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TRANSLATIONS
I decided to investigate whether really va'e was a good label for GD29 or not. The criterion is established, viz. the correlation between Metoro's word and the glyphs which I have sorted as GD29 must be high. The result was fairly reassuring, 33 of the va'e coincide with GD29 glyphs and the total number of va'e are 49. Word → glyph: 33 / 49 = 67 % We can compare with the earlier results:
There are 16 (= 49 - 33) va'e said by Metoro at non-GD29 glyphs:
As can be seen, I have not counted the negative form of va'e - va'e kore ('without legs'). 19 - 3 = 16.
Furthermore, I have not even listed cases with vaero (long 'tail feather'), although the program found them when I asked for a search based on 'vae'.
The exercise proved to be illuminating for the process of securing the proper label for a GD. In retrospect I think I could have identified Ca12-24 as a case of GD29. Not only is the shape rather clear, but also 12-24 ought to have rang a bell: Christmas Eve, i.e. a time of birth. Metoro's te vae paupau makes me wonder:
Evidently paupau means 'curved'. But va'e pau is 'clubfoot' and in Saturday (also representing the darkest part of a period) we saw a character with what may be a clubfoot, Hb9-52 resp. Pb10-56:
As both calendars (H and P) include this sign it probably is a necessary ingredient for Saturday. Early I wrote as a comment to Pb10-56:
The 8 glyphs referred to are:
In Ca7-25 I this time observe the sign in form of a 'knee' pointing towards left. The moon behaves inversely compared to the sun. A leftwards pointing 'elbow' means before 'midsummer', while here leftwards seems to mean after full moon (at Ca7-24). Furthermore, 7-24 reminds us about midsummer. If the Easter Islanders counted months as we do, then they would have started with July (not January) because that is the month following after solstice. The 'symbolic death' hyperlink above (erased here though) leads to the description in Islands of History about the kava ceremony with the Stranger King meeting a symbolic death before his ascendancy to become king over the land: ... the second cup the chief is alone accorded, the cup of fresh water. The god is immediately revived, brought again to life - in a transformed state ... ... Thai people thank the Water Goddess at their Loy Krathong-feast .. People go down to the sea and put afloat a little boat made of banana leaves. Inside there is a little lighted candle ... The pieces of the immense jigsaw puzzle are forming figures. Each piece reflects the whole. I imagine allusions to vaero in Metoro's comments at Ab2-15, and at Aa5-33--34:
In Ab2-15 the strange 'hooks' towards right maybe are meant to show some kind of 'legs', while the appendages hanging down at right in Aa5-33--34 have earlier made me classify the glyphs not only as henua (GD37) but also as vaero (GD78):
At Aa5-33 Metoro said ki te henua vae rorua and at Aa5-34 i te henua - ki to vae rua, i.e. respectively vae rorua and vae rua. At Ab2-15 he said te tagata vae rua moho. The rua part means '2' (as in takurua) and the bottom part of GD78 possibly is meant to express that concept.
However, rua also means 'hole', possibly indicating the hole through which sun temporarily disappears ('dies'), to be reborn again through a similar hole in the east; sun is 'swallowed' by the earth to be reborn at the other end. The kava ceremony may be a 'recreation' of sympathetic magic, similar to the Swedish custom of devouring yellow round pancakes for dinner on Thursdays. The vaero feathers are tail feathers, useful for indicating the 'end of fire'. Tail feathers as a rule are long (roa), and therefore - I guess - Metoro formulated it at Aa5-33 as vae rorua. His vae rorua then also becomes a wordplay: vaero rua. We must here note another wordplay, in vaero ura, lobster's antenna. The antenna is the opposite of a tail and ura is in a way the opposite to rua. Sun inside the 'pit' (rua) explains why it is so dark. When sun comes out of the pit in the east darkness disappears (also into a pit?). Instead of darkness we now have tapa mea ('red cloth'). For the red colour generated by the sun and other fires the word ura sometimes may be more appropriate (than mea in tapa mea):
The flamy (ûra) red (úraúra) crayfish (ura) - as he appears after having been cooked properly - probably was used as a symbol for how sun returned after the 'flood'. Here we certainly remember the curious story about Tangaroa: ... Tangaroa came to Easter Island in the form of a seal with a human face and voice. The seal was killed but, though baked for the necessary time in an earth oven, the seal refused to cook. Hence the people inferred that Tangaroa must have been a chief of power ... ... the individuals who are 'cooked' are those deeply involved in a physiological process: the newborn child, the woman who has just given birth, or the pubescent girl ... The antenna of the crayfish (vaero ura) reminds us about how Oroi killed the six youngsters: ... there were six children lying with their faces down (i.e., on their stomachs); six youths were warming themselves in the sun after a lot of diving. Rovi asked, 'Will you get up, fellows?' But not one arose, not one got up. He went and (wanted to) wake them up, when he suddenly saw that the six children had been killed. Rovi looked closely (to see) how they had died. Suddenly he saw that the end of the intestine was protruding from the rectum and was actually hanging out. He loudly screamed the following toward the land: 'Hahaki A Roro and his (brothers) Manu Kena A Roro, Te Paripari A Roro, Kai Tanoa A Roro, Eve Pipiro I Te Hiku Kio A Roro, and Aro Nehehehe O Roro, are corpses. They have been killed by having their intestines torn out, you (people) on land!' ... ... King Hotu arrived and asked, 'How were these young men killed?' The voices of the protective spirits (atua akuaku) of Hotu, namely Kuihi and Kuaha, replied, 'Oroi introduced the long, sharp antennae of the spiny lobster (vaero ura) (into the orifice) and then pulled out the intestines completely and left them hanging (out). This is how the victims (ika) were killed.' ... Oroi is the dark opponent of Hotu Matua: ... Oroi's posture on Easter Island is marked by secrecy and treachery. None of the sources describes him as a leader of warriors, and they all agree that his victims were defenseless children. Oroi lives in hiding and attacks only from behind. His conduct is characterized by the cruelty and treachery of a murderer. The method of killing he used, that of tearing out the intestines, is similar to the MQS. practice of kopu hiki, the 'pulling out of the entrails of living victims by inserting in the orifice of the anus sticks of thorny kenae (flamboyant)' ... which was used to cruelly torture and kill the victims of blood feuds. This ethnographic parallel to the practices of the Marquesans is remarkable and is further emphasized by the fact that in the Marquesas, as well as on Easter Island, victims were killed by being burnt alive (MQS. heaka tutu pohue una vs. RAP. tutu ora, ME:84). Oroi chooses neither the open fight nor the weapons of the honest warrior - the war club for close combat and the lance to fight from a distance. Instead, he sets a trap and intends to finish his assault with a thrust of a needle-sharp bone dagger ... The six youngsters lying 'with their faces down' after 'a lot of diving' undoubtedly are located at the chaotic 'dark' extra days beyond those 360 days when sun rules. That explains how Oroi could kill them. 365 - 360 = 5, but then we need another day for the extra hours from 365 to ca 365.25. The pattern is similar to how the turtle killed one of the 6 (viz. Kuukuu) in another tale. The turtle and Oroi are similar. Furthermore these two are similar to Tangaroa, because he refused to be cooked properly. As a kind of confirmation we also can read that Oroi refused to be cooked properly too: "When the corpse of Oroi was put in the earth oven to cook, it came to life again. So they had to take him over to the other side of the island to where the ahu is called Oroi, and there he cooked quite satisfactorily, and they ate him. (RM:279)" (Barthel 2) By way of Wikipedia I learn that the crayfish is a species which is red already before cooking:
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