In Tahua
there are 18 glyphs which I have sorted out as belonging to GD14:
Only 4 of these
are without major signs:
 |
 |
|
Ab6-91 |
Ab6-92 |
 |
 |
|
Aa2-10 |
Aa8-62 |
I have labelled
GD14 henua ora ('living earth'), though feeling
somewhat uncomfortable. Metoro
mostly said just henua, without
the qualifying ora, but
henua obviously should be reserved as
a label for GD37.
At 29 of the 50 GD14 glyphs in B, A, C and E Metoro said
henua. Henua
with qualifying ora was used
just once:
|
|
|
|
Ab6-91 |
Ab6-92 |
|
henua ora rua |
Given that henua
is a concept fundamentally connected with life, it is not to be
wondered at why Metoro intensified the concept by adding
ora - this is the only place (among the glyphs in B,
A, C and E) where we find two consecutive GD14 glyphs. They maybe
alternatively (and clumsily) could have been expressed as
henua-henua.
There is evidence that Metoro
knew what he was talking about. As regards GD14 I would like to
document the similarity between Aa8-52 and Ba10-15 on one hand
and the very frequent (in e.g. C and E though never in B and A)
combinations between GD52 and GD37 on the other hand:
 |
 |
|
Aa8-52 |
Ba10-15 |
| o
te tagata kua mau ia - i tona mea |
ki
ruga o te tagata - kikiu atu |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Ca3-1 |
Ca3-16 |
Eb5-17 |
Eb4-1 |
| kiore - henua |
kiore i te
henua |
te henua - te
kiore |
te henua - te
kiore |
4 'simple' GD14 glyphs in Tahua
suggests an allusion to the square (or rectangular?) earth.
Examining GD14 glyphs with 'legs' we
find only 3:
 |
 |
|
Ab7-33 |
Ab8-52 |
| i
tona henua |
i te ura |
 |
|
Aa5-14 |
| ka
kau te nahe |
While Ab7-33 is referred to as
henua (earth) and Ab8-52 as ura (crayfish), Aa5-14
seems to tell about a 'multiplying' (?) (kau) 'nahe':
| Kau
1. To move one's feet (walking or
swimming); ana oho koe, ana kau i te va'e, ka
rava a me'e mo kai, if you go and move your
feet, you'll get something to eat; kakau (or
also kaukau), move yourself swimming. 2. To
spread (of plants): ku-kau-áte kumara, the
sweet potatoes have spread, have grown a lot. 3. To
swarm, to mill around (of people): ku-kau-á te
gagata i mu'a i tou hare, there's a crowd of
people milling about in front of your house. 4. To
flood (of water after the rain): ku-kau-á te vai
haho, the water has flooded out (of a container
such as a taheta). 5. To increase, to
multiply: ku-kau-á te moa, the chickens have
multiplied. 6. Wide, large: Rano Kau, 'Wide
Crater' (name of the volcano in the southwest corner
of the island). 7. Expression of admiration:
kau-ké-ké! how big! hare kau-kéké! what a
big house! tagata hakari kau-kéké! what a
stout man! Vanaga.
To bathe, to swim; hakakau,
to make to swim. P Pau., Mgv., Mq.: kau, to
swim. Ta.: áu, id. Kauhaga, swimming.
Churchill.
The
stem kau does not appear independently in any
language of Polynesian proper. For tree and for
timber we have the composite
lakau in various stages of transformation.
But kau will also be
found
as an initial component of various tree names. It is
in Viti that we first find it in free existence. In
Melanesia this form is rare. It occurs as kau
in Efaté, Sesake, Epi, Nguna, and perhaps may be
preserved in Aneityum; as gau in Marina; as
au in Motu and somewhere in the Solomon
islands. The triplicity of the Efaté forms [kasu,
kas, kau] suggests a possible
transition. Kasu and kas are easy to
be correlated, kasu and kau less easy.
They might be linked by the assumption of a parent
form kahu, from which each might derive. This
would appear in modern Samoan as kau; but I
have found it the rule that even the mildest
aspirate in Proto-Samoan becoming extinct in modern
Samoan is yet retained as aspiration in Nuclear
Polynesia and as th in Viti, none of which
mutations is found on this record. Churchill 2 |
|
Nahe
Ta.: Angiopteris erecta
[maybe evecta?: 'Mule's-foot Fern']. Sa.:
nase, the giant fern. Churchill. |
|
NAHE
"Class Marattiopsida is a
group of ferns containing a single order,
Marattiales, and family, Marattiaceae.
Class Marattiopsida diverged from other
ferns very early in their evolutionary history
and are quite different from many plants
familiar to people in temperate zones. Many of
them have massive, fleshy rootstocks and the
largest known fronds of any fern.
The Marattiaceae is one of
two eusporangiate fern families, meaning that
the sporangium is formed from a group of cells
vs the leptosporangium in which there is a
single initial cell. There are four extant
genera (Angiopteris, Christensenia,
Danaea and Marattia) and it has a
long fossil history with many extinct taxa (Psaronius,
Asterotheca, Scolecopteris,
Eoangiopteris, Qasimia,
Marantoidea, Danaeites,
Marattiopsis, etc.)
In this group, such fronds are
found in the genus Angiopteris, native to
Australasia, Madagascar and Oceania. These
fronds may be up to 9 meters long in the species
Angiopteris teysmanniana of Java.
In Jamaica the species
Angiopteris evecta ['Mule's-foot
Fern'] is widely naturalized and is registered
as an invasive species. The plant was introduced
by Captain Bligh from Tahiti as a staple food
for slaves and cultivated in the Castleton
Gardens in 1860. From there it was able to
distribute itself throughout the eastern half of
the island." (Wikipedia) |
The first little word in ka kau
te nahe presumbly is an emphatic exclamation:
| Ka, ká
Ka. Particle of the
affirmative imperative, of cardinal numerals, of
independent ordinal numerals, and of emphatic
exclamation, e.g. ka-maitaki! how nice!
Vanaga.
Ká. 1. To light a fire in
order to cook in the earth oven (see umu): he-ká
i te umu, he-ká i te kai. 2. Figuratively: to
fire up the soul. To put oneself in a fury (with
manava): ku-ká-á toona manava he has become
furious. Vanaga.
1. Of T. 2. Imperative sign; ka
oho, ka tere, ka ea, begone!;
ka ko iha, a greeting T; ka mou, hush;
ka oho, goodbye. 3. Infinitive sign; mea
meitaki ka rava, a thing good to take; ka
harai kia mea, to accompany. 4. A prefix which
forms ordinals from cardinals. 5. The dawning of the
day. 6. Different (? ke). Churchill. |
According to Bishop Jaussen (ref.
Barthel) Metoro seems to have explained nahe as a
shellfish ('crustacé').
If kau means
to swim, ka kau te nahe could mean something like 'how he
swims, the nahe'. If kau means to spread out,
ka kau te nahe could mean 'how she multiplies, the nahe'.
Some uncertainty
will remain even if we compare nahe with ura. We
do not know how good the communication between Jaussen and
Metoro was. Maybe Metoro (or Jaussen) pointed at
Ab8-52 when the explanation nahe was given.
It must be noted that Ab8-52 has
the same line number and ordinal number in the line as Aa8-52:
|
|
|
|
Aa8-52 |
Ab8-52 |
| o
te tagata kua mau ia - i tona mea |
i
te ura |
Furthermore, counting glyphs from
from Ab7-33 up to and including Ab8-52 we have 104 (= twice 52):
|
|
|
|
Ab7-33 |
Ab8-52 |
| i
tona henua |
i te ura |
|
84 -
32 + 52 = 104 = 8 * 13 |
Presumably the creator of the text
wished to indicate 8 and 52.
Moreover, there are
52 glyphs from Ab7-33 up to and including Ab7-84 (the last glyph
in line b7) - a fact which is obvious already by the ordinal
number of Ab8-52. There are 84 glyphs in both lines and 84 - 52
= 32 = 25. We have a symmetric number pattern:
 |
... |
|
... |
... |
|
... |
 |
|
Ab7-1 |
Ab7-33 |
Ab8-52 |
Ab8-84 |
|
32 |
52 |
52 |
32 |
|
84 |
84 |
The number symmetry suggests a
reversal between Ab7-84 and Ab8-1, which is confirmed in how the
'legs' are drawn in Ab7-33 and Ab8-52.
The henua at
Ab7-1 is exceptional in Tahua. No more glyphs with this
type of hatch marks are found. In Mamari we have two
similar exceptional glyphs. First Ca9-16, also with an
interesting environment:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Ca9-16 |
Ca9-17 |
Ca9-18 |
Ca9-19 |
Ca9-20 |
Then we have Cb6-29:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Cb6-27 |
Cb6-28 |
Cb6-29 |
Cb7-1 |
Cb7-2 |
Neither Aruku
Kurenga nor Keiti has anything similar.
84 is twice 42 (= 2 * 21) and a
number we have discussed several times earlier. I do not feel
inclined to open up that discussion again. For the moment I just
think about 42 = 6 * 7 as a kind of conjunction between sun (6)
and moon (7). Twice 84 (lines b7 + b8) will then mean 4 * (6 *
7) and maybe b7 is one half of the year while b8 is the opposite
half.
The idea gains support from
Ab6-91--92 (at the end of line b6), which emphatically marks 2:
|
|
|
|
... |
|
... |
... |
|
... |
|
|
Ab6-91 |
Ab6-92 |
Ab7-1 |
Ab7-33 |
Ab8-52 |
Ab8-84 |
|
henua
ora
rua |
32 |
52 |
52 |
32 |
|
84 |
84 |
If my idea holds
true, we once again have a kind of confirmation that GD14 means
henua (i.e. a season).
Ab7-1 has 3
triangular sectors and 1 more extraordinary, divided in two
parts located at the beginning and at the end. The pattern we
recognize is 3 + 1.
The cup-marked 8
'legs' in Ab8-52 suggest 'female', while the cap-marked 8 'legs'
in Ab7-33 suggest 'male'. Ab8-84 shows a condensed similar pattern:
|
... In Ab8-84 we have in the right two limbs the
shape of 'cup', in the left two limbs the shape of
'hill'. The contrast means that the right part is
the opposite of the left part. Located as it is as
the last glyph on side b we should understand that
the continuation (of the cyclical text of Tahua)
on side a begins with the opposite of what we just
have read on side b.
The
Tiahuanacuans had the hill sign at the end of the
first half of the solar year (according to the
central figure on the Gateway of the Sun). Orienting
yourself with face looking south you at the same
time look up (to see the sun or a star).
A
reasonable guess, therefore, is to assume that the
left 'hill' sign in Ab8-84 means the end of the 2nd
half of the year. The 'hill' means midsummer, which
inaugurates the 2nd half of the cycle ... |
Ab7-33 is more
straight than Ab8-52, which is leaning somewhat. Moreover,
Ab8-52 is disorderly also in having the central line (vertical!)
much dislocated towards right (from us seen) and with dissimilar
'legs'.
Ab8-52 has a rounded
and nearly closed 'shell' outline (a 'female' characteristic)
and even the wedge-mark at bottom enclosing the 'nut' has
a rounded appearance.
If b7 and b8 together represent the
two half-years, then b7 is 'male' and b8 'female', I guess. Line
a1 will then be 'male', of course, because there should be an
alternating movement, similar to when the gods and titans work
the mighty celestial mill. Aa1-1 is clearly 'male' while Aa1-2
is 'female':
Maybe in Aa1-3--4
we should see the planet Mars (running meaning planet), because
he has two faces (strong and faint), i.e. a continuation of the
pattern with Aa1-3 as strong and Aa1-4 as faint. Mars is
fetching the celestial fire and bringing the light down to the
earth, I guess.
The travelling
planet Mars is a planet (wanderer) more evidently so than the
other planets. Mercury and Venus move more, but they are hidden
too, which moves the focus of the observers from their movements
to their vanishing and appearing again.
At spring sun moves
quickly and therefore the association to Mars lies near at hand.
In Aa1-3--4 there is a double meaning: planet moving fast (Mars)
and spring (sun moving fast). Moving fast (running) should be
expressed by doubling the glyph telling planet.
Furthermore, we may
make a hypothetical table:
|
Aa1-1 |
 |
Sun |
|
Aa1-2 |
 |
Moon |
|
Aa1-3--4 |
  |
Mars |
|
Aa1-5 |
 |
Mercury |
|
Aa1-6 |
 |
Jupiter |
|
Aa1-7 |
 |
Venus |
|
Aa1-8 |
 |
Saturn |
The strangely bent
'legs' in Aa1-5--8 could then be explained as 'moving legs'
(planets) and like Ogotemmęli we get 8 phases (not 7). Whereas
he doubled Saturn we here double Mars.
Mars is closer to
Sun and Moon than the other planets because he is fiery.
