φ Gemini (118.4)

8h (121.7)

he ea.a Ira.he iri he oho ki runga anake. i te angahuru o te raa o te maro i iri ai - Ira got up. They all climbed to the top of the hill. They climbed up on the tenth day of the month of June ('Maro’). (E:18)

54 Vai Rapa

a haka remereme

a koro rupa e haho e hivi e e runga e te puku ohu kahi e

a hare utu manu a ana onoono a pu ngotangota

toou e to ata hero ē

toou e honu ē

... The leap day was introduced as part of the Julian reform. The day following the Terminalia (February 23) was doubled, forming the 'bis sextum - literally 'double sixth', since February 24 was 'the sixth day before the Kalends of March' using Roman inclusive counting (March 1 was the 'first day'). Although exceptions exist, the first day of the bis sextum (February 24) was usually regarded as the intercalated or 'bissextile' day since the third century. February 29 came to be regarded as the leap day when the Roman system of numbering days was replaced by sequential numbering in the late Middle Ages ...

... The 'watering place' where the bird beats (the rhythm)' - wordplay, 'where a certain chant is being recited' - is located near Hanga Piko. A recitation provides the following information for the additional name: 'In Koro Rupa is the house where one is made to laugh; in Kere Mea is the house where one is made fun of' (Barthel 1960:851; Campbell 1971:400). There the rule of the new birdman was celebrated (compare koro 'feast'). In RAP., koro rupa seems to have the same meaning as in TUA. kororupo, which describes a paradise. In the cosmology of the TUA., the name also referred to the entrance to the underworld. Hivi (maybe the same as hi ivi 'to fish with a hook made from bone'; compare the narrative ME:363) is 'outside', and 'the elevation from where (the catch of) the tunafish is announced' is 'above'. This is a reference to a large boulder beside the place where the canoes docked in Hanga Piko. There the people waited for the canoes to return from the fishing grounds.

'Curved Bay', the well-known little harbour on the western shore, is linked with a 'house where the bird beats (the rhythm), that is, where a certain chant is being recited. This establishes  a cross-connection to the watering place by the same name and also to the 'Koro Rupa' motif and the theme of the birdman cult. It also suggests the newly discovered petroglyphs from Hanga Piko (so far, only partially published by Barthel 1962:Illustration 2). Ana Onoono is a cave well-suited as an overnight shelter; Pu Ngotangota is a coastal formation where seawater is allowed to flow in and out. The three additions, 'house', 'cave', and 'hole', always describe an enclosed area.

'Yours is the morning shadow' refers to an area in Ata Hero where the house of Ricardo Hero is now located. 'Yours is the evening shadow' belongs to a 'turtle'. I could not obtain any information about the location, but I suspect that the 'turtle' refers to a motif in the narration of Tuki Hakahevari (the turtle is carved in stone in a cave along the bay of Apina) ... (The Eighth Land, pp. 89-90.)

Kere. To moor, to make fast. Kerekere, black, dark, blue, obscure, gloom; niho kerekere, blackened teeth. Hakakerekere, to blacken. P Pau.: kerekere, black, dark, somber. Mgv.: kerekere, blue, dark blue almost black, the color of the deep ocean, black, somber, darkness. Mq.: kerekere, keékeé, black, somber, livid; ere, blue, azure. Ta.: ereere, black. Churchill.

ELE¹, v. Haw., be dark, black; adj. dark-coloured, black, blue, dark-red, brown; ele-ele, id. Tah., ere-ere, dark, black, blue. Rarot., kerekere, id. Marqu., kekee, id.; kee-voo, darkness, gloom. The application of this word to colour is doubtless derivative from the Polynes. Haw. kele, mud, mire (quod vide), Tong. kèle-kere, earth, soil, dirt, Sam. 'ele and 'ele-ele, red earth, dirt, rust; elea, Tong., kelea, rusty, dirty; probably all akin to ala, ara, in ala-ea, earth, clay ... Jav., iran, black. N. Celebes (Kema), hirun, id. In the following Greek words the first constituent proclaims their affinity to the Polynesian ere, ele: - ερεβος, darkness of the grave, the dark passage from earth to Hades; ερεβεννος, dark, gloomy; ερεμνος, sync. fr. previous word, black, swarthy; ερεφω, to cover; ορφνη, darkness of night; ορφνος, dark, dusty; οροφη, roof of a house. Sanskr., aruņa, tawny, dark, red; s. the dawn, the sun; aruņita, made red. Benfey refers the Sanskrit word to arus, a wound. Lidell and Scott refer the Greek words to ερεφω, to cover. They are plausible; but are they the true roots of stems, in view of the Polynesian ele, ere? Dr. J. Pickering, in his Greek Lexicon, derives ερεβος 'from ερα (the earth) or ερεφω (to cover)'. The former seems to me the better reference. 

ELE², prefix. Haw., an intensitive added to many words, imparting a meaning of 'very much, greatly'; ele-u, alert, quick; ele-ma-kule, old, aged, helpless; ele-mio, tapering to a point; ele-ku, easily broken, very brittle; ele-hei, too short. Tah., ere-huru, encumbered, too much of a thing. A. Pictet ... says, apropos of the derivation of the word Erin: 'L'irlandais er comme adjectif magnus, nobilis, paraît être identique à l'er intensitif de l'irlandais et du cymrique, considéré comme une particule inséparable, et qui serait ainsi proprement un adjectif. Il est à remarquer en confirmationm, que le zend airya = sanskr. arya avec l'acception de bon, juste, est également devny ér dans les composés du Pârsi, comme ér-maneshu, bon esprit, er-tan, bon corps (Spiegel, Avesta, i. 6). De là à un sens intensitif, transition était facile.' Why not widen the philological horizon by admittning the Polynesian ere, ele, to consideration as well as the Irish, Welsh, or Parsi? And why may not the O. Norse ar, early, first; aerir, messengers; the Sax. er, before, in time, go up to the same root as those others? (Fornander)