1. Moa toa, cock. P Pau., Mgv., Mq., Ta.: toa, brave. Mq.: toa, male. (But Mgv.: toa, female.) 2. Sugarcane. T Pau., Mgv., Mq., Ta.: to, id. (To., Niuē: to, id. Sa., Fu.: tolo, id.) This form occurs only in Rapanui. In New Zealand, where the plant does not grow, the name is applied to any similar haulm. Churchill.

Mgv.: Toa, ironwood. Ta.: toa, id. Mq.: toa, id. Sa.: toa, id. Ha.: koa, id. Churchill.

Ta.: Toa, a gout of blood. Sa.: to'a, to coagulate. Toatoa, a bad smell of the sea. Sa.: to'ato'a, to smell bad. Churchill.

T. Warrior, the tree aito (Casuarina). Henry.

T. Toa, rock , coral. Churchill.

Evidently the basic idea of this type of glyph could be that of a dry (and thus hard like rock) upright. A warrior must stand firm. Manu rere is its opposite, a creature who cannot be still:

Sky pillars should not move, they should be as stable and non-changing as dry old bones.

Manu - as opposed to manu rere - could imply a state of death (not growing any more, similar to a haulm). Possibly the transformation from manu rere to manu was connected with the time when the growth reached to the apex of flowering:

Toa

'Canne à sucre en fleur' (blooming sugar cane) is the explanation given by Bishop Jaussen (according to Barthel):

"Die in den Metorogesängen oft vorkommende Benennung der Zeichen 65 bzw. 66 als toa wurde von Jaussen auf das Zuckerrohr bezogen; eine Auffassung, die keine Stütze in den Tafeltexten findet.

Berücksichtigt man aber, daß die Metorogesänge phonetisch nicht immer ganz exakt niedergeschrieben wurden, so findet man eine sinnvolle Lösung, wenn man zwischen tôa und to'a underscheidet: Das erste Wort bedeutet Zuckerrohr, das zweite dagegen Feind, Mörder.

Englert 1948, 503: 'caña de azucar' bzw. 'enemigo; asesino'. Ferner: he to'a o te îka, el que ha dado muerte a una persona'."

With help from pollinating small insects (and hummingbirds etc) life will be transferred to the next generation and the parent, having lost its force of life, will die.

Toga (southwest) was in some dialects expressed as toa, which is the direction southwest towards 'the land of death' (stillness):

Toga

1. Winter season. Two seasons used to be distinguished in ancient times: hora, summer, and toga, winter. 2. To lean against somehing; to hold something fast; support, post supporting the roof. 3. To throw something with a sudden movement. 4. To feed oneself, to eat enough; e-toga koe ana oho ki te aga, eat well first when you go to work. Vanaga.

1. Winter. P Pau., Mgv.: toga, south. Mq.: tuatoka, east wind. Ta.: toa, south. 2. Column, prop; togatoga, prop, stay. Togariki, northeast wind. Churchill.

Wooden platform for a dead chief: ka tuu i te toga (Bb8-42), when the wooden platform has been erected. Barthel 2.

The expressions Tonga, Kona, Toa (Sam., Haw., Tah.), to indicate the quarter of an island or of the wind, between the south and west, and Tokelau, Toerau, Koolau (Sam., Haw., Tah.), to indicate the opposite directions from north to east - expressions universal throughout Polynesia, and but little modified by subsequent local circumstances - point strongly to a former habitat in lands where the regular monsoons prevailed. Etymologically 'Tonga', 'Kona', contracted from 'To-anga' or 'Ko-ana', signifies 'the setting', seil. of the sun. 'Toke-lau'

I suggest there was no need to use the toa type of glyph in 'rebus fashion', because the idea (picture) encompassed all the meanings necessary. There was no need to reconnect the words which had happened to develop into slightly different forms (e.g. toga, to'a, tôa etc). In the Polynesian mind they were all still the same. The diacritical marks were unneccessary additions by the Europeans, who tried to analyze everything down into such small pieces that could be easily comprehended. Thereby all deeper meanings were ignored and lost.

Yet, in order to compress meaning into the few glyphs present at each event in the calendars the creators of the rongorongo texts must have found it necessary to add small signs which served not as separating diacritical marks but which instead functioned to enhance the basic meanings, signs which added instead of subtracted. We could compare it to how in telecommunication systems it has been found necessary to use redundancy in order to secure that the transmission survives intact from sender to receiver.

Number surely was such a method used to ensure secure the 'transmission'.


Sheratan (27.4)	Aldebaran (68.2)	Arcturus (215.4)
*215.4 - 27.4 = 188 = 365 - 177 (= 6 29½)**

But only some stars were useful for this purpose.

It strikes me that the Arcturus bird, half dead half alive, could describe 'the final moult', when life emerges from the state of death (pupa):