17-5. Beyond November 28 (i.e. 332 - 148 = 184 days after heliacal Aldebaran and culminating Spica) the E text seems to drastically change its character. I think it means from star observing back again to farming the land. ... During his descent the ancestor still possessed the quality of a water spirit, and his body, though preserving its human appearance, owing to its being that of a regenerated man, was equipped with four flexible limbs like serpents after the pattern of the arms of the Great Nummo. The ground was rapidly approaching. The ancestor was still standing, his arms in front of him and the hammer and anvil hanging across his limbs. The shock of his final impact on the earth when he came to the end of the rainbow, scattered in a cloud of dust the animals, vegetables and men disposed on the steps. When calm was restored, the smith was still on the roof, standing erect facing towards the north, his tools still in the same position. But in the shock of landing the hammer and the anvil had broken his arms and legs at the level of elbows and knees, which he did not have before. He thus acquired the joints proper to the new human form, which was to spread over the earth and to devote itself to toil ... And protecting the head from the hot rays of the Sun standing high:
Perhaps the Cretan Epimenides should be considered as corresponding to the Polynesian Lono (Rogo). ... They all sat down and rested [on the plain of Oromanga], when suddenly they saw that a turtle had reached the shore and had crawled up on the beach. He [Ira] looked at it and said, 'Hey, you! The turtle has come on land!' He said, 'Let's go! Let's go back to the shore.' They all went to pick up the turtle. Ira was the first one to try to lift the turtle - but she didn't move. Then Raparenga said, 'You do not have the necessary ability. Get out of my way so that I can have a try!' Raparenga stepped up and tried to lift the turtle - but Raparenga could not move her. Now you spoke, Kuukuu: 'You don't have the necessary ability, but I shall move this turtle. Get out of my way!' Kuukuu stepped up, picked up the turtle, using all his strength. After he had lifted the turtle a little bit, he pushed her up farther. No sooner had he pushed her up and lifted her completely off the ground when she struck Kuukuu with one fin. She struck downward and broke Kuukuu's spine.The turtle got up, went back into the (sea) water, and swam away. All the kinsmen spoke to you (i.e. Kuukuu): 'Even you did not prevail against the turtle!' They put the injured Kuukuu on a stretcher and carried him inland. They prepared a soft bed for him in the cave and let him rest there. They stayed there, rested, and lamented the severely injured Kuukuu. Kuukuu said, 'Promise me, my friends, that you will not abandon me!' They all replied, 'We could never abandon you!' They stayed there twenty-seven days in Oromanga. Everytime Kuukuu asked, 'Where are you, friends?' they immediately replied in one voice, 'Here we are!' They all sat down and thought. They had an idea and Ira spoke, 'Hey, you! Bring the round stones (from the shore) and pile them into six heaps of stones!' One of the youths said to Ira, 'Why do we want heaps of stone?' Ira replied, 'So that we can all ask the stones to do something.' They took (the material) for the stone heaps (pipi horeko) and piled up six heaps of stone at the outer edge of the cave. Then they all said to the stone heaps, 'Whenever he calls, whenever he calls for us, let your voices rush (to him) instead of the six (of us) (i.e., the six stone heaps are supposed to be substitutes for the youths). They all drew back to profit (from the deception) (? ki honui) and listened. A short while later, Kuukuu called. As soon as he had asked, 'Where are you?' the voices of the stone heaps replied, 'Here we are!' All (the youths) said, 'Hey, you! That was well done!' ...
To look for stars could be compared to fishing, something which should be done in the dark winter season when agricultual work was without merit.
... The principal word for 'fish' in most Dravidian languages is min, which has an ancient homophone meaning 'star', both probably derivatives of the root min 'to glitter' ... Fish are actually unable to close their eyes, and the fact that 'when the fish sleeps it does not close its eyes' was noticed by ancient Indians. The dot-in-a-circle similar to that occuring among the trefoils of the Harappan priest-king's robe is identical with the eye of the many small hare- and fish-shaped amulets discovered on the lower levels of Harappa ... (Asko Parpola, The Sky Garment.) ... In later research it was postulated that the [Phoenician] alphabet is actually two complete lists, the first dealing with land agriculture and activity, and the second dealing with water, sea and fishing. The first half beginning with Alef - an ox, and ending with Lamed - a whip. The second list begins with Mem - water, and continues with Nun - fish, Samek - fish bones, Ayin - a water spring, Peh - the mouth of a well, Tsadi - to fish, Kof, Resh and Shin are the hook hole, hook head and hook teeth, known to exist from prehistoric times, and the Tav is the mark used to count the fish caught ... ... tau is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 300 ... Taw is believed to be derived from the Egyptian hieroglyph meaning 'mark' ... Taw, Tav or Taf is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads ... In gematria Tav represents the number 400, the largest single number that can be represented without using the Sophit forms ... Notably the Sun was at the right ascension line of the south pole (toga) star Dramasa (*320) in day 80 + 320 = 400.
From looking up into the night sky (te ragi) to looking down in front of your feet, down to earth (te henua), so to say: ... When they were there, and had executed their father's commission, the young men felt a wish to enquire to which of them the kingdom of Rome was to come; and we are told that these words were uttered from the bottom of the cave - 'Young men, whichever of you shall first kiss your mother, he shall possess the sovereign power at Rome' ... Brutus judged that the expression of Apollo had another meaning, and as if he had accidentally stumbled and fallen, he touched the earth with his lips, considering that she was the common mother of all mankind ...
We inherited our astronomy from the Arabs and they were writing (and reading) from right to left, which fact could explain why we are visualizing the night sky with right ascension time running from right to the left.
However, for us who are reading our texts from left to right this makes it difficult to put in parallel what you can see for yourself with your own eyes and the maps at hand. For instance, it took me a while before I realized that at the horizon in the west Aldebaran had already gone down before Mars and Venus would do so. For I could only see the pair of planets and not the stars. And the map presented for me by Cartes du Ciel was obviously wrong because I could see with my own eyes that Mars would go down before Venus:
Therefore I had to go back to the program and flip the view. This is what the map should look like in order to be easily recognizable compared to reality:
Also the rongorongo text are designed to be read from left to right and therefore they might have felt a need to put the stars they saw in parallel with glyphs - for the star maps they inherited from the outside world had to be flipped. Unless, of course they had access to such pictures as those created by Hevelius and wife:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
.jpg)
.jpg)
