The first glyph in line Cb9 is of the type which
I have (influenced by Metoro) named tapa mea (red cloth),
but it has a very distinct Sign at left:
November 3 |
4 |
5 (309) |
6 |
7 |
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|
|
|
|
Cb9-1 (593) |
Cb9-2 |
Cb9-3 |
Cb9-4 |
Gb9-5 |
Vai o ero hia |
kua tere |
ki te marama |
kua oho |
ki te Rei - ku
mata kuku |
Zuben Elakribi
(226.8), ω Bootis (227.2), Nekkar (227.3) |
Nadlat (227.8), π
Lupi (227.9), Zuben Hakrabim (228.3) |
λ Lupi (228.9) |
κ Lupi (229.7), ζ
Lupi (229.8), χ Bootis (230.3) |
Princeps (230.6),
Zuben Elschemali
(230.8), μ
Lupi, γ Tr. Austr. (231.3) |
May 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 (130) |
3h (45.7) |
Botein (46.9) |
ζ Arietis (47.7), Zibal (48.0) |
no star listed |
τ
Arietis (49.7), Algenib Persei (50.0),
ο Tauri (50.2) |
Algol (45.9),
Misam (46.2) |
November 8 |
9 |
10 (314) |
11 |
12 |
13 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cb9-6 |
Cb9-7 |
Cb9-8 (600) |
Cb9-9 |
Cb9-10 |
Cb9-11 |
te kava |
ka kake te manu |
te kava |
hakagana ki
te maro |
te kava |
hakatino hia |
ο Cor. Borealis
(232.0), δ Lupi (232.1), φ¹, ν² Lupi (232.2), ν¹ Lupi (232.3), ε
Lupi (232.4), φ² Lupi (232.5) |
Pherkad (232.6), η
Cor. Borealis (232.8), υ Lupi (232.9), Alkalurops (233.1) |
Nusakan (234.0),
κ¹ Apodis (234.3), |
ν Bootis
(234.7), θ Cor. Borealis
(235.3) |
γ Lupi (235.6),
Gemma, Zuben Elakrab, Qin, ε Tr. Austr. (235.7), μ Cor.
Borealis (235.8), φ Bootis (236.2), ω Lupi (236.3) |
ψ¹ Lupi (236.7),
ζ Cor. Borealis (236.9), ι Serpentis (237.4 |
May 11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 (500) |
16 (136) |
ξ
Tauri (50.8) |
no stars listed |
Atiks, Rana (55.1),
Celaeno, Electra, Taygeta (55.3) |
Maia, Asterope,
Merope (55.6),
Alcyone (56.1), Pleione,
Atlas (56.3) |
Or should we not translate tapa mea with
'red carpet', the welcoming of a new king?
"I pass over the preliminary installation of the
chief as Tui Nayau at Nayau Island, though its
significance will be taken into account. The ensuing investiture
of the Tui Nayau as paramount of Lau consciously
follows the legend of an original odyssey, which brought the
ancestral holder of the title into power at Lakeba,
ruling island of the Lau Group.
The chief thus makes his appearance at Lakeba
from the sea, as a stranger to the land. Disembarking at the
capital village of Tubou, he is led first to the chiefly
house (vale levu) and next day to the central ceremonial
ground (raaraa) of the island. At both stages of this
progression, the pretender is led along a path of barkcloth by
local chieftains of the land. In Lau, this barkcloth is
prescriptively a type considered foreign by origin, Tongan
barkcloth.
Later, at the kava ceremony constituting
the main ritual of investiture, a native chieftain will bind a
piece of white Fijian tapa about the paramount's arm. The
sequence of barkcloths, together with the sequence of movements
to the central ceremonial ground, recapitulate the correlated
legendary passages of Tui Nayau from foreign to domestic,
sea to land, and periphery to center.
The Fijian barkcloth that in the end captures the
chief represents his capture of the land: upon installation, he
is said to hold the 'barkcloth of the land' (masi ni vanua).
The barkcloth thus has deeper significance. In general ritual
usage, barkcloth serves as 'the path of the god'. Hanging from
the rafters at the rear, sacred end of the ancient temple, it is
the avenue by which the god descends to enter the priest.
The priest, for his part, is a representative of
- in certian locales, he is the malosivo, the original
and superseded chief of - the indigenous people, those the
Fijians call 'owners' (i taukei) or 'the land' (na
vanua), in contrast to immigrants such as the chief who
comes by sea ...
There is still more to the barkcloth. The
barkcloth which provides access for the god/chief and signifies
his sovereignity is the preeminent feminine valuable (i yau)
in Fiji. It is the highest product of woman's labor, and as such
a principal good of ceremonial exchange (soolevu). The
chief's accession is mediated by the object that saliently
signifies women." (Marshall Sahlins, Islands of History.)
My first insight into the meaning of the
rongorongo texts came with 'the calendar of the week', where a
pair of tapa mea (red barkcloth) glyphs defined the
position of Mars as day number 3:
Possibly Mars represents the king arriving from the sea. We know
he was regarded as a skilful sailor:
Metoro appears to have described the first 5
days in line Cb9 as a sequence of events:
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Cb9-1 (593) |
Cb9-2 |
Cb9-3 |
Cb9-4 |
Gb9-5 |
Vai o ero hia |
kua tere |
ki te marama |
kua oho |
ki te Rei - ku
mata kuku |
His
kua tere seems to be in opposition to his kua oho -
perhaps sailing away contra arriving.
Tere
1. To run, to flee, to escape from a
prison. 2. To sail a boat (also: hakatere);
tere vaka, owner of a fishing boat. 3. (Deap-sea)
fisherman; tere kahi, tuna fisherman; tere
ho'ou, novice fisherman, one who goes deap-sea
fishing for the first time. Penei te huru tûai;
he-oho te tere ho'ou ki ruga ki te hakanonoga; ana ta'e
rava'a, he-avai e te tahi tagata tere vaka i te îka ki a
îa mo hakakoa, mo iri-hakaou ki te hakanonoga i te tahi
raá. The ancient custom was like this: the novice
fisherman would go to a hakanonoga; if he didn't
catch anything, another fisherman would give him fishes
to make him happy so he'd go again one day to the
hakanonoga (more distant fishing zones where larger
fishes are found). Vanaga.
To depart, to run, to take leave, to
desert, to escape, to go away, to flee, fugitive, to
sail, to row, to take refuge, to withdraw, to retreat,
to save oneself; terea, rest, defeat; tetere,
to beat a retreat, to go away, refugee; teretere,
to go away, hurrah; hakatere, to set free, to
despatch, to expel, to let go, to liberate, to conquer,
helmsman; terega, departure, sailing; teretai,
a sailor. Churchill. |
Oho
1. To go: ka-oho! go! go away!
(i.e. 'goodbye' said by the person staying behind);
ka-oho-mai (very often contracted to: koho-mai),
welcome! (lit.: come here); ku-oho-á te tagata,
the man has gone. Ohoga, travel, direction of
a journey; ohoga-mai, return. 2. Also rauoho,
hair. Vanaga.
1. To delegate; rava oho, to
root. 2. To go, to keep on going, to walk, to depart, to
retire; ka oho, begone, good-bye; oho amua,
to preced; oho mai, to come, to bring; oho
arurua, to sail as consorts; hakaoho, to
send, a messenger. 3. Tehe oho te ikapotu, to
abut, adjoin; mei nei tehe i oho mai ai inei te
ikapotu, as far as, to; kai oho, to abstain,
to forego; hakaoho, to put on the brakes. 4. The
head (only in the composite rauoho, hair).
Churchill. |
His ero
(whatever it may precisely mean) seems to be connected with the
beginning of 'daytime':
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|
|
|
Aa1-16 |
Aa1-17 |
Aa1-18 |
Aa1-19 |
ka ero |
ka
tapamea |
ma te
tagata e hetu noho i te here |
i uhi
tapamea |
Possibly there is a wordplay involving hero:
Hero
Herohero. 1.
Crimson, bright
red; he varu i te ki'ea ka herohero ró te hakari, to paint one's
body red with ki'ea; ku hú á te huka-huka, ku
herohero á i roto i te ahi, burning wood shows red
in the fire. 2. The colour of ripe fruit, the
yellow of ripe bananas. 3. Figuratively: angry:
ku herohero á te manava = ku ká te manava.
Vanaga.
Herohero.
Scarlet, suffocating T. Ura herohero,
brilliance of flames. Churchill.
(58) ata popohanga
toou e to ata hero e, 'Yours is the morning shadow'
refers to an area in Ata Hero where the house of
Ricardo Hito is now located. Barthel 2. |
Ku
mata kuku ought to refer to the triplet of mata to the right of
Rei.
Kuku
To swathe, to swaddle: he-kuku i te
tôa, to swathe the sugarcanes (with their large
leaves, so they grow better and taller). Vanaga.
1. To tie up sugar canes. 2. To coo, a
pigeon. P Mgv.: kuku, name of a land bird. Mq.:
kuku, kukupa, uururu, a large
pigeon. Ta.: uupa, uurairao, pigeon.
Churchill. |
May 8, the central nakshatra date and 48 days after
March 21, is at glyph number 595 (= 295 + 300) and the pair of
heliacal stars were both of the 'zayin' type:
ζ Arietis and ζ Eridani (Zibal).
Manacle |
ziqq |
Phoenician zayin |
|
Greek
zeta |
Ζ(ζ) |
...
Zeta (uppercase
Ζ,
lowercase ζ;
Greek:
ζήτα
... is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In
the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7.
It was derived from the Phoenician letter Zayin.
Letters that arose from zeta include the Roman Z and
Cyrillic З
...
Zayin
(also spelled Zain or Zayn or simply
Zay) is the seventh letter of many Semitic
abjads ... It represents the sound
[z]. The Phoenician letter appears to be
named after a sword or other weapon. (In Biblical
Hebrew, 'Zayin' means sword, and the verb 'Lezayen'
means to arm. In modern Hebrew, 'zayin' means
penis and 'lezayen' is a vulgar term which
generally means to perform sexual intercourse and is
used in a similar fashion to the English word fuck,
although the older meaning survives in 'maavak
mezuyan' (armed struggle) and 'beton
mezuyan' (armed, i.e., reinforced concrete). The
Proto-Sinaitic glyph according to Brian Colless may
have been called ziqq, based on a hieroglyph
depicting a 'manacle'. |
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