7. Signs work by standing out from the normal flow of perceptions - what is unusual catches the attention and becomes an object for reflection. For instance is the 'person' in Oa4-114 - the Berlin Tablet is in poor shape and it is not possible to reconstruct from it what the ordinal number in the line once could have been - formed without arms and legs:
He is more like a snake than a person. But we should see 2 arms, the left with fist open (eating) and the right with fist closed (like a fruit). And then the central part of this 'worm' reminds us of a form of vaha kai:
73 * 5 = 365 and the sign of 'undulation' could refer to the end of the year. If so, then the double vaha kai (or kai viri) in the Berlin text could be located at another such end. There is a similar 'worm' in the G text, but this one has the undulation (possibly alluding to water) sign at the top instead of at the bottom. It makes sense, because this 'worm' is eating, i.e. he (Spring Sun in this instance) is down in the 'water' (well into the back side of the tablet):
Maybe the worm is Rigi: A very detailed myth comes from the island of Nauru. In the beginning there was nothing but the sea, and above soared the Old-Spider. One day the Old-Spider found a giant clam, took it up, and tried to find if this object had any opening, but could find none. She tapped on it, and as it sounded hollow, she decided it was empty. 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. Gb2-15 is a day of Mercury, and Ringiringi likewise:
Maybe the 'worm' is the horizon in the west, where the 'mouth' lies in waiting: ... 'My child', said Makea now in a tone of deep sorrow, 'there has been a bad omen for us. When I performed the tohi ceremony over you I missed out a part of the prayers. I remembered it too late. I am afraid this means that you are going to die.' 'What's she like, Hine nui te Po?' asked Maui. 'Look over there', said Makea, pointing to the ice-cold mountains beneath the flaming clouds of sunset. 'What you see there is Hine nui, flashing where the sky meets the earth. Her body is like a woman's, but the pupils of her eyes are greenstone and her hair is kelp. Her mouth is that of a barracuda, and in the place where men enter her she has sharp teeth of obsidian and greenstone.' |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
