TRANSLATIONS

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One thing leads to another and so on without limit. While searching for the myth about Maui fishing up land I happened to notice another short little story (from Kapingamarangi) worthy of attention:

"Lobster said to Flounder: 'Let us-two hide from each other, see who is best at that.' Flounder agreed to play this game.

Lobster went to a hole in the coral, hid his body; but his feelers struck out, he could not hide them. Flounder knew where he was, found him.

Said Flounder; 'Now it is my turn.' He stirred up a cloud of mud and scooted into it. Then he returned to Lobster's side, so quietly that Lobster did not know he was there.

'Here I am sir, Lobster!'

Lobster was so angry at being beaten that he stamped on the fish and smashed him flat. Cried Flounder; 'Now I've got one eye in the mud!' Therefore Lobster gouged it out for him and roughly stuck it back on top.

This is the reason why men tread on the Flounder, but can always see the Lobster's feelers outside his hole." (Legends of the South Seas)

My attention was drawn to the fact that there is a Lobster involved, which made me associate to how on Easter Island they forgot the old customs and beliefs. Furthermore:

... The dream soul came to Rangi Meamea and looked around searchingly. The dream soul spoke: 'Here at last is level land where the king can live.' She named the place 'Rangi Meamea A Hau Maka O Hiva' [22 Rangi Meamea]. The mountain she named 'Peke Tau O Hiti A Hau Maka O Hiva' [23 (Maunga) Peke Tau O Hiti].

The dream soul moved along a curve from Peke Tau O Hiti to the mountain Hau Epa, which she named 'Maunga Hau Epa A Hau Maka O Hiva' [24 Maunga Hau Epa].

... It is difficult to interpret pair 23 and 24, which represents two mountains. The terracing of Maunga Hau Epa (this is the correct form, not 'Auhepa') and obscure traditions (RM:295; Brown 1924:59, Maunga Hau Eepe) suggest that the place must have had special importance ...

... The segment peke of place name 23 suggests (by way of MAO.) some type of insect (for example, pepeke 'insect, beetle'; pekeriki' 'lice, vermin'; peketua 'centipede') ...

Peke

1. To bite (of fish or lobster pecking at fishhook). 2. To repeat an action: he-peke te rua; ina ekó peke-hakaou te rua don't you do it a second time; ina ekó peke hakaou-mai te rua ara, don't come back here again. Vanaga.

To succeed, to follow. Churchill.

It would not surprise me if Mauga Peke Tau O Hiti in some way refers to the Lobster and I think about Ab8-52:

Ab8-43 Ab8-44 Ab8-45 Ab8-46 Ab8-47
o te pito motu ihe tau e i te tahiri - ka hauhaua ki tona marama iheihe tuu ma te toga
Ab8-48 Ab8-49 Ab8-50 Ab8-51 Ab8-52
te hau tea ko te henua - ki te ragi kua noho ia i tona henua i te ura

Metoro identified Ab8-52 as a lobster (te ura).

At Ab8-47 he said not only toga (south) but intensified his normal ihe (for GD45) into iheihe (thereby telling us that the left part of the glyph - according to him - is GD45).

Toga

1. Winter season. Two seasons used to be distinguished in ancient times: hora, summer, and toga, winter. 2. To lean against somehing; to hold something fast; support, post supporting the roof. 3. To throw something with a sudden movement. 4. To feed oneself, to eat enough; e-toga koe ana oho ki te aga, eat well first when you go to work. Vanaga.

1. Winter. 2. Column, prop; togatoga, prop, stay. Churchill.

Wooden platform for a dead chief: ka tuu i te toga (Bb8-42), when the wooden platform has been erected. Barthel 2.

The intensification (ihe-ihe) confirms my view about Ab8-47 as the 'Great South' (Tonga-nui). We can compare with how Metoro at midnight (Aa1-42--43) said tau-uru-uru instead of his otherwise used tau-uru.

At Ab8-43 we have the 'cut-off-navel-string' station (in other words: the place of  'crossing over', hakapekaga mai, as Metoro said at Ca5-20).

At Ab8-45 we remember the 'gushing forth' (tahiri) of a 'feathery snake' with 10 marks:

... At right (in the glyph sequence above) we find GD73 (toga) suggesting death and separation of soul from body. In the middle we have a variant of niu combined with GD19 (hau) where there possibly is a gushing forth (tahiri), maybe of blood ('e-ure tahiri-á te toto'):

Ure

1. Generation; ure matá, warlike, bellicose generation (matá, obsidian, used in making weapons). 2. Offspring; brother; colleague i toou ure ka tata-mai, your colleague has turned up. 3. Friendship, friendly relationship; ku-ké-á te ure, they have become enemies (lit.: friendship has changed). 4. Penis (this definition is found in Englert's 1938 dictionary, but not in La Tierra de Hotu Matu'a). Ure tahiri, to gush, to spurt, to flow; e-ure tahiri-á te toto, blood is flowing in gushes. Ure tiatia moana, whirlwind which descend quickly and violently onto the ocean; whirlpool, eddy. Vanaga.

Penis; kiri ure, prepuce, foreskin. Ureure, spiral. Churchill.

H. Ule 1. Penis. For imaginative compounds see 'a'awa 1, 'aweule, ulehala, ulehole, ulepa'a, ulepuaa, ule'ulu. Kū ka ule, he'e ka laho, the penis is upright, the scrotum runs away (refers to breadfruit: when the blossom (pōule) appears erect, there will soon be fruit). 2. Tenon for a mortise; pointed end of a post which enters the crotch of a rafter (also called ma'i kāne). Ho'o ule, to form a tenon or post for the crotch of a rafter. 3. To hang. Wehewehe.

... The flamy (ûra) red (úraúra) crayfish (ura) - as he appears after having been cooked properly - probably was used as a symbol for how sun returned after the 'flood' ...

... The old woman returned and saw that the earth oven had been opened and the crayfish eaten; only the shell remained. She said angrily, 'Where is my share of the crayfish?' They said, 'There is no more. We forgot you and that is why nothing has been left.' The magician shouted, 'Men who are standing, fall down. This is because nothing has been left of the large crayfish with the long tail, and to teach you never to take my belongings again.' All the statues fell down, for the heart of the magician was full of anger ...

In Ab8-52 we can see 4 + 4 = 8 'legs' in harmony with the number of the text line. The ordinal number of the glyph is 52 which equals 364 / 7. Looking again at the kuhane stations we maybe should reorganize the table a little into:

1

Nga Kope Ririva Tutuu Vai A Te Taanga

9

Hua Reva

17

Pua Katiki

2

Te Pu Mahore

10

Akahanga

18

Maunga Teatea

3

Te Poko Uri

11

Hatinga Te Kohe

19

Mahatua

4

Te Manavai

12

Roto Iri Are

20

Taharoa

5

Te Kioe Uri

13

Tama

21

Hanga Hoonu

6

Te Piringa Aniva

14

One Tea

22

Rangi Meamea

7

Te Pei

15

Hanga Takaure

23

Peke Tau O Hiti

8

Te Pou

16

Poike

24

Mauga Hau Epa

24 * 15 = 360

25

Oromanga

26

Hanga Moria One

residences of the current king at Anakena

26 * 14 = 364

Paepae:

27

Papa O Pea

28

Ahu Akapu

residences for the future and the abdicated kings

28 * 15 = 420

The Lobster may be located at the last ordinary station (no. 23), before the cycle is completed in no. 24. I guess no. 24 means a new beginning.

Epa

To extend horizontally, to jut out. Vanaga.

In Ab8-45 the 'gushing forth' (of a kind of liquid of course) must result in a horizontal surface, that is the nature of water and other liquids.

Barthel denies that Auhepa is the correct name, but I disagree. What is said, done or written is always right in the mythic world. If we combine epa (horizontal extension - a quite reasonable name for the plateau of solstice) with au = mist (etc) it becomes meaningful. Au-(h)epa is the place where sun has stopped in his travel southwards and where now the mist of a new birth is spreading out:

Au, a'u

Au 1. Me, I. Personal pronoun used in conjunction with verbs; when on its own, the form used is koau. 2. Smoke; au kiokio, thick, pungent smoke (of a fire). 3. Current; he-haro te vaka i te au , the boat is towed off course in the current. 4. Dew. 5. bile, gall. 6. Au moa, chicken's gall; greenish colour (like that of gall). 7. Au ra'e, the people first served in a feast where food or gifts are distributed. 8. Au hopu bonito fish. Vanaga.

A'u 1. Birthing pains; matu'a a'u, biological mother (not adoptive); vi'e hakaa'u, midwife. 2. Vessel, cup (Tahitian word). Vanaga.

1. I (vau). P Mgv., Mq., Ta.: au, I. Ta.: vau, id. In its simplest Polynesian form this pronoun is compound, u being the element in which inheres the ego sense. We note here the occurrence of forms in which au is modified. The Maori has ahau, a composite of a and hau. The vau type is found in Rapanui, Paumotu and Tahiti, ovau in Tahiti and Paumotu, kovau in Rapanui, wau in Hawaii, owau in Hawaii, awau in the South Island Maori, avou in Aniwa. 2. The gall. P Mgv.: au, hau, eahu, gall. Mq., Ta.: au, id. The aspirated Mangarevan eahu may preserve a Proto-Samoan original, for we find ahu in Tonga and Niuē, two languages generally retentive of an original aspiration which has vanished from Samoan. 3. Vapor, smoke T. P Mgv.: ahu, au, cloud mist. Ta.: au, smoke vapor. Of the Proto-Samoan stem asu all the Tongafiti languages have lost the consonant, except for its interesting preservation as an alternative in Mangarevan, and all have lost the distinctive smoke sense. The attribution of smoke as a meaning in Rapanui we owe to an authority of the second rank, but taken with the form preservation in Mangarevan this sense retention is probable, and taken in coagmentation they bear upon the central theme of a Proto-Samoan migration onward to Southeast Polynesia. Auahi (au 3 - ahi 1), smoke; miro auahi, steamboat. Mgv.: auahi, smoke. Mq.: auahi, smoke, vapor. Ta.: auahi, fire. Churchill.

... I knew of two men who lived in another settlement on the Noatak river. They did not believe in the spirit of the string figures, but said they originated from two stars, agguk, which are visible only when the sun has returned after the winter night. One of these men was inside a dance-house when a flood of mist poured in ... His two companions rapidly made and unmade the figure 'Two Labrets', an action intended to drive away the spirit of the string figures, uttering the usual formula ... but the mist kept pouring in ...

It was not the above which made me decide to write about the Lobster and the Flounder. Instead my thoughts went like this:

Given that the Lobster represents one phase of the sun's yearly journey (i.e. the end of the 2nd half counted from new year at winter solstice), then his opposite phase must be the Flounder, his antagonist in the little hide-and-seek story.

The Flounder is a fish and a fish which hides in the mud. The mud is one facet of the earth and if there is a fish which personifies earth it may be the Flounder. The Flounder is flat and so is Mother Earth.

If the Flounder represents the end of the 1st half of the year, then the whole first half will mean the beginning up to the point when land is fished up from the deeps.

Before that can happen, the sky must be lifted up and that we indeed can see in Aa1-5--8:

Next I remembered the glyphs around midsummer:

Aa4-55 Aa4-56 Aa4-57 Aa4-58 Aa4-59 Aa4-60 Aa4-61 Aa4-62
ko te tagata kua rere ki te manu ki te ihe - kua rere te manu ki te ragi ko te manu kua agau - ki te ihe e pare tuu ki te ragi e hanau ki to ihe - te manu kua rere

One 'eye' in Aa4-58 becomes two in Aa4-60. Possibly this development alludes to the Flounder having his eye-in-the-mud excavated and transplanted onto the upside.

Metoro said ragi and the Flounder should then be not the physical land but the land in the sky, i.e. that part of the sky which is centered around the south celestial pole. At midsummer sun is closer to that part of the sky than during the rest of the year.

Toga-nui means the Great South, but in the rongorongo texts we find GD73 (toga according to Metoro) at the darkest time of the year. Fishing up land should not occur during the darkest time of the year, therefore GD73 - which is designed to show the time when somebody has died and his soul rises to the sky - presumably should not mean south. I think of the glyph toga meaning 'north' in spite of the word toga being south. Toga = to-ga and to means how sun rises towards zenith:

To

1. Particle sometimes used with the article in ancient legends; i uto to te hau, the ribbon was in the float. 2. To rise (of the sun) during the morning hours up to the zenith: he-to te raá. Vanaga.

1. Of. T Pau., Ta.: to, of. Mgv.: to, genitive sign. Mq.: to, of, for. 2. This, which. Churchill.

Beyond zenith we probably have ta (as in Taha, Tavake etc) instead of to:

OR. Write, writing. The name of writing before the term rongorongo in 1871 became current. Fischer.

1. To tattoo ( = tatú), to tattoo pictures on the skin, also: he-tá ite kona, tá-kona. 2. To weave (a net): he-tá i te kupega. 3. To shake something, moving it violently up and down and from one side to the other; he-tá e te tokerau i te maga miro, the wind shakes the branches of the trees; also in the iterative form: e-tá-tá-ana e te tokerau i te tôa, the wind continuously shakes the leaves of the sugarcane. 4. To pull something up suddenly, for instance, an eel just caught, dropping it at once on a stone and killing it: he-tá i te koreha. Tá-tá-vena-vena, ancient witching formula. Vanaga.

1. Of. 2. This, which. 3. Primarily to strike: to sacrifice, to tattoo, to insert, to imprint, to write, to draw, to copy, to design, to color, to paint, to plaster, to note, to inscribe, to record, to describe, number, letter, figure, relation; ta hakatitika, treaty; ta igoa, sign; ta ki, secretary; ta kona, to tattoo; ta vanaga, secretary. Churchill.

... the root ta through its long series of known combinations carries a strongly featured sense of action that is peripheral, centrifugal, and there seems to be at least a suspicion of the further connotation that the action is exerted downward ... The secondary sense of cutting will easily be seen to be a striking with a specialized implement, and we find this sense stated without recognition of the primal striking sense only in Mangareva, Nukuoro, Viti, and Malekula. In Indonesia this secondary sense is predominant, although Malagasy ta may come somewhat close to the striking idea ... Churchill 2.

Maybe the Easter Island double forms of words as in for instance mauga / mouga is a result of the shifting of poles?

Maúga (mouga)

Maúga. 1. Last; aga maúga o te Ariki o Hotu Matu'a, King Hotu Matua's last work. 2. Hill, mountain. Vanaga.

Mouga, moúga. Last; vânaga moúga o te Ariki O Hotu Matu'a, the last words of King Hotu Matu'a. Vanaga.

Mouga. 1. Enough, that's all, at last. 2. Mountain, ridge of hills; mouga iti, hillock; tua mouga, mountain top; hiriga mouga; hillside, declivity, slope. 3. Extinction, end, interruption, solution; te mouga o te hiriga, end of a voyage; pagaha mouga kore, without consolation. 4. To get. Churchill.

The mountain at the end of the year seems to have been regarded as located in the north among for example the Chinese. The cold winds blew from the north and the emperor always faced south.

So even if the sun at midsummer on Easter Island is as close as possible = as far south as possible, the cold wind blew from the south. South could then be referred to as Toga = the last phase of the year.

The word toga presumably existed before the Polynesians went as far south as New Zealand and Easter Island. The meaning of rising sun towards zenith, connected with south, points to a place north of the equator.

Toga

1. Winter season. Two seasons used to be distinguished in ancient times: hora, summer, and toga, winter. 2. To lean against somehing; to hold something fast; support, post supporting the roof. 3. To throw something with a sudden movement. 4. To feed oneself, to eat enough; e-toga koe ana oho ki te aga, eat well first when you go to work. Vanaga.

1. Winter. 2. Column, prop; togatoga, prop, stay. Churchill.

Wooden platform for a dead chief: ka tuu i te toga (Bb8-42), when the wooden platform has been erected. Barthel 2.

To eat well (e-toga koe) also tells us about the 1st half of the cycle of the sun. We can then understand (in a new way) the meaning of Aa1-22 and similar glyphs:

Probably toga has developed from to and possibly toka refers to the original meaning:

Toka

1. Any large, smooth rock in the sea not covered by seaweeds (eels are often found between such rocks). 2. To be left (of a small residue of something, of sediments of a liquid, of dregs); to settle (of sediments); ku-toka-ana te vai i raro i te puna, there is little water left at the bottom of the lake; ku-toka-á te oone, the sediments have settled. Tokaga, residue, remainder; firm, stable remainder or part of somthing. Vanaga.

A rock under water. P Mgv.: toka, coral. Mq.: toka, a bank where the fishing is good. Ta.: toa, rock, coral. Tokatagi, sorrow T. Churchill.

The sediments have settled (ku-toka-á te oone) reminds us about the Flounder. But she (lying flat down cannot be a he) 'stirred up a cloud of mud', which means that she is not at the toka station.

Shifting the first wovel in toka from o to a we get taka:

Taka

Taka, takataka. Circle; to form circles, to gather, to get together (of people). Vanaga.

1. A dredge. P Mgv.: akataka, to fish all day or all night with the line, to throw the fishing line here and there. This can only apply to some sort of net used in fishing. We find in Samoa ta'ā a small fishing line, Tonga taka the short line attached to fish hooks, Futuna taka-taka a fishing party of women in the reef pools (net), Maori takā the thread by which the fishhook is fastened to the line, Hawaii kaa in the same sense, Marquesas takako a badly spun thread, Mangareva takara a thread for fastening the bait on the hook. 2. Ruddy. 3. Wheel, arch; takataka, ball, spherical, round, circle, oval, to roll in a circle, wheel, circular piece of wood, around; miro takataka, bush; haga takataka, to disjoin; hakatakataka, to round, to concentrate. P Pau.: fakatakataka, to whirl around. Mq.: taka, to gird. Ta.: taa, circular piece which connects the frame of a house. Churchill.

Takai, a curl, to tie; takaikai, to lace up; takaitakai, to coil. P Pau.: takai, a ball, to tie. Mgv.: takai, a circle, ring, hoop, to go around a thing. Mq.: takai, to voyage around. Ta.: taai, to make into a ball, to attach. Churchill.

The meaning of taka is connected with the line to a fishhook, also to ruddy, also to gird, whirl around etc. We should presumbly understand taka to refer to the end of the 2nd half of the cycle of the sun.

In Churchill's note about the similarity between Easter Island and the Marquesas we may have a clue to the Hiva from where Hotu Matua travelled:

Magó

Spotted dogfish, small shark. Vanaga.

Mogo, shark. Tu. id. Mgv. mago, id. Mq. mano, mako, mono, moko id. T. maó, id. In addition to this list the word is found as mago in Samoa, Maori, Niuē, and in Viti as mego. It is only in Rapanui and the Marquesas that we encounter the variant mogo. Churchill.

The double forms (mogo / mago) must have a reason, I think, and the reason, I guess, is the cosmic structure where o refers to the 1st half of the cycle and a to the 2nd half.

Leaving these speculations and returning to the glyphs we should begin with rereading some of my previous comments:

I imagine that Haua and Makemake possibly are described with Aa4-58 and Aa4-60:

  

My interpretation is based first of all on the similarity between the words Haua and hau (GD19). Secondly, I have classified these unusual glyphs as belonging to GD19, due to the top part which is rounded and have 'feather' signs on them.

Thirdly, although Metoro did not say hau here, he expressed his opinion of the meaning by saying: ki te ragi resp. e pare tuu ki te ragi. I think he was talking about the 'commanders' (ragi), i.e. the gods in the sky.

4thly, my earlier ideas about these two glyphs (obviously belonging together, yet mirror images), do not contradict the new ideas:

... Aa4-58 and Aa4-60 are very strange glyphs without - as far as I have been able to ascertain - parallels anywhere among the rongorongo texts. But we can observe the 'knee' at left in Aa4-58 and at right in Aa4-60 - probably indicating the shift from waxing to waning phase. One (black?) 'eye' in the 'head' of Aa4-58 is changed into two (one black and one white?) in the (double?) head of Aa4-60, as if the 'fire' of the old half-year has gone and a new 'fire' been alighted from the old. Aa4-58 has 'spooky arms' presumably indicating 'ghost' status ...

To be more specific: the left ('spooky' or 'female' figure) is Haua, while the right is Makemake. I identify them with the 2 halves of the cycle. In Hawaii, at new year, we have Haumea briefly mentioned:

... The 'living god', moreover, passes the night prior to the dismemberment of Lono in a temporary house called 'the net house of Kahoali'i', set up before the temple structure where the image sleeps. In the myth pertinent to these rites, the trickster hero - whose father has the same name (Kuuka'ohi'alaki) as the Kuu-image of the temple - uses a certain 'net of Maoloha' to encircle a house, entrapping the goddess Haumea; whereas, Haumea (or Papa) is also a version of La'ila'i, the archetypal fertile woman, and the net used to entangle her had belonged to one Makali'i, 'Pleiades' ... 

5thly, I identify Haua with the Hawaiian Haumea, the 'archetypal fertile woman’. The appendix -mea means red (the colour of growth and abundant life)... we have here a goddess Haumea, which sounds like a combination of hau tea and tapa mea. The night side of Haumea could be hau (tea) and the day side could be (tapa) mea. Together these two glyph types would then represent Mother Earth. Haumea is Mother Earth (Papa), but she is also La'ila'i, i.e. Ragiragi, 'sky-sky' (?). Earth and sky are close. Here both are women.

6thly, we have the kuhane of Haumaka. The combination of hau and maka probably is meant to allude to Haua and Makemake.

... No mention has ever been made of Haua except in connection with Makemake. The formula which accompanies an offering to Makemake always includes Haua who appears in the myth as the god's companion ...

Make and maka are different, but:  ...The first allusion to Makemake is found in the early account of Gonzalez expedition:

... I observed that on the day on which we erected the crosses, when our chaplain went accompanying the litanies, numbers of natives stepped forward onto the path and offered their cloaks, while the women presented hens and pullets, and all cried Maca Maca, treating them with much veneration until hey had passed beyond the rocks by which the track they were following was encumbered ...

At Aa4-55 we can see what looks like a birth (presumably of the 2nd half of the year), though Metoro waited until Aa4-61 with his 'e hanau':

Hanau

1. Race, ethnic group. Hanau eepe, the thick-set race; hanau momoko, the slender race (these terms were mistranslated as 'long-ears' and 'short-ears'). 2. To be born. Hanau tama, pregnant woman; vî'e hanau poki, midwive (also: vî'e hakaa'u). Vanaga.

To be born; vie hanau, midwife. Churchill.

Maybe the birth process is not completed before the 60th glyph.