creating' (after the stick has been broken in 2 pieces), and the name means 'inside' (roto) 'sea-weed' (iri-are). Eye inside sea-weed is much the same as eye in mud. The parallel K text is here valuable for interpreting Ga1-7--11:
The strange 'fish tail' in Ka1-11 is similar to that of the 'insect' in Ga1-16. The glyph lines are shorter in K than in G and Ka1-11 could therefore incorporate signs parallel with those in Ga1-16. Another comparable text is offered by B:
The surface of the sea must, of course, be where new land is created, as evidently is displayed for everyone when high tide subsides to once again reveal the mud flats full with goodies. |
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