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It feels as if we are close to some kind of insight here. Therefore we should continue: In Nilsson's book I have found many strange pieces of information, e.g.: "Among the Nahyssan of S. Carolina time was measured and a rude chronology arranged by means of strings of leather with knots of various colour, like the Peruvian quipos. The Dakota use a circle as the symbol of time, a smaller one for a year and a larger one for a longer period: the circles are arranged in rows, thus: OOO or O-O-O. The Pima of Arizona make use of a tally. The year-mark is a deep notch across the stick ..." About 'the Ibo-speaking tribes' in Africa: "...they seem to be singularly incurious about heavenly bodies and occurrences; however names were got for the following constellations: - The Pleiades ('Hen and Chicken'), the belt of Orion ('Three and Three')..." But Tautoru is the belt of Orion. And 'Three and Three' sounds more like the Pleiades, Tauono. I guess that primarily was the belt of Orion named Tautoru and after that the Pleiades could be named Tauono. Even the three great pyramids in Gizeh were connected with the belt of Orion, as shown by their locations in relation to each other on the ground. The concept of two 'years' - summer and winter - could then possibly result in the belt of Orion being seen as a mark between these two 'years'. Moving on to the idea of three double months in each such 'year', they could identify the Belt of Orion with a 'year'. And as a last step in this logic the Pleiades - about two thousand years later when the equinoxes had moved away from Orion - could take over the role of mark between the two half-years. And we then would have Tauono. With 3 instead of 2 'years' the mata would have to be smaller - riki - motivating the name 'small eyes' Mata-riki for the Pleiades. Mata. 1. Tribe, people; te mata tûai-era-á, the ancient tribes. 2. Eye; mata ite, eyewitness. 3. Mesh: mata kupega. 4. Raw, uncooked, unripe, green, matamata, half-cooked, half-ripe. Kahi matamata, a tuna fish. Vanaga. 1. The eye; mata neranera, mata kevakeva, mata mamae, to be drowsy; mata keva, mataraparapa, matapo, blind; mata hakahira, squint eyed; mata pagaha, eye strain. 2. Face, expression, aspect, figure, mien, presence, visage, view; mata mine, mata hakataha, mata pupura, mata hakahiro, to consider. 3. Raw, green, unripe. 4. Drop of water. 5. Mesh; hakamata, to make a net. 6. Cutting, flint. 7. Point, spear, spike (a fish bone). 8. Chancre. Matamata, sound of water. Churchill. There is a wide range of significations in this stem. It will serve to express an opening as small as the mesh of a net or as large as a door of a house; it will serve to designate globular objects as large as the eye or as small as the bud on a twig or the drop of rain, and designating a pointed object it answers with equal facility for the sharpened tip of a lance or the acres of a headland; it describes as well the edge of a paddle or the source from which a thing originates. Churchill 2. Matá. Black obsidian spear points, all belonging to the Late Period which began ca 1680. Heyerdahl 3. ... In the Polynesian tongue Matariki, the name for the Pleiades, is contracted from Mata-ariki, high-born or regal stars ... We should notice that mata can mean 'face'. Therefore, our Frech expression en face could on Easter Island possibly be expressed by for instance such a type of glyph as 'the bird man':
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