next page previous page table of contents home

Legs are for walking down on earth whereas arms and head normally are up in the air. Rey's alternative way to draw Virgo therefore has missed its central meaning, because her left arm should go down into the earth:

The right foot of Virgo (109) came earlier than the feet of Bootes - Hevelius has here changed his usual view from outside the celestial globe to its interior:

The right foot of Bootes stood on Mons Menalis - which, I suggest, could alternatively be named the anthill or the primeval mound Ahu-one).

The 4th (unlucky) foot was below 0° and therefore out of sight in Hevelius' picture above. It was Rijl al Awwa (μ Virginis).

Egyptian water ripples Phoenician mēm Greek mu Μ (μ)

In the empty little gap between the last star of Eridanus (λ, Cursa) and the first star in Orion (Rigel, β) there was a 'temporary death (kava) in water', expressed by μ Leporis and μ Aurigae:

In the serpentine path of the Sun the quickest and most lively places were at the equinoxes and the slowest (oldest) at the solstices:

Observations made it clear that the quickest development was that of the newborn, whereas old people hardly changed at all - for them time ran like treacle. Newborn children never reached higher than a foot, whereas old people were comparatively tall, fully grown, and resisting further change. The topknot of Taranga should have been at her very top and close to her death (†).

The feet of Virgo and Bootes should have been placed where births (*) occurred and growth began, and beyond Spica this situation would have corresponded to the birth place of the Sun south of the equator, from where he would have climbed higher and higher. Similarly was the left foot of Orion in the waters of Eridanus.

Although precession had slowly pushed the northern spring ahead in the year since prehistoric times. The first recorded time may have been at Gemini, whose 3 + 1 feet could have influenced the 3 + 1 feet in Hevelius' illustration of Virgo and Bootes:

Probably the Mamari tablet had Ahu-one early on side a.

Ahu

1. Funerary monument with niches holding the skeletons of the dead. 2. Generic term for a grave, a tomb merely enclosed with stones. 3. Stone platform, with or without graves. 4. Elevated seat, throne. 5. Swollen; to swell up: ku-ahu-á tooku va'e, my foot is swollen; ananake te raá e-tagi-era te ûka riva mo toona matu'a ka-ahu ahu-ró te mata, every day the daughter cried for her parents until her eyes were quite swollen. Vanaga.

1. To transfer, to transplant, to take up by the roots. 2. To puff up, to swell, a swelling, protuberance; gutu ahu, swollen lips; ahuahu, to swell, plump, elephantiasis, dropsy; ahuahu pupuhi, amplitude; manava ahuahu, indigestion. 3. Paralysis. 4. A carved god of dancing, brought forth only on rare occasions and held of great potency. Ahuahu, inflammation. Ahukarukaru (ahu 2 - karukaru), dropsy. Churchill.

One

One, sand. Oneone (reduplication of oone which see below), dirty, covered in soil, in mud. Vanaga.

Oone, ground, soil; mud; dirty, to get dirty. Vanaga.

One, sword. (Cf. oe, dorsal fin; àè, sword.) Ta.: óé, sword, lance. Churchill.

Oone, sand, clay, dirt, soil, mire, mud, muck, gravel, filth, manure, dust, to dirty; ao oone, shovel; egu oone vehuvehu, mud; moo te oone, shovel; oone hekaheka, mud; puo ei oone, to daub; kerihaga oone, husbandman; oone veriveri, mud; oone no, muck, to dirty, to powder; vai oone, roiled water; oone rari, marsh, swamp; oonea, dirty T; ooneoone, sandy; oonevai, clay T; hakaoone, to pollute, to soil. P Mgv.: one, land in general, earth, soil. Mq.: one, sand, beach. Ta.: one, sand, dust, gravel. Churchill.

Miro-oone, model boat made of earth in which the 'boat festivals' used to be celebrated. Vanaga. ... on the first day of the year the natives dress in navy uniforms and performs exercises which imitate the maneuvers of ships' crews ... Métraux.

The C text does not begin at Rigel but, I have suggested, at the Southern Cross (†) with the carrion bird Raven - as if it was necessary to first tell about the price to pay for a new life - a burial:

... A une certaine saison, on amassait des vivres, on faissait fête. On emmaillottait un corail, pierre de defunt lézard, on l'enterrait, tanu. Cette cérémonie était un point de départ pour beaucoup d'affaires, notamment de vacances pour le chant des tablettes ou de la prière, tanu i te tau moko o tana pure, enterrer la pierre sépulcrale du lézard de sa prière ...

٭JULY 24 (*125) 56 ٭SEPTEMBER 19 20 (263)
Ca1-20 Ca4-1 Ca4-2 (78)
10 December 6 (*260) 7
71 VIRGINIS NODUS I 78 = 263 - 185
٭SEPTEMBER 21 22 (*185) 23 24 25 (268)
Ca4-3 Ca4-4 Ca4-5 Ca4-6 Ca4-7 (83)
٭SEPTEMBER 26 27 28 29 (*192) 30 (273)
Ca4-8 Ca4-9 Ca4-10 Ca4-11 Ca4-12 (88)
٭OCTOBER 1
Ca4-13
kua tuu tona mea
December 18 (*272)
ζ SERPENTIS, τ OPHIUCHI

... When the man, Ulu, returned to his wife from his visit to the temple at Puueo, he said, 'I have heard the voice of the noble Mo'o, and he has told me that tonight, as soon as darkness draws over the sea and the fires of the volcano goddess, Pele, light the clouds over the crater of Mount Kilauea, the black cloth will cover my head ...

... the breadfruit originated from the sacrifice of the war god Ku. After deciding to live secretly among mortals as a farmer, Ku married and had children. He and his family lived happily until a famine seized their island. When he could no longer bear to watch his children suffer, Ku told his wife that he could deliver them from starvation, but to do so he would have to leave them. Reluctantly, she agreed, and at her word, Ku descended into the ground right where he had stood until only the top of his head was visible. His family waited around the spot he had last been, day and night watering it with their tears until suddenly a small green shoot appeared where Ku had stood. Quickly, the shoot grew into a tall and leafy tree that was laden with heavy breadfruits that Ku's family and neighbours gratefully ate, joyfully saved from starvation ...

... The moai as Sky Propper would have elevated Sky and held it separate from Earth, balancing it only upon his sacred head. This action allowed the light to enter the world and made the land fertile. Increasing the height of the statues, as the Rapa Nui clearly did over time, would symbolically increase the space between Sky and Earth, ensuring increased fertility and the greater production of food. The proliferating image, consciously or unconsciously, must have visually (and reassuringly) filled the dangerously empty horizon between sea and land, just as the trees they were so inexorably felling once had ...

On Easter Island, south of the equator, October 1 (273 + 1) was comparable to April 1 (90 + 1) north of the equator. 274 - 91 = 183. Rakau in Ca4-13 (where we can read 413 = 7 * 59) could well have been commented upon as kua tuu tona mea - given that Metoro saw this date rather than December 18.

Tuu

1. To stand erect. 2. Mast, pillar, post. Van Tilburg.

1. To stand erect, mast, pillar, post; tuu noa, perpendicular; tanu ki te tuu, to set a post; hakatu tuu, to step a mast; tuu hakamate tagata, gallows; hakatuu, to erect, to establish, to inactivate, to form, immobile, to set up, to raise. P Mgv., Mq., Ta.: tu, to stand up. 2. To exist, to be. Mgv.: tu, life, being, existence. 3. To accost, to hail; tuu mai te vaka, to hail the canoe. Mgv.: tu, a cry, a shout. 4. To rejoin; tuua to be reunited. 5. Hakatuu, example, mode, fashion, model, method, measure, to number. PS Sa.: tu, custom, habit. Fu.: tuu, to follow the example of. 6. Hakatuu, to disapprove; hakatuu riri, to conciliate, to appease wrath. 7. Hakatuu, to presage, prognostic, test. 8. Hakatuu, to taste. 9. Hakatuu, to mark, index, emblem, seal, sign, symbol, trace, vestige, aim; hakatuu ta, signature; akatuu, symptom; hakatuua, spot, mark; hakatuhaga, mark; hakatuutuu, demarcation. Churchill.

1. To arrive: tu'u-mai. 2. Upright pole; to stand upright (also: tutu'u). 3. To guess correctly, to work out (the meaning of a word) correctly: ku-tu'u-á koe ki te vânaga, you have guessed correctly [the meaning of] the word. 4. To hit the mark, to connect (a blow). 5. Ku-tu'u pehé, is considered as... ; te poki to'o i te me'e hakarere i roto i te hare, ku-tu'u-á pehé poki ra'ura'u, a child who takes things that have been left in the house is considered as a petty thief. Tu'u aro, northwest and west side of the island. Tu'u haígoígo, back tattoo. Tu'u haviki, easily angered person.Tu'u-toga, eel-fishing using a line weighted with stones and a hook with bait, so that the line reaches vertically straight to the bottom of the sea. Tu'utu'u, to hit the mark time and again. Tu'utu'u îka, fish fin (except the tail fin, called hiku). Vanaga.

... To the Polynesian and to the Melanesian has come no concept of bare existence; he sees no need to say of himself 'I am', always 'I am doing', 'I am suffering'. It is hard for the stranger of alien culture to relinquish his nude idea of existence and to adopt the island idea; it is far more difficult to acquire the feeling of the language and to accomplish elegance in the diction under these unfamiliar conditions. Take for an illustrative example these two sentences from the Viti: Sa tiko na tamata e kila: there are (sit) men who know. Sa tu mai vale na yau: the goods are (stand) in the house. The use of tu for tiko and of tiko for tu would not produce incomprehensibility, but it would entail a loss of finish in diction, it would stamp the speaker as vulgar, as a white man ... Savage life is far too complex; it is only in rich civilization that we can rise to the simplicity of elemental concepts ... Churchill 2.

Although my argumentation assumes mea was referring to something well known and at the beginning of the year. The Moriori fishermen on Chatham Islands had used the Rigel year and in their creation myth there was a mea (memea) which stood up:

... In view of the almost universal prevalence of the Pleiades year throughout the Polynesian area it is surprising to find that in the South Island and certain parts of the North Island of New Zealand and in the neighboring Chatham Islands, the year began with the new Moon after the early morning rising, not of the Pleiades, but of the star Rigel in Orion ...

... Rangitokona, prop up the heaven! // Rangitokona, prop up the morning! // The pillar stands in the empty space.

The thought [memea] stands in the earth-world - // Thought stands also in the sky.

The kahi stands in the earth-world - // Kahi stands also in the sky.

The pillar stands, the pillar - // It ever stands, the pillar of the sky.

Then for the first time was there light between the Sky and the Earth; the world existed ...

"The version was collected around 1869 by the Chatham Islands shepherd Alexander Shand from Hirawanu Tapu, a true Moriori (indigenous Chatham Islander). He, however, had grown up as a slave of invading Taraniki Maoris who had commandeered a whaler and 'conquered' the islands in 1835.

He only spoke Maori. In consequence he could not put the stories down in the Moriori dialect; nor could he nor anyone explain certain words in the first chant. In order to complete it I have ventured to translate 'memea' as 'thought' (its Rarotongan meaning), leaving 'kahi' unattempted."

 
Mea

1. Tonsil, gill (of fish). 2. Red (probably because it is the colour of gills); light red, rose; also meamea. 3. To grow or to exist in abundance in a place or around a place: ku-mea-á te maîka, bananas grow in abundance (in this place); ku-mea-á te ka, there is plenty of fish (in a stretch of the coast or the sea); ku-mea-á te tai, the tide is low and the sea completely calm (good for fishing); mau mea, abundance. Vanaga.

1. Red; ata mea, the dawn. Meamea, red, ruddy, rubricund, scarlet, vermilion, yellow; ariga meamea, florid; kahu meamea purple; moni meamea, gold; hanuanua meamea, rainbow; pua ei meamea, to make yellow. Hakameamea, to redden, to make yellow. PS Ta.: mea, red. Sa.: memea, yellowish brown, sere. To.: memea, drab. Fu.: mea, blond, yellowish, red, chestnut. 2. A thing, an object, elements (mee); e mea, circumstance; mea ke, differently, excepted, save, but; ra mea, to belong; mea rakerake, assault; ko mea, such a one; a mea nei, this; a mea ka, during; a mea, then; no te mea, because, since, seeing that; na te mea, since; a mea era, that; ko mea tera, however, but. Hakamea, to prepare, to make ready. P Pau., Mgv., Mq., Ta.: mea, a thing. 3. In order that, for. Mgv.: mea, because, on account of, seeing that, since. Mq.: mea, for. 4. An individual; tagata mea, tagata mee, an individual. Mgv.: mea, an individual, such a one. Mq., Ta.: mea, such a one. 5. Necessary, urgent; e mea ka, must needs be, necessary; e mea, urgent. 6. Manners, customs. 7. Mgv.: ako-mea, a red fish. 8. Ta.: mea, to do. Mq.: mea, id. Sa.: mea, id. Mao.: mea, id. Churchill.