4. It is necessary to begin to update and
improve our short list of
glyph types. I will start with tagata:
 |
Growth
proceeds from bottom up, like the text on a rongorongo
tablet, and the 'head' will gradually rise higher and
higher, like Sun in spring.
When 'the
man' is fully grown he stops and turns to look straight at us.
His movement 'ahead' has
stopped, as for instance at summer solstice. |
|
tagata |
|
fully grown
man |
|
apex |
|
Tagata
Man; human being in
general; the plural is gagata. Vanaga.
Man, mankind; tagata
ke, some one else; tagata no, nation. P Pau.:
tagata, man. Mgv.: tagata, man or woman.
Mq.: enata, enana, kenana, man.
Ta.: taata, id. Tagataa, incarnate.
Tagatahaga, human, humanity. Churchill. |
I felt it necessary to add the comments at
right, the signs must be connected to the frame of thought.
The head is different in the variant tagata gagana:
 |
A death
skull with holes instead of eyes probably indicates a
season when Sun is absent. Beyond high summer the rain clouds
will cover the
sky, and later in autumn the vegetation will wither,
turn into 'straw'.
The season
with Sun absent has ended, because we can see the whole 'man' looking
straight at us. His short
'arms' indicate how the sky dome is lying low, close to
earth as in midwinter. |
|
tagata
gagana |
|
dead man |
|
end of
'the season of straw' (?) |
|
Gagana is close to
gagata (pluaral of tagata). Metoro said
gagana only once while reading for Bishop Jaussen:
 |
|
Eb6-24 |
| e
gagana |
|
|
Gaga
Exhausted, strengthless,
to faint. Vanaga.
To faint, to fall in a
swoon, death struggle. Gagata, crowd, multitude,
people, population. Mgv.: A bird. Mq.: kaka, id.
Pau.: Gagahere, herbs, grass. Ta.: aaihere,
herbs, bush. Ma.: ngahere, forest. Pau.:
Gagaoa, confused noise. Ta.: aaoaoa, noise of
a rising assembly. Churchill.
... the progeny of Tu
increased: Rongo, Tane, Tangaroa,
Rongomai, Kahukura, Tiki, Uru,
Ngangana,
Io, Iorangi, Waiorangi, Tahu,
Moko, Maroro, Wakehau, Tiki,
Toi, Rauru, Whatonga - these were
the sons ... (Moriori myth of creation accoding to
Legends of the South Seas.) |
We must also take the opportunity to list all the
tagata glyphs in line Ga1. The prototype of tagata
gagana is Ga1-11:
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Ga1-11 (12) |
Ga1-12 |
Ga1-13 |
Ga1-14 |
Ga1-15 (16) |
By counting from Gb8-30 tagata ganana in
Ga1-11 becomes a day of Sun and Ga1-15 a day of Jupiter.
Likewise the 'wreck' of a man in Ga1-19 becomes a day of Jupiter:
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Ga1-16 |
Ga1-17 |
Ga1-18 |
Ga1-19 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Ga1-20 |
Ga1-21 (22) |
Ga1-22 |
Ga1-23 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Ga1-24 |
Ga1-25 (26) |
Ga1-26 |
Ga1-27 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Ga1-28 |
Ga1-29 (30) |
Ga1-30 |
The figure without a head in Ga1-29 has a short
arm at right and at left the same type of wavy arm which in
Gb5-5 is at right:
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Gb5-5
(359) |
Gb5-6 |
Gb5-7 |
Gb5-8 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Gb5-9 |
Gb5-10 |
Gb5-11 |
Gb5-12
(366) |
Maybe the wavy arms are meant to show 'water'.
According to 'the old system' the ordinal number of Gb5-5 is 217:
|
sum |
120 |
a7-11--34 |
24 |
144 |
|
a7-1--10 |
10 |
120 |
b2 (6) |
35 |
179 |
|
a6 (4) |
29 |
110 |
b4 (7) |
33 |
212 |
|
a4 (3) |
27 |
81 |
b5 (8) |
29 |
241 |
|
a3 (2) |
24 |
54 |
b6 (9) |
28 |
269 |
|
a2 (1) |
29 |
30 |
b7 (10) |
31 |
300 |
|
(0) |
1 |
1 |
sum |
300 |
|
|
|
'215' |
|
82 |
 |
|
Ga1-29 (30) |
Ga1-30 |
Gb5-5 (359) |
Gb7-31
(442) |
|
'216' = 12 *
18 |
84 = 12 * 7 |
|
300 = 12 *
25 |
Then we have Ga1-2 and the sign of upraised arms
presumably
refers to a solstice:
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Gb8-30 |
Ga1-1 |
Ga1-2 |
Ga1-3 (4) |
The left arm of this fully grown man is formed somewhat like the
crescent of waxing moon whereas his right arm is swollen, maybe indicating
the season of 'eating' in front. His right arm is looking a bit
like the left 'arm' in Ga1-1. Presumably we should read Ga1-1 and Ga1-2 together
and compare with Ba8-20:
The 'fish tail' at bottom right in Ba8-20
indicates a different season compared to that described by
Ga1-1--2. A further discussion would lead us to my glyph type tara
(which I once concluded Ga1-1 should be a variant of):
 |
|
|
tara |
Ga1-1 |
The orientation of the 'mouth' is not forward as in a
normal tara, but upwards, suggesting a
standstill, similar to the Egyptian sign of upraised
arms:
Variants which deviate from the
described glyph types ought be described with at least
some clue as to their possible meanings:
|
|
|
|
|
'215' |
|
82 |
|
|
Ga1-29 (30) |
Ga1-30 |
Gb5-5 (359) |
Gb7-31
(442) |
|
'216' = 12 *
18 |
84 = 12 * 7 |
|
300 = 12 *
25 |
|
|
Ga1-29 (30) |
|
the 'wreck'
of a man |
|
end of
'water' (?) |
|
The 'wavy arm' sign I
have named rima aueue:
|
 |
|
rima aueue |
| Aue
Ah,
alas. Aueue, oh. P Pau., Ta.: aue,
alas. Mgv.: aue, auhe, alas.
Mq.: aue, oh, alas; auhe, a
sigh. Exclamation in general representing
the most primordial type of speech, it seems
that this may be reduced to recognizable
elements. The e is throughout these
languages a vocative or hailing sign,
commonly postpositive in relation to the
person hailed. In the examination of au
we have shown that the primal first person
singular designation is u. With the
comparatively scanty material afforded by
this vocabulary we may not attempt to define
the use of a but we have no
hesitation in noting that proof based on
wider studies will show it to have, inter
alia, a characteristic function as a
word-maker. In a very high degree, then,
a-u-e is represented by a common English
interjection 'oh my!' in which oh = a,
my = u, and e = !. Churchill.
What is this cry which our primitive
islanders share with the animals? Look at
its elements, all full-throated. First we
have a, the sound of mouth open,
fauces open, lungs full of air. As air
expires the sound recedes in the mouth
towards the palate and we find the u.
Last comes the conscious finish of the
utterance, the muscles begin to retract, the
sound-making point is forced forward and the
sound is e. If the man had but a few
more cubic centimeters of lung capacity he
could attain cow volumne for his cry, or
interjection, since it amounts to the same
thing. Churchill 2. |
|
Ue
Uéué,
to move about, to flutter; he-uéué te
kahu i te tokerau, the clothes flutter
in the wind; poki oho ta'e uéué,
obedient child. Vanaga.
1. Alas. Mq.:
ue,
to groan. 2. To beg (ui).
Ueue:
1. To shake (eueue);
kirikiri
ueue, stone for sling. PS Pau.:
ueue,
to shake the head. Mq.:
kaueue,
to shake. Ta.:
ue, id. Sa.:
lue,
to shake, To.:
ue'í, to shake, to move;
luelue,
to move, to roll as a vessel in a calm. Niuē:
luelue, to quake, to shake. Uvea:
uei, to shake; ueue, to move.
Viti: ue, to move in a confused or
tumultous manner. 2. To lace. Churchill. |
|
|
