next page previous page table of contents home

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
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:

Hb9-30 Hb9-31 Hb9-32

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:

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':

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'.