TRANSLATIONS

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To avoid misunderstandings: My explanations, for example of reiga as re-ī-ga and the meanings presumably connected with its component parts, do not in any way assume an etymological perspective. Instead it is the perspective of wordplay - what could be done with the component parts of words, given the field around littered with words somewhat similar and easy to imagine manufactured by earlier wordplays.

Take Hua Reva - in addition to what earlier has been said we now are in a position to interpret a supposed wordplay behind reva, viz. re (the spirit of the sun in his last stage of the year cycle) coupled with va (a shorter form of vai, water). Quite possibly this is a rebus, and a glyph in Mamari helps us:

Hua Reva

 Ca10-3

takaure

vai

kua hua te vai

The glyph type vai has two parts, the upper (closer to us) canoe-formed oval and the lower consisting of two half hidden moon crescents (one waxing and one waning - as they would appear if standing on the equator, the path of the sun). I imagine the moon crescents signify the female companion of the sun (moon) whose blindingly white sands is the ideal residence for him:

... The dream soul went to the other side of the mountain Hau Epa. As soon as the dream soul looked around, she saw the sand (beach), which was very white and light ...

"The veil of Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana (Sun and Moon), was black. The Hindus of north-west India still worship 'Suria', the sun, under the emblem of a black stone.

The colour of the Egyptian bulls Apis and Mnevis was black, and in the hieroglyphic representations of acts of consecration or anointing, the officiating priests is painted black, and the recipient of the ceremony is painted red; this more especially in upper Egypt. Hence the black colour would seem to indicate superior sacredness.

It is possible that from these and similar considerations of superiority or sacredness arose the Polynesian proverb (in Hawaiian), 'he weo ke kanaka, he pano he alii', red is the common man, dark is the chief.

In 'Polynesian Researches' the Rev. Mr. Ellis explains a similar expression in Tahiti, from the fact that a dark and bronsed complexion was looked upon, among the chiefs, as a sign of manliness, hardihood, and exposure to fatigue and danger, and a pale complexion was considered a sign of effeminacy.

The probable reason and explanation of the proverb may be found in the grander amount of tattooing with which the bodies of the chiefs were adorned. As late as the time of Kamehameha I of Hawaii, his rival, Kahekili, King of Maui, had one half of his body entirely blackened by tattooing.

The connection of the black colour with Siwa's symbols may be found in the Hindu legend, according to which, at the churning of the sea of milk for the production of Amutham (the Ambrosia of immortality) Siwa, the supreme, was appealed to by the other gods to remove the poison vomited in the Ambrosia by the serpent Vasuke. He complied with their request by drinking up the poison, but from that time he was known by the name of 'the azure-necked one' , because the colour of the poison remained on his neck as a sign of what he had done. - See Oriental Illustrations, by J. Roberts, p. 6." (Fornander)

Without there being any exact correspondence between Siwa with a blue neck or the serpent Vasuke vomiting poison and the rongorongo signs, I suspect there is a kind of correlation between (e.g.) Hindu images and Polynesian images - in an ancient world thinking and using images these had no borders:

Aa1-11 Aa6-66

When sun gets old he takes a drink and then it is all finished. Digging wells at Hua Reva - possibly an important true historic event - may have persuaded the 'historians' in the leper station to insert this station on the moon side (the spirit side of the sun), although Hotu Matua obviously must have been alive until then.

 ...the great high priest and monarch of the Golden Age in the Toltec city of Tula, the City of the Sun, in ancient Mexico, whose name, Quetzalcoatl, has been read to mean both 'the Feathered Serpent' and 'the Admirable Twin', and who was fair of face and white of beard, was the teacher of the arts to the people of pre-Columbian America, originator of the calendar, and their giver of maize. His virgin mother, Chimalman - the legend tells - had been one of the three sisters to whom God, the All-Father, had appeared one day under his form of Citlallatonac, 'the morning'. The other two had been struck by fright, but upon Chimalman God breathed and she conceived. She died, however, giving birth, and is now in heaven, where she is revered under the honourable name of 'the Precious Stone of Sacrifice', Chalchihuitzli. 

Quetzalcoatl, her child, who is known both as the Son of the Lord of the High Heavens and as the Son of the Lord of the Seven Caves, was endowed at birth with speech, all knowledge, and all wisdom, and in later life, as priest-king, was of such purity of character that his realm flourished gloriously throughout the period of his reign. His temple-palace was composed of four radiant apartments: one toward the east, yellow with gold; one towards the west, blue with turquoise and jade; one toward the south, white with pearls and shells; one towards the north, red with bloodstones - symbolizing the cardinal quarters of the world over which the light of the sun holds sway. And it was set wonderfully above a mighty river that passed through the midst of the city of Tula; so that every night, precisely at midnight, the king descended into the river to bathe; and the place of his bath was called 'In the Painted Vase', or 'In the Precious Waters'. 

But the time of his predestined defeat by the dark brother, Tezcatlipoca, was ever approaching, and, knowing perfectly the rhythm of his own destiny, Quetzalcoatl would make no move to stay it. Tezcatlipoca, therefore, said to his attendants, 'We shall give him a drink to dull his reason and show him his own face in a mirror; then, surely, he will be lost'. And he said to the servants of the good king, 'Go tell your master that I have come to show him his own flesh!' But when the message was brought to Quetzalcoatl, the aging monarch said, 'What does he call my own flesh? Go and ask!' And when the other was admitted to his presence: 'What is this, my flesh, that you would show me?' Tezcatlipoca answered, 'My Lord and Priest, look now at your flesh; know yourself; see yourself as you are seen by others!' And he presented the mirror.

Whereupon, seeing his own face in that mirror, Quetzalcoatl immediately cried out, 'How is it possible that my subjects should look upon me without fright? Well might they flee from before me. For how can a man remain among them when he is filled as I am with foul sores, his old face wrinkled and of an aspect so loathsome? I shall be seen no more, I shall no longer terrify my people'. Presented the drink to quaff, he refused it, saying that he was ill; but urged to taste it from the tip of his finger, he did so and was immediately overpowered by its magic. He lifted the bowl and was drunk. He sent for Quetzalpetlatl, his sister, who dwelt on the Mountain Nonoalco. She came, and her brother gave her the bowl, so that she too was drunk. And with all reason forgotten, the two that night neither said prayers nor went to the bath, but sank asleep together on the floor.  

And in the morning Quetzalcoatl said, in shame, 'I have sinned; the stain of my name cannot be erased. I am not fit to rule this people. Let them build a habitation for me deep under the ground; let them bury my bright treasures in the earth; let them throw the glowing gold and shining stones into the Precious Waters where I take my nightly bath. And all this was done. The king remained four days in his underground tomb, and when he came forth he wept and told his people that the time had come for his departure to the Red Land, the Dark Land, the Land of Fire. Having burned his dwellings behind him, buried his treasures in the mountains, transformed his chocolate trees into mesquite, and commanded his multicolored birds to fly before him, Quetzalcoatl, in great sorrow, departed.

Resting at a certain place along the way and looking back in the direction of Tula, his City of the Sun, he wept, and his tears went through a rock; he left in that place the mark of his sitting and the impress of his palms. Farther along, he was met and challenged by a company of necromancers, who prevented him from proceeding until he had left with them the arts of working silver, wood, and feathers, and the art of painting. As he crossed the mountains, many of his attendants, who were dwarfs and humpbacks, died of the cold. At another place he met his dark antagonist, Tezcatlipoca, who defeated him at a game of ball. At still another he aimed with an arrow at a large pochotl tree; and the arrow too was a pochotl tree, so that when he shot it through the first they formed a cross.

And so he passed along, leaving many signs and place-names behind him, until, coming at last to where the sky, land, and water come together, he departed. He sailed away on a raft of serpents, according to one version, but another has it that his remaining attendants built a funeral pyre, into which he threw himself, and while the body burned, his heart departed and after four days appeared as the rising planet Venus. All agree, however, that he will presently return. He will arrive with a fair-faced retinue from the east and resume sway over his people; for although Tezcatlipoca had conquered, those immutable laws that had determined the destruction of Tula assigned likewise its restoration. 

Quetzalcoatl was not dead. In one of his statues he was shown reclining, covered with wrappings, signifying that he was absent or 'as one who lays him down to sleep, and that when he should wake from that dream of absence, would rise to rule again the land'. He had built mansions underground to the Lord of Mictlan, the lord of the dead, but did not occupy these himself, dwelling, rather, in that land of gold where the sun abides at night. This too, however, is underground. Certain caverns lead to it, one of which, called Cincalco, 'To the Abode of Abundance', is south of Chapultepec; and through its gloomy corridors men can reach that happy land, the habitation of the sun, which is still ruled by Quetzalcoatl. Moreover, that land is the land from which he came in the beginning... 

Instead of now continuing with the remaining stations on side b (presumably Roto Iri Are and One Tea) - which do not look easy interpret - I intend to look on side a:

Hanga Takaure Te Piringa Aniva
Ga1-1 (1) Ga1-29 (29) Ga1-30 (30)
Te Kioe Uri Te Manavai
Ga2-29 (59) Ga4-5 (88) Ga4-6 (89)
Te Poko Uri Te Pu Mahore
Ga5-8 (118) Ga6-7 (147) Ga6-8 (148)
Nga Kope Ririva Maunga Hau Epa
Ga7-8 (177) Ga8-3 (206) Ga8-4 (207)

Reading backwards is not easy and we need the fundamental table (where I have marked blue the stations on side b and red those on side a):

1. Nga Kope Ririva Tutuu Vai A Te Taanga 2. Te Pu Mahore
3. Te Poko Uri 4. Te Manavai
5. Te Kioe Uri 6. Te Piringa Aniva
7. Te Pei 8. Te Pou
9. Hua Reva 10. Akahanga
11. Hatinga Te Kohe 12. Roto Iri Are
13. Tama 14. One Tea
15. Hanga Takaure 16. Poike
17. (Maunga) Pua Katiki 18. Maunga Teatea
19. Mahatua 20. Taharoa
21. Hanga Hoonu 22. Rangi Meamea
23. (Maunga) Peke Tau O Hiti 24. Maunga Hau Epa
25. Oromanga 26. Hanga Moria One
27. Papa O Pea 28. Ahu Akapu

What can possibly come before Nga Kope Ririva? I have guessed Maunga Hau Epa because of haś in Ga8-5:

 

Ga8-1 Ga8-2 Ga8-3 Ga8-4 Ga8-5 Ga8-6

Furthermore, this haś has 16 'feathers', equal to the maximum number of kuhane stations possible to make room for (according to the proposed scheme) in the text of G.

And then, beyond, follows a glyph similar to Nga Kope Ririva:

Ga8-5 Ga8-6 Ga7-8
208 = 13 * 16 209 = 11 * 19 177 = 3 * 59
Maunga Hau Epa Nga Kope Ririva

This is an important suggestion. As a kind of confirmation we have 209 - 177 = 32 = half the number of squares on a chessboard (signifying the all-important growth depending on the benevolent influence from the sun in form of rays and rain - vaiora a Tane).

16 is the similar, though weaker, influence from the moon (16 = 32 / 2). Furthermore, 13 + 16 = 29 and 11 + 19 = 30, as if to indicate Ga8-5--6 to be the true 29.5 glyphs (instead of Ga8-3--4).

The differences between Ga8-6 and Ga7-8 must be noticed. In Ga8-6 the top 'eye' is marked and in Ga7-8 the bottom 'eye'. We can understand: Maunga Hau Epa is high and Nga Kope Ririva is as low as you can get.

We are reminded of the 'Rain God' climbing high and suddenly being as low as you can get:

Ga8-5--6 stand out against a fairly uniform group of glyphs (although a twin pair appears 11 glyphs later):

Ga7-30 Ga7-31 Ga7-32 Ga7-33 Ga7-34 Ga8-1
Ga8-2 Ga8-3 Ga8-4 Ga8-5 Ga8-6
Ga8-7 Ga8-8 Ga8-9 Ga8-10 Ga8-11 Ga8-11
Ga8-13 Ga8-14 Ga8-15 Ga8-16 Ga8-17

It is curious that Ga8-3--4 were chosen to be located at the important point instead of Ga8-5--6, where haś and maitaki are good signs for indicating Hau Epa. But the curve at the top in Ga8-4 (4 * 8 = 32) - and in other glyphs around - may have been regarded as necessary. There should be a curve here, the curve which the kuhane followed. The curve in Ga8-5 may be another curve, referring to the sun.

Possibly Hau Epa once was Haś e pau, I think, the sun 'feathers' have all been used up.

All the 'poporo balls' ought to be counted in some way, and together they say much darkness.

The 22 glyphs above presumably are to be read as twice 9 + 2 = 18 + 4, the two cycles of sun respectively moon are here completed together (the numbers say).

4 * 4 = 16 'poporo balls' are located in the first 9 and 4 * 4 + 2 + 4 in the second 9, together 9 * 4 (= 36) + 2 = 38 'balls', though 8 of them are located in line Ga7.

Possibly the counting should begin with Ga7-33 (because the preceding Ga7-32 has an ordinal number indicating maximum growth - and because the 'balls' are markedly smaller). Then there will be 3 * 4 + 4 * 4 (= 28, the number of the moon) 'poporo balls' followed by 2 + 4 (= 6, the number of the sun).

Perhaps we must count Maunga Hau Epa, the last station of the living sun, with a larger number than 29.5?

Let us now return to the long quotation from Barthel 2, which I broke off because I had imagined seeing kuhane stations in the text of G.