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Once again, once upon a time the Goat probably was a name for winter, 'the year in straw':

In the solar zodiac his Sign was Capricornus, a V-formed beast half on 'Land' and half in the 'Sea':

The end of the 'Old Goat' meant spring had arrived and down on earth his portraits had to vanish. The Yule Goat above, a straw image from Gävle in Sweden, has a tradition where people will sneak in and burn him to ashes. This is indeed the appropriate action, to burn him like when the heat from Spring Sun sucks up all the leftover water puddles.

Ancient mariners did not look for Capricorn, they instead looked at the other end of the sky, knowing that when the Auriga constellation rose in the night the sailing season was finished. The Charioteer carried the old goat on his back as a Sign that winter was in the past:

The line for right ascension 6h corresponds to midsummer and nowadays Auriga is beginning around 5h. Precession has carried the constellations ahead in the year but once Capricornus would have been around the September equinox with Auriga in February - the last month of winter.

In rongorongo times Capella (the 'Goat', α Aurigae) rose heliacally in June 7, much later than the original date for turning the 'Straw Goat' to ashes:

Pleione 7 (21) 8 9
June 6 (157) 7 8
Ca4-1 (77) Ca4-2 Ca4-3
kua tupu te rakau kua tupu - te kihikihi te hau tea
 λ Eridani (76.7)   Rigel (78.1), Capella (78.4) η Scorpii (259.9)
Kihi

Kihikihi, lichen; also: grey, greenish grey, ashen. Vanaga.

Kihikihi, lichen T, stone T. Churchill.

The Hawaiian day was divided in three general parts, like that of the early Greeks and Latins, - morning, noon, and afternoon - Kakahi-aka, breaking the shadows, scil. of night; Awakea, for Ao-akea, the plain full day; and Auina-la, the decline of the day. The lapse of the night, however, was noted by five stations, if I may say so, and four intervals of time, viz.: (1.) Kihi, at 6 P.M., or about sunset; (2.) Pili, between sunset and midnight; (3) Kau, indicating midnight; (4.) Pilipuka, between midnight and surise, or about 3 A.M.; (5.) Kihipuka, corresponding to sunrise, or about 6 A.M. ... (Fornander)

Kihi-kihi, the double kihi, means the opposite of sunset, which also can be seen in the picture at Ca4-2. A new dawn is growing (kua tupu).

Gredi (α Capricorni) rose heliacally in January 22, i.e. 5 months earlier:

Al Naam 7 8 9 10 (254)
January 22 23 24 25 (390)
Ca11-23 Ca11-24 (308) Ca11-25 Ca11-26
te inoino erua te hokohuki te moko
Gredi (307.2), σ Capricorni (307.5) Alshat (307.9), Dabih (308.0), κ Sagittarii (308.1), Sadir (308.4) Peacock (308.7) Okul (309.6), Bos (309.9), ο Capricorni (310.2)
July 24 25 26 27 (208)
Alhena 3 4 5 6 (72)
Bright Fire (125.4) Avior (126.4) ο Ursa Majoris (127.4) θ Cancri (128.2), η Cancri (128.5)

June 7 (158) - January 22 (22) = 135 = 5 * 27.

The 'year in straw' lasted for 5 months and the 'year in leaf' for 7 months. This seems to have been the case also on Tahiti:

"... In Tahiti the bread-fruit can be gathered for seven months, for the other five there is none: for about two months before and after the southern solstice it is very scarce, but from March to August exceedingly plentiful. This season is called pa-uru (uru = 'bread-fruit'). The recurring scarcity of bread-fruit shewed the changes in the course of the year, but the Pleiades afforded a surer limit.

In Samoa one authority gives the wet season, ending in April, and the dry season, which comes to an end with the palolo fishing in October; another vaipalolo the palolo or wet season from October to March, and toe lau, when the regular trade-winds blow, embracing the other months; a third the season of fine weather - in which however much rain falls in some localities - and the stormy season, when it rains heavily ..." (Martin P. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning.)

Tahiti March - September pa-uru
October - February ?
Samoa May - October dry season
November - April wet season
Samoa April - September toe lau
October - March vaipalolo

The heliacal rising of Auriga seems to have coincided with the beginning of the 'year in leaf', the young new year which ended the rule of the old year 'in straw'. The old one went down in the southwest (toga) while the new one arrived with the wind from the northeast (toke-rau). In Samoa the well ordered trade-winds (toe lau) ruled from April to September.

Rau (lau) means leaf, the opposite of straw and a Sign of plenty:

Rau

Rau 1. (Also: raupá) leaf of a plant, stem and leaves. 2. Hundred: e tahi te rau, e rua te rau, etc., 100, 200... Also seems to have been used in the meaning of 'many'. Tu'u henua rau, someone who has travelled to many countries (such were called in the 19th century natives who had travelled abroad, employed as sailors). Compare with: tai raurau-á riki. Vanaga.

Rau hei. 1. Branch of mimosa. 2. Killed enemy. 3. Hanged 'fish'. 'Branche du mimosa (signe de mort), ennemie túe (poisson suspendu)' according to Jaussen. Barthel.

Ra'u 1. To take something without the owner's permission; to seize something forcibly. 2. Ra'u maahu, ancient expression, literally: to appropriate the steam (maahu) of the food just taken out of an earth oven. It refers to intruders coming to help themselves uninvited. Warriors off to a battle used to be told: E ra'u maahu no koe, o pagaha'a! meaning: 'Eat little, lest you be heavy (and lose your agility).' Vanaga.

1. Sa.: la'u, to clear off, to carry away; la'u mai, to bring. Uvea: laku, to send, to throw into. Ha.: laulau, a bundle, a bag; a wrapper of a bundle, the netting in which food is carried; lalau, to seize, to catch hold of. 2. To.: lau, lalau, lauji, to pinch with the fingers, to nip. Ha.: lau, to feel after a thing; lalau, to extend (as the hand), to seize, to catch hold of. 3. Sa.: lau, a leaf; lalau, to be in leaf; laulau, a food tray plaited from a coconut leaf, to set out food on such a tray or on a table. To.: lau, lou, a leaf; laulau, a tray. Fu., Uvea, Nuguria: lau, a leaf. Niuē: lau, a leaf; laulau, a table. Ha.: lau, a leaf; laulau, the netting in which food is carried. Ma., Ta., Rarotonga, Rapanui, Paumotu, Nukuoro, Fotuna: rau, a leaf. Mgv.: rau, rou, id. Mq.: au, ou, id. Churchill 2.

Ta.: rauhuru, dry banana leaf. Mq.: auhuu, id. (To.: hulu, leaves dry and dead.) Ha.: lauhulu, banana leaf. Churchill.

Lau, s. Haw., to feel for, spread out, expand, be broad, numerous; s. leaf of a tree or plant, expanse, place where people dwell, the end, point; sc. extension of a thing; the number four hundred; lau-kua, to scrape together, to gather up from here and there confusedly; lau-la, broad, wide, extension, width; lau-na, so associate with, be friendly; lau-oho (lit. 'leaves of the head'), the hair.

Tong., lau, low, spread out, be broad, exfoliate; s. surface area; lau-mata, eyelash; lo, a leaf; lo-gnutu, the lips (lit. 'leaves of the mouth'). N. Zeal. and Mang., rau, spread, expand; raku-raku, to scratch, scrape.

Sam., lau, leaf, thatch, lip, brim of a cup, breadth, numeral hundred after the first hundred; lau-a, to be in leaf, full-leafed; laua-ai, a town, in opposition to the bush; lau-ulu, the hair of the head; launga-tasi, even, level; lau-lau, to lay out, spread out food on a table; lau-tata, a level place on a mountain or at its foot; lau-le-anga, uneven; lau-talinga, the lobe of the ear, a fungus; lau-tele, large, wide, common, of people.

Tah., rau, a leaf, a hundred; when counting by couples, two hundred; many indefinitely; rau-rau, to scratch.

Fiji., lou, leaves for covering an oven; longa, a mat, a bed for planting; drau, a leaf; drau-drau, leaves on which food is served up, also a hundred.

Saparua., laun, leaf. Mal., daun, id.; luwas, broad, extended. Sunda., Rubak., id., Amboyna, ai-low, id. Malg., rav, ravin, leaf; ravin-tadign, lobe of the ear; lava, long, high, indefinite expression of extension; lava-lava, eternal; lava-tangh, a spider.

The word lau, in the sense of expanse, and hence 'the sea, ocean', is not now used in the Polynesian dialects. There remain, however, two compound forms to indicate its former use in that sense: lau-make, Haw., lit. the abating or subsiding of water, i.e., drought; rau-mate, Tah., to cease from rain, be fair weather; rau-mate, N. Zeal., id., hence summer.

The other word is koo-lau, Haw., kona-rau, N. Zeal., toe-rau, Tah., on the side of the great ocean, the weather side of an island or group; toa-lau, Sam., the north-east trade wind. In Fiji, lau is the name of the windward islands generally. In the Malay and pre-Malay dialects that word in that sense still remains under various forms: laut, lauti, lautan, lauhaha, olat, wolat, medi-laut, all signifying the sea, on the same principle of derivation as the Latin æquor, flat, level, expanse, the sea.

Welsh, llav, to expand; lled, breadth. Armor., blad, flat, broad. Lat., latus, broad, wide, spacious.

Greek, πλατυς, wide, broad, flat; πλατη, broad surface, blade of an oar; πλακοσ, broad, flat. Pers., lâtû, blade of an oar, oar. Lith., platus, flat.

Sanskr., prath, be extended, to spread. Goth., laufs or laubs, a leaf. Icel., laug, bath; lauga, to bathe, lögr, the sea, water, moisture.

Bearing in mind l and n are convertible in the West Aryan as in the Polynesian dialects, we might refer to the following as original relatives of the Polynesian lau:

Sanskr., nau, boat, ship; snâ, and its connections, 'to bathe'. Greek, ναω, to flow, float; ναω, νεω, to swim, to spin; νευσις, s. swimming; ναυς, ship, &c. Lat., no-are, to swim, float. A.-Sax., naca, id. O. Norse, snäcka, a shell, sobriquet of boats and vessels. Perhaps the Gothic snaga, a garment.

Liddell and Scott and also Benfey refer the Greek νεω and Latin neo, 'to spin', to the Sanskrit nah, 'to bind, tie'. With due deference, I would suggest that the underlying sense of 'to bind' and 'tie' is 'to shorten, contract, to knit' - necto, nodus - and that the original conception of 'to spin' was one of extension, lengthening, as represented in the Polynesian lau. (Fornander)