Now to the key question: What can we learn from the circuit of the explorers and the calendar of the year? There are no dates noted for the circuit of the kuhane - of course not because it all happened just in one night's dream - but in real life time travels together with us.

"Extended periods of rest are taken at Hanga Takaure (seven days) and in Hanga Hoonu (five days). Here the contrast between the 'bay of flies' and the 'bay of the turtle' represents the contrast between supernatural animals of the land and of the sea.

Both resting places are followed by an 'upper region' and two mountain summits. The parallel positioning of place names 15 and 20 and 21 and 26 corresponds chronologically to the juxtapositioning of two seasonal quarters of the year.

Whatever purpose the path of the explorers may have had in relation to the time-space scheme of Hau Maka, a definite time schedule can be established for the explorers based on the traditions of Ms. E:

I have divided the table into two parts, where the part above is parallel with the kuhane circuit.

To get a bird's eye view of when the events took place, I have constructed a new table based on the information in Barthel 2. Immediately it becomes obvious that the distance in time from departure from Hiva to departure back to Hiva took exactly ½ year:

The arrival at Ragi Meamea occured at He Anakena 23, possibly the midpoint of the ½ year.

Could it be Ragi Meamea which is depicted here:

Aa4-58	Aa4-59	Aa4-60
ki te ragi	ko te manu kua agau - ki te ihe	e pare tuu ki te ragi

No, the exploreres arrived at Ragi Meamea ½ year later (or earlier) than midsummer. Aa4-58--60 should be at summer solstice, i.e. at the end of Tua haro. Though of course the creators of Manuscript E may have used an upside down calendar - the one introduced by the missionaries.

The word agau is mysterious, but possibly the 'bird' (manu) in question is creating (aga) the 2nd 'year':

The gesture with ihe (GD45) at right (in the text) maybe indicates what is generated? But why ihe, is that not a death sign? Life needs death.

Let us now return to the text in Barthel 2:

"It is difficult to estimate accurately the length of a month. According to the European calendar, a month (that was used by the Polynesians) has alternatively twenty-nine and thirty days; and a traditional month, based on lunar nights, has thirty days (ME:50, Barthel 1958:242-247).

Also, the time intervals are not consistent throughout. Whenever explicit mention is made of the time spent in a place, the actual dates are omitted. Toward the end of the calendar of dates, discrepancies occur: the 'one month each' (etahi marama) as the duration of the stay at Pu Pakakina, or at the yam plantation, is incompatible with the established dates for the months 'Hora Nui' and 'Tagaroa Uri'.

The total amount of time taken up by the activities at Pu Pakakina (surfing, installing the ornaments and the stone figures, trip around the island, naming places) seems to have been five days. But five days is precisely the time span that recurs directly or indirectly in alternating positions on the calendar!

The 'trip around the island' is a complete new circuit of the island made by Mako'i, going clockwise and naming (other) places ('the second list of place names').

It is exactly one-half year from the departure of the explorers from Hiva to their return to the homeland. Whatever method one uses to convert the six months into days (six synodical months = 177 days, six lunar months = 180, and six solar months = 182), there still appears to be an artificially constructed scheme.

Arrival and departure are accompanied by intermediate stages that amount to ten days. In all, the actions of the explorers are fixed by fourteen dates, which can be arranged into seven pairs of dates. These seven pairs, whose number corresponds to the number of explorers, are made up of 35 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + (corrected) 5 + 10 = 70 days or seven groups of ten days each.

Half the time [of 70 days] is taken up by the sea voyage, the other half by events on land. So far it is not known what coded information is concealed in this scheme.

The explorers reach the royal residence (Oromanga and Hanga Moria One) in July ('Anakena'). The place name and the name of the month coincide in the designation of the royal residence at Anakena Bay.

This appears to be the reason behind the naming of the royal residence. On this point, Ms. E contradicts Thomson's suggestion that the time of the arrival of the emigrants under King Hotu Matua and his queen was the reason for the place name: 'The landing place was named Anakena in honor of the month of August [rather July], in which the island was discovered' (PH:527).

Rather, the arrival of the explorers or even the episode with the 'turtle' have to be regarded as the crucial event that caused 'Anakena' to become fixed in time and space."

Although manuscript E is written down late in the history of Easter Island we find evidence of the importance of a time period corresponding to ½ year.

The 24 half-month periods are similar to our system with 24 hours per day, 12 hours for the night and 12 hours for the day. We ought to think about a 'year' as equal to 12 half-months and distinguish between the 'light year' and the 'dark year'.

Although the 'astronomical' year starts at winter solstice, the 'light year' and the 'dark year' probably are defined by the equinoxes. I guess we should read this model at Aa1-5--12:

Aa1-5	Aa1-6	Aa1-7	Aa1-8	Aa1-9	Aa1-10	Aa1-11	Aa1-12

The '8th island' is the 'light year' with midsummer between Aa1-8 and Aa1-9.

At the beginning of the day we find '6' marked (by a hexagonal shape) in P and Q, presumably signifying the 6 periods with sun fully alive:

Aa1-16	Ha5-49	Pa5-32	Qa5-40

In H on the other hand, the rhomb may indicate the surface of the earth, which in turn is defined by the 4 cardinal points or pillars, presumably Aa1-5--8. (Here 8 in Aa1-8 may suggest that with the 8th glyph the creation of the 8th island is complete.)

There are 28 half-months (kuhane stations) in manuscript E, which confirms my earlier ideas about a '7th flame of the sun' - needed to reach a congruence with 15 lunar months à 28 nights (when moon is visible).

Each 'flame' is a double month, in the same way as each month consists of two halves. Thereby each 'flame' is similar to the earth in having 4 parts.

Still unclear is where the '7th flame' is located. Maybe it should be divided in two parts: