TRANSLATIONS
"... 'When towards morning the Pleiades become visible the dry
season is imminent [for the Arawak of Guiana], Masasikiri
starts his journey and comes to warn people it is time to
prepare their fields.
He makes a whistling sound to which he owns his nickname
Masakiri (sic).
When people hear him at night, they strike their cutlasses with
something, which makes a sound like a bell; in this way they
thank the spirit for his warning ...25
25 According to P. Clastres (who gave me the
information personally), the non-agricultural Guayaki believe in
a trickster-spirit, who is master of honey and armed with an
ineffectual bow and arrows made of ferns. This spirit announces
his approach by whistling and is driven away by noise.
Thus the return of the Pleiades is accompanied by an exchange of
acoustic signals, the contrast between which has some formal
resemblance to that between the two fire-producing techniques,
friction and percussion ..." (From Honey to Ashes)
According to the
Arawaks of Guiana the early morning appearance of the Pleiades
is a signal to start working their fields.
My earlier
suspicion that rhombs in GD53 glyphs depict the 'skin of the
earth mother' (the agricultural fields) is thereby strengthened:
The
goddess at left represents Lower Egypt (low
headgear) and the goddess at right Upper Egypt (high
headgear). Which implies that the center beetle is
located moving from east (bottom) to west (top -
with starry sky above).
The
beetle seems to have emerged through the sun door at
bottom. The 6 legs of the insect become 12 limbs at
their ends.
To
the cardinal points in east and west are here added
the two cardinal points of north (Lower Egypt) and
south (Upper Egypt). In between these 4 cardinal
points we find the surface.
'...
The God Amma, it appeared, took a lump of clay,
squeezed it in his hand and flung it from him, as he
had done with the stars. The clay spread and fell on
the north, which is the top, and from there
stretched out to the south, which is the bottom, of
the world, although the whole movement was
horizontal. The earth lies flat, but the north is at
the top. It extends east and west with separate
members like a foetus in the womb. It is a body,
that is to say, a thing with members branching out
from a central mass. This body, lying flat, face
upwards, in a line from north to south, is feminine.
Its sexual organ is an anthill, and its clitoris a
termite hill ...'
As
we have identified the picture of arms raising the
sun both on Easter Island and in ancient Egypt, it
appears reasonable to suspect that the rhomb figure
in rongorongo represents the surface of the
earth.
'...
Above the door of the temple is depicted a
chequer-board of white squares alternating with
squares the colour of the mud wall. There should
strictly be eight rows, one for each ancestor. This
chequer-board is pre-eminently the symbol of the
'things of this world' and especially of the
structure and basic objects of human organization.
It symbolizes: the pall which covers the dead, with
its eight strips of black and white squares
representing the multiplication of the eight of
human families; the façade of the large house with
its eighty niches, home of the ancestors; the
cultivated fields, patterned like the pall; the
villages with streets like seams, and more generally
all regions inhabited, cleared or exploited by men.
The chequer-board and the covering both portray the
eight ancestors ...' |
As to the
whistling, I remember Kena:
... The Masked Booby is silent at sea, but has a
reedy whistling greeting call at the nesting
colonies ...
...
Kena, the name for the booby, is also an eastern
Polynesian name. Line 18 of the creation chant lists
as the mythical parents of kena 'Vie Moko'
and 'Vie Tea' (PH:520). The 'lizard woman' (vie
moko) and her younger sister the 'booby woman' (vie
kena) were considered the originators of
tattooing (ME: 367-368).
The
'white booby woman' (vie kena tea), together
with other deities, protected the eggs of sea birds
(RM:260). She might even be considered to be the
female counterpart of the supreme god Makemake.
In modern Hangaroa, vie kena tea is a
term of endearment for a beloved wife whose
well-rounded body and light skin is being praised
... |
Anakena
(presumably ana-kena,
the 'cave' out of which the 'booby'
arrives ?) is located - according to the Easter
Island calendar - at the beginning of the year. |
Another association from whistling
goes to the 4 (as in a rhomb) Pure (kinds of prayer)
emitted by Hotu Matua:
... Why are there only 3 Pure emitted by
Hotu Matua? Shouldn't it be an even number? As
O, Ki, and Vanangananga were
three of a quartet we miss Pure Henguingui.
Maybe
it has something to do with the 3 X-time glyphs?
There
are 4 ghostly beams of light in Aa1-13, but there
are only 3 'fruits' (hua, offspring) as
'passengers' in the canoe of Aa1-14
...
...
RAP. henguingui is synonymous with MGV.
henguingui 'to whisper, to speak low' and goes
back to west Polynesian forms (SAM. fenguingui
'to talk in a low tone'; UVE. fegui
'murmurer'). In many of the Polynesian languages,
ki is the spoken word; in some few, ki
refers to the process of thinking; (MGV., MAO.,
HAW.) and in some instances, it indicates special
noises (MQS. ki 'to whistle with two
fingers'; SAM. 'i 'to call like a bird'; TON.
ki 'to squeal'). Generally, o is the
affirmative answer to the caller, while
vanangananga indicates repeated speaking.
The four spirits represents, on one hand, the sound
scale of empty conch shells and, on the other hand,
a classification of types of prayers ...
By
going back to adjacent Polynesian idioms, as
wordplays for topographic features of the area of
the landing site. 'Pure O' permits a wordplay
with MAO. pūreo (i.e., purero 'that
which sticks out of the water'), 'Pure Ki'
with MAO. pureki (i.e., pūrei 'an
isolated rock'), while 'Pure Vanangananga'
brings to mind TUA. vanavana 'protuberance';
TAH. vanavana 'rough, ragged'.
Put
differently, the names of the three ghostly
emissaries, which are actually forms of prayer,
point to tangible objects in the environment, such
as the cliffs and reefs in the water of the bay,
which may have caused the damage done to the stone
figure of the ancestor. The accident must have
occured where the otherwise sandy beach of the
landing site is bordered by rocky promontories or
where sections of the reef jut out of the water.
If in
our version 'Pure O' is said to have used a
pureva (i.e., a large round stone) to sever
the head of the stone figure, this must be a
wordplay, intended to bring about the fourth pure
association, which would complete the 'pure
tetrade' of spirits living in Vai Hū.
Separating pureva into pure va
indicates noisy talk (compare especially HAW. wā)
or loud laughter (TON., UVE. vā), both forms
of expression that have very little in common with
'prayer' and may instead indicate the failure of the
undertaking. 'Pure Va' is, in this case, the
opposite of 'Pure Henguingui ... |
The arrival of the Pleiades (i
nika) announced new year on Easter Island too. On
side b of Tahua I think the middle of the text represents
this point. On side a we have earlier discussed the possibility
of Aa4-64 marking a new season:
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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 |
... Metoro's
words at the π
glyph (Aa4-64), kua hura i te ragi, are
worthy of note. One of the few Polynesian words
spread internationally is hula-hula:
Hura
1. To fish with a small funnel-shaped
net tied to the end of a pole. This
fishing is done from the shore; fishing
with the same net, but swimming, is
called tukutuku. 2. To be active,
to get moving when working: ka hura,
ka aga! come on, get moving! to
work! 3. Tagata gutu hura, a
flatterer, a flirt, a funny person, a
witty person. Hurahura, to dance,
to swing. Vanaga.
1. Sling. In his brilliant study of the
distribution of the sling in the Pacific
tracts, Captain Friederici makes this
note (Beiträge zur Völker- und
Sprachenkunde von Deutsch-Neuguinea,
page 115b): 'Such, though somewhat
modified, is the case in Rapanui,
Easter Island. The testimony of all the
reporters who have had dealings with
these people is unanimous that stones of
two to three pounds weight, frequently
sharp chunks of obsidian, were thrown by
the hand; no one mentions the use of
slings. Yet Roussel includes this weapon
in his vocabulary and calls it hura.
In my opinion this word can be derived
only from the Mangareva verb kohura,
to throw a stone or a lance. So far as
we know Rapanui has received its
population in part by way of Mangareva.'
To this note should be added the
citation of kirikiri ueue
as exhibiting this particular use of
ueue in which the general sense is
the transitive shake. 2. Fife, whistle,
drum, trumpet, to play; hurahura,
whistle. P Mq.: hurahura, dance,
divertissement, to skip. Ta.: hura,
to leap for joy. Pau.: hura-viru,
well disposed. Churchill.
H. Hula, a swelling, a
protuberance under the arm or on the
thigh.
Churchill
2. |
Kiri
Skin;
bark; husk; kiri heuheu, downy
skin; kiri mohimohi (also kiri
magó), smooth hairless skin.
Kirikiri miro, multicoloured.
Vanaga.
Skin,
hide, bark, surface; kiri ekaeka,
leprous; kiri haraoa, bran;
kiri hurihuri, negro; kiri maripu,
scrotum; kiri ure; prepuce.
P Pau.: kiri, bark. Mgv.: kiri,
skin, bark, leather, surface, color,
hue. Ta.: iri, skin, bark,
leather, planking. Kirikiri,
pebble, gravel, rounded stone, sling
stone; kikiri, pebble. P Pau.:
kirikiri, gravel, stony, pebbly.
Mgv.: kirikiri, gravel, small
stones, shingle. Ta.: iriiri,
gravel, stony, rough. Kirikirimiro:
ragi kirikirimiro, sky dappled
with clouds. Kirikiriteu, soft
gray tufa ground down with sugar-cane
juice and utilized as paint T.
Kiriputi (kiri - puti)
cutaneous, kiriputiti, id.
Kirivae (kiri - vae
1), shoe. Churchill. |
Ue
Uéué,
to move about, to flutter; he-uéué te
kahu i te tokerau, the clothes
flutter in the wind; poki oho ta'e
uéué, obedient child. Vanaga.
1. Alas. Mq.: ue, to groan. 2. To
beg (ui). Ueue: 1. To
shake (eueue); kirikiri ueue,
stone for sling. PS Pau.: ueue,
to shake the head. Mq.: kaueue,
to shake. Ta.: ue, id. Sa.:
lue, to shake, To.: ue'í, to
shake, to move; luelue, to move,
to roll as a vessel in a calm. Niuē:
luelue, to quake, to shake. Uvea:
uei, to shake; ueue, to move.
Viti: ue, to move in a confused
or tumultous manner. 2. To lace.
Churchill. |
If
the sky (ragi) is shaken (ueue) or
leaping (hura), that sounds a lot like when
mother Earth is shaking her breasts:
... It
was an old Maori belief that a change of seasons was
often facilitated by earthquakes. Ruau-moko,
a god of the Underworld, was said to bring about
changes of season, punctuating them with an
earthquake. Or as another Maori saying summed up the
matter, 'It is the Earth-mother shaking her breasts,
and a sign of the change of season.' ...
Ru
A chill, to shiver, to shudder, to
quake; manava ru, groan. Ruru,
fever, chill, to shiver, to shake, to
tremble, to quiver, to vibrate,
commotion, to apprehend, moved, to
agitate, to strike the water, to print;
manava ruru, alarm; rima ruru,
to shake hands. P Pau.: ruru, to
shake, to tremble. Mgv.: ru, to
shiver with cold, to shake with fever,
to tremble. Mq.: ú, to tremble,
to quiver. Ta.: ruru, to tremble.
Churchill.
Ruru,
to tremble, an earthquake. Sa.: lūlū,
lue, to shake. To.: luelue,
to roll; lulu, to shake. Fu.:
lulū, to tremble, to shake, to
agitate. Niuē: luelue, to shake;
lūlū, to shake, to be shaken.
Nuguria: ruhe, motion of the
hands in dancing; luhe henua, an
earthquake. Uvea, Ha.: lu,
lulu, lululu, to shake, to
tremble, to flap. Fotuna: no-ruruia,
to shake. Ma.: ru, ruru,
to shake, an earthquake. Ta., Rarotonga,
Rapanui, Pau.: ruru, to shake, to
tremble. Mgv.: ru, to tremble;
ruru, to shake. Mq.: uu, to
shake the head in negation; uuuu,
to shake up. Uvea: ue i, to
shake; ueue, to move. Rapanui:
ueue, to shake. Churchill 2. |
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The nickname Masakiri sounds
very much like a variant of Matariki. Heyerdahl has
proven (as far as this is possible) that South America had
contacts with Easter Island and the rest of Polynesia, and that
the Polynesians originated in America (not in Asia). Therefore
it is not unthinkable that Matariki and Masakiri
- both meaning the Pleiades - are related words. The change
between s and t is not impossible, likewise the
shifting of syllables (metathesis), riki contra kiri, are
common in the evolution of languages.
In addition we know that not only
the Polynesians but also the South American Indians enjoyed
playing around with their languages:
"... The Indians of
eastern Bolivia 'like to borrow foreign words, with the result
... that their language is constantly changing; the women do not
pronounce the consonants s but always change it into an
f' (Armentia, p. 11).
More than a century
ago, Bates noted (p. 169) in connection with the Mura,
among whom he had lived: 'When the Indians, both men and women,
talk together, they seem to delight in inventing new
pronounciations and in distorting words. Everybody laughs at
these slang inventions, and the new terms are often adopted. I
have observed the same thing during long sailing trips with
Indian crews.'
An amusing
comparison with these remarks is to be found in a letter, full
of Portuguese words, that Spruce wrote from a Uaupés
village to his friend Wallace, who was by that time back in
England: 'Don't forget to tell me how you are progressing in the
English language and whether you can already make yourself
comprehensible to the natives ...' Wallace gives the following
explanatory commentary:
When we met at São
Gabriel ... we had noticed that we were quite incapable of
conversing together in English, without using Portuguese words
and expressions which amounted to about a third of our
vocabulary. Even when we made up our minds to speak only in
English, we succeeded in doing so only for a few minutes and
with difficulty and as soon as the conversation became animated
or it was necessary to recount an anecdote, Portuguese
reasserted itself! ...
Such linguistic
osmosis, with which travellers and expatriates are well
acquainted, must have played a considerable part in the
evolution of the Amercian languages and in the linguistic
conceptions of the natives of South America.
According to a
Kalina theory noted by Penard (in Goeje, p.32): 'vowels
change quicker than consonants, because they are thinner,
swifter, more liquid than the resistant consonants, but in
consequence their yumi close themselves sooner, which
means they return to their source more rapidly ..." (From Honey
to Ashes)
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