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8 as a sum convinced me that the strange glyph Ab7-2:

was one in a group of 13 glyphs which I have classified as GD41 (hau tea) although that is far from obvious. This kind of 'proof' is of course weak. We tend to rely more heavily on large numbers, e.g. 314, as evidence. Small numbers often appear by random processes in nature and cannot be evidence.

In 'primitive' (i.e. non-civilized) cultures small numbers carried more weight and we therefore should not disregard the evidence from small numbers. Many small numbers together constitute evidence.

Number 8 was important:

'... The idea of groups of seven, which are surpassed by an eight element, seems to belong to the cosmology of Asian high cultures ...' (Barthel 2)

Also in the Dogon (West Africa) culture number 8 was connected with the whole cosmos:

"Ogotemmêli had his own ideas about calculation. The Dogon in fact did use the decimal system, because from the beginning they had counted on their fingers, but the basis of their reckoning had been the number eight and this number recurred in what they called in French la centaine, which for them meant eighty. Eighty was the limit of reckoning, after which a new series began. Nowadays there could be ten such series, so that the European 1,000 corresponded to the Dogon 800.

But Ogotemmêli believed that in the beginning men counted by eights - the number of cowries on each hand, that they had used their ten fingers to arrive at eighty, but that the number eight appeared again in order to produce 640 (8 x 10 x 8). 'Six hundred and forty', he said, 'is the end of the reckoning.' According to him, 640 covenant-stones had been thrown up by the seventh Nummo to make the outline in the grave of Lébé.

So the cowries that the father of the first twins found in the ground when harvesting millet after the second sowing, were a foreshadowing of commerce. But in the very earliest days cowries were not the medium of exchange; on the contrary men began by bartering strips of cloth for animals or objects.

Cloth was their money. The unit was a span-long strip twice eighty threads wide. A sheep was worth eight cubits of three handsbreadths each; a small measure of millet was worth one cubit. Later the value of things was fixed in cowries by the seventh Nummo, the master of Speech; a fowl was worth three times eighty cowries, a goat or a sheep three times 800 cowries, an ass forty times 800, a horse eighty times 800, an ox a hundred and twenty times 800." (Ogotemmêli)

Number is not enough, though, as a foundation for translating the rongorongo texts. Number is inextricably connected with structure and meaning. To abstract the numbers is to go astray.

Evidently the creator of the Tahua text had a system where number played an important function. What needs to be investigated is whether these numbers were used as a separate 'game' to adorn the text or whether the numbers were used as signs showing the meaning of text sequences.

A middle (and more probable) alternative is also possible: that the creator of the text tried to harmonize the text with the rest of the cosmos. If the text describes the cosmos, then the numbers connected with the different aspects of the cosmos would appear in the pictures of the cosmos.

The task at hand then should be to compare the solar and lunar 'years' with the structure and numbers in the Tahua text. In Barthel 2 we found the 12-month solar year divided into three parts, which I have coloured in the table:

Possibly these 12 months are those which appear at the beginning of the Tahua text, though with the 'colours' distributed somewhat differently:

Of central importance is the turnover point at midsummer. Aa1-1 illustrates one shape, ) , and Aa1-2 the opposite shape, ( , shapes which return in the 'red' quartet respectively in Tehetu'upu and Tarahau. The 'black' third of the year has no similar shape because you need light to see.

The simple shapes of Aa1-1--2, i.e.  ) and ( , later in the year evolve into shapes with 'elbows' / 'knees' directed outwards from the center, oriented left respectively right.

"During his descent the ancestor still possessed the quality of a water spirit, and his body, though preserving its human appearance, owing to its being that of a regenerated man, was equipped with four flexible limbs like serpents after the pattern of the arms of the Great Nummo.

The ground was rapidly approaching. The ancestor was still standing, his arms in front of him and the hammer and anvil hanging across his limbs. The shock of his final impact on the earth when he came to the end of the rainbow, scattered in a cloud of dust the animals, vegetables and men disposed on the steps.

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.' (Makemson)

When calm was restored, the smith was still on the roof, standing erect facing towards the north, his tools still in the same position. But in the shock of landing the hammer and the anvil had broken his arms and legs at the level of elbows and knees, which he did not have before. He thus acquired the joints proper to the new human form, which was to spread over the earth and to devote itself to toil." (Ogotemmêli)

In the center of side a we ought to find the turnover point from ) to ( . These shapes probably mean 'increasing (light)' respectively 'decreasing (light)'. If light increases, then darkness decreases and vice versa. Therefore I find it interesting that the ihe tau variants 2 and 3 seem to incorporate ) and ( :

It is the light illuminating ihe tau we see, not the darkness. Another reflection (!) then becomes that GD45 (ihe tau - broken canoe, dead chief, domain of the dead) may depict one half of the moon sickle, meaning (the end of?) a fortnight.

26 (= 10 + 10 + 6) non-complex ihe tau appeared on side a (one of which floated over the edge onto side b, Ab1-10).

26 * 14 = 364 = 360 + 4. In a solar 360 day year there is room only for 25 fortnights (350 days). 360 - 350 = 10, which may explain the location (no. 10) on side b of the glyph for the last fortnight.

The turnover between variant 2 and 3 (of GD45) must be located between Aa6-41 and Aa7-19 and sure enough we there find the unique Aa6-55: 

Aa6-55 is a compound between GD45 and GD88, that we can conclude from the parallel passage in Ra3-101 -- 106: