TRANSLATIONS

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The first page of the quest for Hanga Hônu:

The name Ure Honu (in Manuscript E) was chosen to give a clue to the meaning of the myth - that is how it works with myth makers. The main word means 'lineage' and honu is the same word and concept as that which occurs in Hanga Hoonu, the second resting place of the explorers under Ira ('turn around and look').

The sacred geography of the island has Hanga Takaure on the south coast of the Poike ('place aloft') peninsula and Hanga Hoonu on the north coast. They mark the beginning of the high ground respectively the end of it, moving counterclockwise with the sun.

From this we can guess that if Hanga Takaure marks the beginning of summer, then Hanga Hoonu ought to mark its end. We have located Hanga Takaure in the text of G and it should then be possible to find also Hanga Hoonu:

7
Ga4-1 Ga4-2 Ga4-3 Ga4-4
← winter summer →

With Poike equal to summer, the rest of the island ought to be reflected in the text of G with more glyphs than summer.

The season of rising sun presumably is defined by the 1st and 10th of the 'staffs for pushing sky up', Ga4-3 and Ga6-13, together measuring out a span of 68 days (one glyph for each day). The following 26 days (up to the last one of the 31 kiore - henua glyphs) apparently must have another meaning:
66 25
Ga4-3 Ga6-13 Ga7-10
68 ↑ 26

When Ure Honu lifted up the house (hare paega) of Tuu Ko Ihu searching for the stolen skull of king Hotu Matua, it probably illustrates how in spring the 'sky roof' is raised up and light comes in from the outside. A hare paega is formed like an overturned boat, similar to the hemisphere of the sky.

Ure Honu certainly did not raise the canoe-formed house higher than necessary, and certainly not by 90º, because that would have made the house roll over. 68º could have been his choice. The number of days for a regular sun year was anciently often chosen as 360 and the measure of degrees chosen so as to agree, i.e. with 360º for a complete circle. Though I think the ancient Chinese used 365¼º for a full circle.

The ancient Chinese were civilized early and they may have thought of extracalendrical days - outside the rule of the sovereign - as an insult.

When Ure Honu lowered the house again, it must be another movement by (for instance) 68º,  parallel with how sun would be sinking down in the second half of summer. 68 + 68 = 136 = 180 - 44. If this guess is correct, we can expect high summer to have a duration of 44 days.

Given that the last glyph of summer is number 180, there should be 44 - 26 = 18 glyphs more 'high summer glyphs' beyond Ga7-10. But, we have recently guessed the part of the text involving summer to be not 180 but 206 glyphs:

66 25 55 55
Ga4-3 Ga6-13 Ga7-10 Gb1-6 Gb3-1
68 ↑ 26 112
206

206 - 180 = 26, a fact which - we can guess - indicates that the glyphs Ga6-14 -- Ga7-10 are describing something else than the dimension of the summer hemisphere.
It then becomes easy to imagine how sun declines beginning at Ga8-21 and ending at Gb3-1:
66 25 44 10 55
Ga4-3 Ga6-13 Ga7-10 Ga8-21 Gb1-6 Gb3-1
68 ↑ 26
68 ↓

68 + 44 + 68 = 180 (and 26 should not be counted). If this 'map' is correct (meaning a true description of the sacred landscape taken down from the sky to the island), then Hanga Hoonu could be at Gb3-1.

Beyond Gb3-1 comes the other half of the year, which we could name Takaure. And we could name the summer half Honu. Even if these names were not used on Easter Island they will make it easier to refer to than the more cumbersome 'winter half of the year' respectively 'summer half of the year'.

I have gradually come to believe honu (hônu, hoonu) basically is the same word as henua. The Hawaiian honua is the equivalent of Easter Island henua. Or there is a wordplay between the expression for turtle - with its back rising up over the surface of the sea - and the island surrounded on all sides by water and having the same shape.

On the other hand, I tend to think of henua as he nua, the old woman (nuahine).

In Mayan thought the turtle is expressing 'beginning'. It all begins when the island is rising up over the surface of the sea by great forces. In the sky new stars are born below the belt of Orion.

We could even call the high summer season (44 days in the model) Poike. But Hanga Takaure and Hanga Hoonu cannot reasonably stretch for 68 days each. Instead, Hanga Takaure should have 2 glyphs and Hanga Hoonu 1 glyph (1 for the end of first half of the year and 2 for the end of the second half):
Gb3-1 Ga4-1 Ga4-2
1 2

Here we can clearly see that also Gb3-1 is a takaure glyph. Shouldn't it be a honu glyph? The question is poignant and needs an answer. The lack of an answer mars the model.

Instead of throwing the model away - the method of stringent western hard science - it should be studied further. The model is valuable because it is not just a guess, it is a structured guess. Consequences can be inferred, and if they are absurd then the model must be discarded. If they are not, the model will gain in credibility.

The lack of an answer is no reason to throw away a model. Not even the best of theories can predict or explain everything.
The model predicts there should be 68 glyphs before the start of summer and another group of 68 glyphs beyond the end of summer. Sun will rise also during 68 days ending at Hanga Takaure (because from winter solstice to spring equinox sun will steadily advance higher in the sky). Likewise sun will continue to decline even after autumn equinox:
66 25 44 66
Ga4-3 Ga6-13 Ga7-10 Ga8-21 Gb3-1
68 ↑ 26
68 ↓
65 129 65
Gb3-2 Gb3-3 Gb5-6 Ga1-17 Ga4-1 Ga4-2
68 ↓ 68 ↑

The model has payed off: Gb5-6 is glyph number 360 counted from Gb8-30. It is hardly a coincidence to find it also at the end of sun's decline. We do not have to explain why there are 129 glyphs between Gb5-6 and Ga1-17 (and neither what the corresponding 26 glyphs between Ga6-13 and Ga7-11 may mean).

Maybe 129 = 26 + 44 + 59. The difference in number of glyphs between Takaure and Honu is 265 - 206 = 59 (= 2 * 29.5).
Gb3-3 is a most peculiar type of glyph, which does not fit in my system for catalogizing glyphs, but it has a comrade in Gb3-6:
Gb3-2 Gb3-3 Gb3-4 Gb3-5 Gb3-6
Gb3-7 Gb3-8 Gb3-9 Gb3-10 Gb3-11

Its number counted from the beginning of summer (Ga4-3) is 208 = 13 * 16, which may be significant.

It is more probable that Gb3-3 represents Honu than Gb3-1 (which is a takaure glyph). Both Hanga Takaure and Hanga Hoonu are bays and should therefore be regarded as part of the sea. They will naturally belong to the winter season, the season when sun is 'absent' is a season of 'water' (cfr Vaitu).

We have so far only scratched on the surface of the problem of where Haga Hoonu might be, but this will be enough for the moment.

Even if haga belong to the sea, they presumably should be counted as honu, because it would be numerically sound and it would strengthen the model. 68 would be changed into 70 (a better number than the inexplicable 68). 70 is obviously 7 * 10, a mixture of moon (7 for the days of the week) and sun (the fingers, 'fire', are no more than 10):

68 68 68
Ga4-1 Ga4-2 Ga6-14 Ga8-20 Ga8-21 Gb3-3
70 ↑
70 → 70 ↓

Manu rere in Ga6-14 and Ga8-20 are signs of 'high'.

65 3
Gb5-6 Gb5-10 Gb5-11 Gb5-12
360 364 365 366
70 ↓ 2
119 64
Ga1-13 Ga1-14 Ga1-15 Ga1-16 Ga1-17 Ga1-18
70 ↑

210 (honu) + 2 * 70 = 350. With 3 * 70 in honu, there ought to be at least 3 also in takaure, thereby reaching 6 for the sun. But time is measured by the moon and therefore an even better number would be 7 for the moon. 471 - 210 = 261 (= 9 * 29) is though not enough to add more than one further 70-day period.

'Night' should be cut in two parts, and maybe we should interpret 119 as 60 + 59 (or as 59 + 60). No, that is not possible, because one of the components should be 70.

Gb5-11--12 evidently together express '2', meaning the 2nd part of the cycle is beginning. Gb5-10 is glyph number 364 from Gb8-30. The old expression 'year and a day' also says the year is finished with its 364th day.

The 'cut' in two of the 'night' comes after Gb5-10. The 'land of the fishes' certainly covers Ga1-13--Ga3-24, but it does not necessarily begins already with Gb5-11. The 'cut' (corresponding to the Mayan 'crack in the turtle shell' - north of the equator) could for example be 2 + 49 = 51 nights.

If so, then the missing 70-night period should end with Ga1-12:

56 9
Gb7-5 Gb8-30 Ga1-1 Ga1-11 Ga1-12
70 →
47
Gb5-11 Gb5-12 Gb5-13 Gb7-4
1 2 1 49

A fish (of sorts) in Gb5-13 and another in Gb7-5 indicates the deepest (extracalendrical) part of the cycle. From Gb5-7 a new cycle emerges, and Gb7-6 is the great henua glyph in G:

Gb7-5 Gb7-6 Gb7-7 Gb7-8 Gb7-9 Gb7-10 Gb7-11
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

A final remark: The figure I have suggested as marking honu, standing close to the border between honu and takaure, could be the same figure as that in Ga1-16:

Gb3-2 Gb3-3 Gb3-4 Gb3-5 Gb3-6
Ga1-13 Ga1-14 Ga1-15 Ga1-16 Ga1-17 Ga1-18

Ga1-16 looks like a full moon with a honu person inside, while Gb3-5 could be illustrating its opposite, a takaure person on board the sun canoe.