The 10th month was Vero (Veo) on the Marquesas and on Hawaii it (Welo) was 'about April' ... Mq.: veo, tenth month of the lunar year. Ha.: welo, a month (about April) ... It is reasonable to think the 10th month was the last month of the old calendar and that the vero name was applied to this month because it was time to 'kill the old Sun King'. In line Ca14 there are vero glyphs and as I have interpreted the text this should be 'about April'. Instead of 'spears' at the winter solstice such were evidently thrown at the old winter year (a more natural target I think). The glyphs are quite informative, with 5 special ones at the beginning, centered at 0h:
Kua tupu te ata i te henua - the dawn (te ata) of Earth (i te henua) is coming forth (kua tupu), perhaps visualized by glyphs with only their upper parts yet visible. Earlier I found some difficulty in understanding te ata, because it means also 'shadows' (the opposite of the morning light), but now the idea seems clear enough - when light emerges it is of course accompanied by shadows. Later in the day they shrink away. The preposition i could therefore here indicate the cause of these shadows (te ata), viz. the Earth (i te henua).
The Earth (te henua) could refer to what emerges when the high tide is receding, viz. in the tropical belt of the homeland of the Polynesians a dazzlingly white coral sand. Then it becomes axiomatic that 'land' implies the opposite of darkness - the Sun King is present (together with his shadows). .. in the ceremonial course of the coming year, the king is symbolically transposed toward the Lono pole of Hawaiian divinity ... It need only be noticed that the renewal of kingship at the climax of the Makahiki coincides with the rebirth of nature. For in the ideal ritual calendar, the kali'i battle follows the autumnal appearance of the Pleiades, by thirty-three days - thus precisely, in the late eighteenth century, 21 December, the winter solstice. The king returns to power with the sun ... However, the rebirth of nature (te henua) down on earth occurs in spring and not at the winter solstice. This paradox is solved by looking at the stars around 0h (March 21). They depict the poor Andromeda chained to the rock and unable to get away: The vero signs in line Ca14 could be motivated from the heliacal view in April. |
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