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TRANSLATIONS
We need a pause to breathe. Once we set out in order to
systematically investigate the internal parallel
sequences of glyphs in Tahua, with the goal to
find the 'global' structure of this magnificent text.
By looking at the internal parallels there ought to be a
stereoscopic view resulting in a deeper understanding.
Now we are stuck at Aa4-58 and -60 with surrounding
glyphs, a part of the text which has no internal
parallel. How did we get there and why are we not moving
away?
It was the little story about the Flounder and the
Lobster which made me realize how Maui fishing up
land could be connected with summer solstice. That was
important and necessitated a deviation from the plan.
If the Lobster (down in the water of course) inhabits
winter solstice and the Flounder inhabits summer
solstice (digging down in the mud - i.e. the earth),
then the story confirms a view of the year divided into
a (sea) watery part and an above water (land) part.
Could we find lobsters and flounders among the glyphs
they might indicate 'winter' respectively 'summer'.
The 23rd station of the kuhane is (Maunga)
Peke Tau O Hiti and peke possibly alludes
to the lobster.
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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. |
Barthel wrote:
... 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') ...
Peketua,
centipede, 100 feet, now makes me think of
tu'a
(the back side) and of another measure of plenty,
peka,
which also is a creature in the sea:
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Peka
Pekapeka, starfish.
Vanaga.
1. 100,000 T. 2. A cross;
pekapeka, curly; pekapekavae,
instep T. (? shoelaces.); hakapeka,
to cross; hakapekapeka, to interlace,
lattice. T Mgv.: peka, a cross,
athwart, across; pepeka, thick, only
said of a number of shoots or sprouts in a
close bunch. Mq.: peka, a cross,
dense thicket. Ta.: pea, a cross.
Churchill. |
I did not notice this
earlier, but recently we have put the cross structure in
focus: the instrument of darkness - meaning movement
(life, action).
Metoro identified Ab8-52 as ura:
At Ab8-43 (half through line b8 + 1) he said o te
pito motu (the cut-off navel string):
Though he may have meant the cut-off land
= the (Easter) island, because in Manuscript E
Easter Island is called Te Pito: ... The (entire)
land she named 'Te Pito O Te Kainga A Hau Maka O Hiva'
... I wrote: Did Metoro mean that the 'land' was
broken in two at this point in time?
By way of
Mamari we could establish a semi-parallel text
(Ca5-20 with surrounding glyphs) indicating that indeed
this glyph type represents a place where a division
takes place:
At Ca5-20
Metoro said hakapekaga mai
(the crossing over place).
I summarized my conclusions like this:
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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:
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The discussion so far clearly was relevant for the
'global structure' of the Tahua text.
Ragi means both the sky and high above (for
example commands which affectionately prescribes
order):
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Ragi
1. Sky, heaven, firmament;
ragi moana, blue sky. 2. Cloud;
ragipuga, cumulus; ragitea,
white, light clouds; ragi poporo,
nimbus; ragi hoe ka'i cirrus
(literally: like sharp knives); ragi
viri, overcast sky; ragi kerekere,
nimbus stratus; ragi kirikiri miro,
clouds of various colours. 3. To call, to
shout, to exclaim. Vanaga.
1. Sky, heaven, firmament,
paradise; no te ragi, celestial. 2.
Appeal, cry, hail, formula, to invite, to
send for, to notify, to felicitate, precept,
to prescribe, to receive, to summon; ragi
no to impose; ragi tarotaro, to
menace, to threaten; tagata ragi,
visitor; ragikai, feast, festival;
ragitea, haughty, dominating. 3.
Commander. 4. To love, to be affectionate,
to spare, sympathy, kind treatment; ragi
kore, pitiless; ragi nui,
faithful. Churchill. |
The change (turnaround) in the skies
above at midsummer necessarily induces consequences
below. Mother Earth is shaking her breasts. At Aa4-61
the new season possibly is being born (hanau).
The new season (stretching between midsummer and midwinter) should
be seen in the behaviour of the Pleiades, which
announces winter solstice by appearing again (after a
period of invisibility) in the early morning sky.
Half a year later (at midsummer) they should disappear
from the morning sky and possibly the period between
midwinter and midsummer was therefore called Matariki
i nika (above) while the period from midsummer to
midwinter was Matariki i raro (below).
But there are difficulties. I summarized like this:
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... Given
that inoino [at the triplet of
rhombs] is to be translated as 'ce qui
est éclarante, rayonnant', the moon
could be the light generator rather than the
sun. However, I guess a more reasonable
explanation is that the triplet of rhombs
symbolizes the shining Pleiades.
The Pleiades
appear around winter solstice and the
triplet of rhombs are located mostly in the
2nd half of side b (of Tahua). The
rhombs are similar to the meshes (mata)
in a net.
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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. 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. 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. |
Just as a
single set of 'ball' triplets probably
refers to half a year, so a single set
of rhomb triplets may refer to half a
year.
The
Mangaian diamond-shaped Pleiades kite
reasonably must refer to the visible
Pleiades, not to the time when the
constellation is below the horizon:
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... The
Mangaians made and flew
three kinds of kite which
had a unique astronomical
significance possibly
associated with ceremonies
to insure an abundant supply
of food from the stars.
One kite
represented the Pleiades: it
was diamond-shaped and had
six bunches of feathers
attached to the tail.
A second type
was made with wings and bore
three bunches of feathers,
symbolizing Orion's Belt.
And last but
not least, the third type
was oval and carried four
tufts of feathers to
represent the ubiquitous
twins, Pipiri, and
their iniquitous parents ... |
If we
associate rhombs with Matariki i
nika, then the 'ball' triplets
ought to be associated with
Matariki i raro, the Pleiades
below (the horizon).
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I now disagree with the above. I instead think the
rhombs describe Matariki i raro. The visual cues
given in the triplet of rhombs on one hand and the
triplet of double-suns on the other should be
interpreted as 'land' respectively 'seen as little suns
in the sky'.
The triplet of double-suns indicates 2 * 3 = 6 (i.e.
Tauono). A rhomb means the surface of the earth. We
cannot se any 'little sun' in the triplet of rhombs
because the Pleiades are below (the surface of the
earth).
The text beginning with Ab5-1 (which has a long internal
parallel starting with Aa4-63) therefore could
describe the season Matariki i raro:
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Ab5-1 |
Ab5-2 |
Ab5-3 |
Ab5-4 |
Ab5-5 |
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Ko te tuhuga - na te pare
tuu |
ma te
ihe - ma te manu moe |
ka
pipiri te hetuu |
ka tau
avaga |
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Ab5-6 |
Ab5-7 |
Ab5-8 |
Ab5-9 |
Ab5-10 |
| ma te
rei ia |
ta
ku maitaki - ta
ku maharoga
- ma te ganagana |
The parallel text on side a has matariki at the
triplet of rhombs:
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Aa4-63 |
Aa4-64 |
Aa4-65 |
Aa4-66 |
Aa4-67 |
| i to
rei - kua hua ia |
kua
hura i te ragi |
ko te
manu kua moe |
ki to
ihe |
e kua
puhi ki te ahi |
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Aa4-68 |
Aa4-69 |
Aa4-70 |
Aa4-71 |
Aa4-72 |
| o te
nuahine - mau i te rei |
ko te
matariki |
e hau tea - e hapai ana
koe |
i te
maitaki - ko matou hanau |
However, that does not necessarily mean that Aa4-63 etc
describe the same time as Ab5-1 etc. We do not know yet
if side b describes 'winter' and side a 'summer' or if
there is some other explanation.
What can be said is that both Aa4-63--64 and Ab5-1--2
probably describe a disruption in time. Hura i
te ragi, the sky 'dances', because 'Hathor is
shaking her sistrum'.
... and Hathor
presumably is the wife of the sun (Rā-t),
'heralding sunrise' (Isis):
'...
These and other facts may be brought together in a
tabular form, to show what apparently the complete
mythology of Isis meant ... ANYTHING LUMINOUS TO
THE EASTWARD HERALDING SUNRISE ...
When Isis (the body
heralding sunrise) is shaking her sistrum it probably
means that the sunrise point has moved.
To finish (for the moment) the thoughts about the
Pleiades, we should remember three more items:
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... The low entrances of houses were guarded
by images of wood or of bark cloth,
representing lizards or rarely crayfish. The
bark cloth images were made over frames of
reed, and were called manu-uru, a
name given also to kites, masks, and masked
people ...
A kite (like a mask) is
not the real thing, it is manu-uru (a
fake). If Mangaians flew a diamond-shaped
kite representing the Pleiades, then the
Pleiades were probably not seen, and flying
a substitute was presumably an act of
sympathetic magic to make them return again
to the skies. |
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... He was also a great kite-flier, and the
story is told of a small boy of another name
(but it could only have been
Maui)
who once came half out of the water and
snatched the kite-string of a child on the
land. He then slipped back into the sea and
continued flying it from under the water
until his mother was fetched, for she was
the only one who could control him and make
him behave at that time ...
If Maui flew a kite
from below (sea) water, then the season must
have been winter, I think. |
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... The Sun spends part of the year with the
Winter Maid in the south, afar out on the
ocean. In the month of June occurs the
changing of the Sun and he slowly returns to
his other wife, to the Summer Maid who
dwells on land and whose other name is
Aroaro-a-manu. This period we call
summer. And so acts the Sun in all the years
... Sun is changing
in June (and therefore also in December). He
slowly returns to his Summer Maid who dwells
on land and who is called
Aroaro-a-manu,
'the face, belly, front side of the (sun)
bird'. It is not stated that summer starts
at winter solstice. Summer maybe starts at
spring equinox.
If the Pleiades appear at
winter solstice and disappear at summer
solstice, those two periods presumably do
not coincide with 'summer' respectively
'winter'. |
GD28 (mauga) glyphs
mostly have a rhomb inside
('swallowed' by the 'mountain'), a fact which
confirms the interpretation of a rhomb as equal to
the face of the earth (cfr the triplet of rhombs in
Matariki i raro).
From the calendars of the week it is
clear that GD28 means 'hiding' (presumably as in the
mountains). Moon, Mercury and Venus sometimes
disappear ('hide') and when there is a lunar eclipse
the reason is earth who gives a shadow cast upon the
Moon. They certainly knew that.
Extrapolation from lunar eclipses and
how the heavenly bodies (except the circumpolar
ones) disappear behind the mountains in the west, as
if entering into caves (ana), the conclusion
presumably was that all kinds of heavenly
disappearances were due to being 'swallowed by the
earth'.
Even if they knew that Mercury and
Venus disappeared because they had moved between the
sun and earth - no longer showing their faces
towards us but instead their dark back sides (tu'a)
- it would have been natural to use the mountain
symbol in that case too.
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