By repeating a charm, she opened the two shells and slipped inside. She could see nothing, because the sun and the moon did not then exist; and then, she could not stand up because there was not enough room in the shellfish. Constantly hunting about she at last found a snail. To endow it with power she placed it under her arm, lay down and slept for three days. Then she let it free, and still hunting about she found another snail bigger than the first one, and treated it in the same way. Then she said to the first snail: 'Can you open this room a little, so that we can sit down?' The snail said it could, and opened the shell a little.

Old-Spider then took the snail, placed it in the west of the shell, and made it into the moon. Then there was a little light, which allowed Old-Spider to see a big worm. At her request he opened the shell a little wider, and from the body of the worm flowed a salted sweat which collected in the lower half-shell and became the sea. Then he raised the upper half-shell very high, and it became the sky. Rigi, the worm, exhausted by this great effort, then died. Old-Spider then made the sun from the second snail, and placed it beside the lower half-shell, which became the earth.


Ca1-8	Ca1-9	Ca1-10	Ca1-11	Ca1-12	Ca1-13	Ca1-14	Ca1-15

The 'shell' in Ca1-10 is not identical with that in Ca1-15 because it has a minute opening (crack) in front.


Ca1-16	Ca1-17	Ca1-18

There are 5 'feathers' in front of the hua released from the thumb in Ca1-16, the sign at bottom is more like a nipple. There are 4 oblique lines across henua in Ca1-17, while the sign at the top is horizontal.


Ca1-19	Ca1-20	Ca1-21	Ca1-22	Ca1-23	Ca1-24	Ca1-25

Ca1-26

Henua ora in Ca1-25 has at top front a nearly vertical straight line. Beyond comes the 'head nut' in Ca1-26, probably the beginning of a great tagata.

... he cut off Tuna's head to take it to his ancestor. But Huahega ['dawn fruit'] his mother took it from him and she said: 'You must bury this head of Tuna beside the post in the corner of our house.' Maui did so, and that head grew up, it sprouted, it became a coconut tree. On the nut which is its fruit we see the face of Tuna, eyes and mouth. All coconuts have this ...

The 'eyes' (mata) must according to the rules of rongorongo be drawn outside the head, as if they were substitutes for absent external ears. 12 * 6 = 72 = 360 / 5.

... 'The Nummo made it. He made a picture of it with his fingers, as children do today in games with string.' Holding his hands apart, he passed a thread ten times round each of the four fingers, but not the thumb. He thus had forty loops on each hand, making eighty threads in all, which, he pointed out, was also the number of teeth of his jaws. The palms of his hands represented the skins of the drum, and thus to play on the drum was, symbolically, to play on the hands of the Nummo. But what do they represent?

Cupping his two hands behind his ears, Ogotemmêli explained that the spirit had no external ears but only auditory holes. 'His hands serve for ears,' he said; 'to enable him to hear he always holds them on each side of his head. To tap the drum is to tap the Nummo's palms, to tap, that is, his ears.'

Holding before him the web of threads which represented a weft, the Spirit with his tongue interlaced them with a kind of endless chain made of a thin strip of copper. He coiled this in a spiral of eighty turns, and throughout the process he spoke as he had done when teaching the art of weaving. But what he said was new. It was the third Word, which he was revealing to men ...

Possibly the front part of Ca1-25 refers to the 'coconut tree' of Tuna (= the personification of nighttime), with the vertical type of line inside mata at left in Ca1-19--20 transposed to the outside:

... Then the people told Maui that Tuna was coming to have it out with him. 'Just let him come!' said Maui. But they continually told him of Tuna's threats; therefore he asked them, 'What sort of ure is this Tuna?' 'Aue! He is huge! He's as big as a whale's!' 'Like a standing palm-tree?'

They lying answered, 'Like a leaning one!' 'He is weak and bending?' 'Always drooping.' 'Then just let him see the crooked end of mine and he'll go flying for his life!' said Maui. Maui waited with his family, he dwelt there quietly in that place. One day the sky grew dark and thunder rolled, the lightning flashed. All the people, knowing this was Tuna, were afraid, their skin was trembling, and they cried out blaming Maui: 'This is the first time that one man has stolen the woman of another man! We will all die!' But Maui said to them, 'Just keep together. We will not be killed.'