Let us continue
with the glyph
dictionary and
the pages for
pu:
2. Quite possibly it is the same idea
as that of old Egypt:
(Reference: Wilkinson)
At left the goddess of dawn raises the sun up
and at right the goddess of evening (with face down) takes care of
the descending sun.We can infer that the two holes in pu
glyphs alternatively can be regarded as the blinding light discs of
the
morning and evening suns.
Yet, the holes are there. To combine the two
alternative readings it seems necessary to regard the sky region
behind the sky 'roof' as a region of flames.
The East Polynesian concept of sunlight
resembling lifegiving water (vaiora a Tane) then will give
rise to further ideas:
"... Now the deluge was
caused by the male waters from the sky meeting the female waters
which issued forth from the ground. The holes in the sky by which
the upper waters escaped were made by God when he removed stars out
of the constellation of the Pleiades; and in order to stop this
torrent of rain, God had afterwards to bung up the two holes with a
couple of stars borrowed from the constellation of the Bear. That is
why the Bear runs after the Pleiades to this day; she wants her
children back, but she will never get them till after the Last Day."
(Hamlet's Mill)
Holes can be plugged. Maybe this
explains why there are instances, in the rongorongo texts,
where the parallel glyphs are without holes, e.g.:
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Hb5-28 |
Hb5-29 |
Hb5-30 |
Hb5-31 |
Hb5-32 |
Hb5-33 |
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Pb7-12 |
Pb7-13 |
Pb7-14 |
Pb7-15 |
Pb7-16 |
Pb7-17 |
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Qb8-111 |
Qb8-112 |
Qb8-113 |
Qb8-114 |
Qb8-115 |
Qb8-116 |
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The three
parallel texts
are here
different in
many details,
suggesting
somewhat
different
messages.
P has a few
glyphs with
'holes', as seen
for instance in
Pb11-104
(Saturday):
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- |
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... |
Pb10-55 |
Pb10-56 |
Pb11-101 |
Pb11-102 |
Pb11-103 |
Pb11-104 |
Pb11-105 |
Mostly, though P
has 'plugged
holes', and Q
has nothing but
such. Maybe the
'plugged holes'
means that sun
is not arriving
and not leaving
- i.e. is he is
living in the
north with his
Winter Maid?
...
Hamiora Pio
once spoke as
follows to the
writer: 'Friend!
Let me tell of
the offspring of
Tangaroa-akiukiu,
whose two
daughters were
Hine-raumati
(the Summer Maid
- personified
form of summer)
and
Hine-takurua
(the Winter Maid
-
personification
of winter), both
of whom where
taken to wife by
the sun ...
The 'plugged
holes' (like
mouth and anus)
certainly must
have many
allusions. I
have therefore
included a
hyperlink
('plugged')
which leads to
the following
page:
Then he
went with his father Qinggi, they say. |
As soon as
Qinggi landed at his town, |
he
gave a feast. |
He tried to
make the one we speak of eat. |
But he
would not accept a morsel. |
Qinggi gave
a feast again the next day. |
to make his
child eat. |
Again he
would eat nothing. |
Two greedyguts arrived, |
and
someone grabbed a storage chest of cranberries. |
One of
the two greedyguts opened up his maw. |
They
poured in the whole boxful. |
They
poured one down the other's throat as well. |
Next
day, his father gave another feast. |
The greedyguts arrived. |
Again
they poured entire storage chests |
of
cranberries into their mouths. |
The one we
are speaking of ran to the edge of town. |
As he was
walking there, |
cranberries
bubbled up out of the swampland. |
He plugged
the vent with moss. |
When
another vent formed, he plugged it too. |
Then he
went back to the house |
and
asked the greedyguts closest to the door, |
'Tell
me, how do you manage to eat so much?' |
'Sir, don't ask that. |
Do you
think this is a happy way to be?' |
'No, but tell me. |
If you will eat |
at
every feast my father gives. |
If you
don't agree to tell me, |
I will
plug you up for good'. |
'Alright, sir, sit beside me. |
I
will tell you what to do. |
In
the morning, take a bath and then lie down. |
Rub
yourself raw where you feel it most deeply.
|
By
the following day, a scab will form. |
You
must swallow the scab. |
He followed these
instructions. |
Then, after sitting there awhile: |
'Father, I'm
hungry!' |
His father gave a feast without delay. |
Again the
greedyguts arrived. |
Again they upended boxes into their mouths. |
He couldn't
be filled. |
He was
famished. |
Qinggi gave
another feast. |
Then he gave another and another, day after
day. |
At last, the one we speak of went
outside. |
When he kept picking cranberries out of
their turds, |
they saw who it was, |
and they shut the door in his face.
|
Then he walked away, they say. |
He went around behind his father's
house. |
'Father, let me come in!' |
No answer. |
They turned him away |
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The text above is part of the adventures of Raven ('the one we are
speaking of') as told in Haida Gwaii according to 'Sharp as a
Knife'. The two major openings (possible to plug) in animals and in
other creatures are for input and for output:
... 'What's
she like, Hine nui te Po?' asked Maui.
'Look over there', said Makea, pointing to the
ice-cold mountains beneath the flaming clouds of sunset.
'What you see there is Hine nui, flashing where
the sky meets the earth. Her body is like a woman's, but
the pupils of her eyes are greenstone and her hair is
kelp. Her mouth is that of a barracuda, and in the place
where men enter her she has sharp teeth of obsidian and
greenstone.' ... |
Holes for entering and exiting are located in the far away east
respectively in the far away west. |
The Haida
Gwaii myth
is rather
cryptic, and I
want it to
remain
so. Thoughts
must be
generated.
The Raven
appears to be
like Maui
- a trickster
which can be
found everywhen.
His character is
'civilized'
(i.e. not in
contact with
nature). The
natural
functions like
eating and
procreating is
unknown for him.
Raven is like
the Mad Hatter -
crazy.
Nature rules
during the 1st
part of the
year, and nature
is - like
Hercules -
'killed' at
summer solstice,
the time of
ritual death
when the wings
of the
youngsters are
cut short. They
must be
assimilated into
the culture.
When Raven
'plugged the
vents' it surely
was in order to
stop the
openings
through which
winds and other
creatures of
nature arrives.
It was an act of
civilization.
Man rules
civilization and
nature (woman)
must be curbed.
Yet, at autumn
equinox she will
be (at the)
back.