next page

previous page table of contents home

2. The sections building up the new 'bamboo tree' were from different kinds of trees. This agrees with what is told in the myth about Maui playing with fire:

... Before the events that are related in this story Mahuika alone possessed the gift of fire, and all fire in the world was got from her. After Maui had tricked her, fire was kept in the wood of certain trees, from which men were able to release it ...

I suggest the 3 'fire feathers' inside the 'tree' (henua) at spring equinox is an example of such a tree which like kaikomako had agreed to keep the fire:

112
Ka1-3 Ka1-4 (*68) *Kb2-6 (5) *Kb2-7 (*182)
  Aldebaran (68.2), Theemin (68.5)   π Virginis (181.0) ο Virginis (182.1)
'May 27 (147) '28 112 'September 18 '19 (262)
Sheratan 11  12 Dschuba 7 8 (126)

... Even Mahuika herself almost perished before she could reach her place of shelter, and her shrieks were as loud as those of Maui when he was scorched. The waters rose all around her, and in this way Mahuika was deprived of her former power. But fire was saved for the world. When the waters reached her tikitiki, or the topknot of her head, the last seeds of fire fled from it to the rata , the hinau, the kahikatea, the rimu, and certain other trees. These trees would not admit them, and so they went to the mahoe, the totara, the patete, the pukatea, and the kaikomako, where they were cherished. These are the trees from whose dry wood fire can be obtained by friction. The others are of no use for this purpose ...

There are 5 such 'fire trees'. In the henua calendar on the G tablet there is no kiore+henua glyph designed with 'fire inside'. Possibly it means the 'water' (flood) which threatened to drown the whole world referred to the southern path of the Milky Way between Cancer and Scorpio.

... The distance from Ka1-7 - with the same kind of horizontal internal marks - to Ka4-10 is 72 - 7 = 65 glyphs, which suggests the distance from Ka4-10 to Ka1-7 could be 300 days. 216 + 300 = 516 and 516 - 365 = 151:

365 days
299 64
Ka4-10 (72) Ka1-7
 ρ Ursa Majoris (135.6), ν Cancri (136.0), Talitha Australis (136.1)      
'August 4 (216) 299 'May 31 (151) 64
Murzim 1 (80) Pleione 1 (15)

'May 31 is Gregorian day 151 and this indicates the glyphs on the K tablet indeed represent days (because 216 + 300 - 365 = 151) ...

South of the equator Serpent would be high up in the sky and the Milky Way would be like a band of ghosts centered at Raven.

Instead of 4 sky pillars north of the equator, which could be the proper design for keeping 'earth' above in place,

there could south of the equator have been necessary to have a single very tall one.

Toko

The higher-ranked of the two largest political units on Rapa Nui was the Ko Tu'u Aro Ko Te Mata Nui. This literally translates as The Mast/Pillar/Post [standing] Before the Greater Tribes. Toko te rangi, or Sky Propper, is named by Métraux in his corrected Miru genealogy as the thirteenth king of Easter Island and as one of the lineages or subgroups of the Miru. Although we have no record of the Sky Propper legend on Rapa Nui, other Polynesian legends of the Sky Propper are widely known, and they are formative elements in the basic cosmogenic theory of Polynesian belief.

Sky (rangi) and Earth (papa) lay in primal embrace, and in the cramped, dark space between them procreated and gave birth to the gods such as Tane, Rongo and Tu. Just as children fought sleep in the stifling darkness of a hare paenga, the gods grew restless between their parents and longed for light and air. The herculean achievement of forcing Sky to separate from Earth was variously performed by Tane in New Zealand and the Society Islands, by Tonofiti in the Marquesas and by Ru (Tu) in Cook Islands. After the sky was raised high above the earth, props or poles were erected between them and light entered, dispelling the darkness and bringing renewed life. One detail which is iconographically of interest is whether the god responsible for separating Earth and Sky did so by raising the Sky with his upraised arms and hands, as in Tahiti and elsewhere, or with his feet as in New Zealand.

The actual props, pillars or posts which separated the sky and earth are called toko in New Zealand, to'o in the Marquesas Islands and pou in Tahiti. In Rapanui tuu and pou are known, with pou meaning column, pillar or post of either stone or wood. Sometimes the word is applied to a natural rock formation with postlike qualities which serves as an orientation point. The star Sirius is called Te Pou in Rapanui and functions in the same way. 

One monolithic basalt statue is called Pou Hakanononga, a somewhat obscure and probably late name thought to mean that the statue served to mark an offshore tuna fishing site. The Rapanui word tokotoko means pole or staff. Sacred ceremonial staves, such as the ua on Rapa Nui, were called toko in Polynesia. 

Based upon the fact that toko in New Zealand also means 'rays of light', it has been suggested that the original props which separated and held apart Sky and Earth were conceived of as shafts of dawn sunlight. 

In most Polynesian languages the human and animate classifier is toko-, suggesting a congruence of semantic and symbolic meaning between anthropomorphic form and pole or post. Tane as First Man and the embodiment of sunlight thus becomes, in the form of a carved human male figure, the probable inspiration for the moai as sacred prop between Sky and Earth.

The moai as Sky Propper would have elevated Sky and held it separate from Earth, balancing it only upon his sacred head. This action allowed the light to enter the world and made the land fertile. Increasing the height of the statues, as the Rapa Nui clearly did over time, would symbolically increase the space between Sky and Earth, ensuring increased fertility and the greater production of food. The proliferating image, consciously or unconsciously, must have visually (and reassuringly) filled the dangerously empty horizon between sea and land, just as the trees they were so inexorably felling once had. (Van Tilburg)

Tokotoko, stick, cane, crutches, axe helve, roller, pole, staff. P Pau.: tokotoko, walking stick. Mgv.: toko, a pole, stilts, staff. Mq.: tokotoko, toótoó, stick, cane, staff. Ta.: too, id. Churchill.

In rongorongo times the manzil Murzim (referring to Sirius, Te Pou) was beginning when ν Cancri rose heliacally 136.0 days counted from 'March 21.

... Counting from 'January 1 in the previous year 'August 7 will be day number 365 + 219 = 584 = the number of nights in the synodical cycle of Venus, the planet ruling births ...