5. The word takaure is probably to be primarily (there could be wordplays too) understood as taka-ure, where ure refers to the generative power personified by Spring Sun. Ure in my Polynesian word list: 1. Generation; ure matá, warlike, bellicose generation (matá, obsidian, used in making weapons). 2. Offspring; brother; colleague i toou ure ka tata-mai, your colleague has turned up. 3. Friendship, friendly relationship; ku-ké-á te ure, they have become enemies (lit.: friendship has changed). 4. Penis (this definition is found in Englert's 1938 dictionary, but not in La Tierra de Hotu Matu'a). Ure tahiri, to gush, to spurt, to flow; e-ure tahiri-á te toto, blood is flowing in gushes. Ure tiatia moana, whirlwind which descend quickly and violently onto the ocean; whirlpool, eddy. Penis; kiri ure, prepuce, foreskin. P Pau., Mgv., Ta.: ure, penis. Ureure, spiral. Ta.: aureure, id. Urei, to show the teeth. Mgv.: urei, to uncover the eye by rolling back the lids. Pau.: Ureuretiamoana, waterspout. Ta.: ureuretumoana, id. H. Ule 1. Penis. For imaginative compounds see 'a'awa 1, 'aweule, ulehala, ulehole, ulepa'a, ulepuaa, ule'ulu. Kū ka ule, he'e ka laho, the penis is upright, the scrotum runs away (refers to breadfruit: when the blossom (pōule) appears erect, there will soon be fruit). 2. Tenon for a mortise; pointed end of a post which enters the crotch of a rafter (also called ma'i kāne). Ho'o ule, to form a tenon or post for the crotch of a rafter. 3. To hang. The spectrum of all these various meanings is coherent (though hardly so at first glimpse). To take one example, Hawaiian ho'o ule = 'to form a tenon or post for the crotch of a rafter' makes me remember the words of Ogotemmęli - regarding the meaning of the priest's forked staff - and then my chain of associations leads on to the Chesire-Cat up in the tree who vanished gradually until at the end he was seen only by his grin. Wikipidia again: ... John Wolcot's pseudonymous Peter Pindar's Pair of Lyric Epistles in 1792: 'Lo, like a Cheshire cat our court will grin.' Earlier than that, A classical dictionary of the vulgar tongue by Francis Grose (The Second Edition, Corrected and Enlarged, London 1788) contains the following entry: 'CHESHIRE CAT. He grins like a Cheshire cat; said of any one who shows his teeth and gums in laughing.' Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says grinning like a Cheshire cat is 'an old simile, popularised by Lewis Carroll'. According to Brewer's dictionary, 'The phrase has never been satisfactorily accounted for, but it has been said that cheese was formerly sold in Cheshire moulded like a cat that looked as though it was grinning'.The cheese was cut from the tail end, so that the last part eaten was the head of the smiling cat ... It makes sense. Urei is 'to show the teeth', and the 'caterpillar of spring' (Ure) is characterized by eating, eating, eating - because Sun is obviously steadily growing in stature. His end will come, though, such is the meaning of taka-ure. At some point beyond summer solstice (the dormant pupa stage) it is time for the great final of his life's journey, as for instance in Marquesan takai = 'to voyage around'. We can count with 10 months for his journey:
If takaure is the 4th and last stage of Sun, then it probably means this stage will begin 91 (= 7 * 13 days) beyond his halfway station. Which in turn indicates a total cycle of 400 days, because half 400 = 200 and if we add a quarter of 364 (= 91), then it will be 291, equal to the ordinal number (counted from Ga1-1) of takaure in Gb3-1. 400 = 364 + 36. The total cycle seems to end with some kind of 'interregnum' - the season when around winter solstice things are grinding to a full stop for an indeterminate length of time. |
