1. The 'dry old calabash' (reversed hipu in Eb7-2) is capable of giving life to 'the tree'. He is capable of giving light to the 'bulbs' at the tips of its branches:
We should now notice the central sign in Eb7-8. It has a shape similar to hipu in Eb7-2. It is leaning slightly towards left instead of towards right, and this means 'it looks back', a sign of reversal, and Eb7-8 is evidently the last glyph in a 7-glyph long sequence which is beginning with hipu in Eb7-2. The central sign in Eb7-8 is like a type of glyph which I have labelled toa:
Europeans have tried to 'get some order' by introducing different diacritical marks in the spelling of Polynesian words. Happily Bishop Jaussen did not use such stupid things. He wrote toa and it has since been discussed whether Metoro meant tôa (sugarcane - which Bishop Jaussen explained it meant) or to'a (warrior - which Professor Barthel has suggested). Polynesians love wordplays and toa can be both warrior and sugarcane (and have an additional range of meanings, for instance coral rock). The use of the glyph type toa in rongorongo apparently is to indicate the opposite of the pliant fresh new plants, to describe the dry stiff and hard end product. A warrior must stand firm like a rock. Coral rock is the end product of the living coral reef, the foundation of it. |
