TRANSLATIONS

TRANSLATIONS

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4. The sky is formed like a mountain with a peak. This mountain is invisible for us, as if it was made by glass. Though in GD22 it is made visible, formed like the silhouette of a tent. The 'tent' may also be regarded as the top of a tree, presumably the cosmic tree which is holding the sky up in its place so it won't fall down on us. Another 'reading' is that this 'tree' is a (male) 'spear'. In Makemson we find a colourful Polynesian description of the sky mountain and its inhabitants:

"Originally the highly born family of the Sun, Moon, and stars dwelt in a cave on the summit of Maunga-nui, Great Mountain, in the ancient homeland. They were not at all comfortable in their gloomy home for they could not see distinctly and their eyes watered constantly.

After the Sky-father had been elevated to his present eminence Tane decided that the celestial family would be happier in the sky, where they would serve the double purpose of ornamenting the naked body of Rangi and giving light to the Earth-mother. Since Papa had already been turned with her face toward the Underworld it is difficult to see how she would benefit by the illumination.

Tane requested his brother Kewa to go to Maunga-nui and fetch the Sun, Moon, and stars. Kewa inquired, 'Who above on Maunga-nui is in charge of that family?' Tane replied: 'They are with Whiro-taringa-waru, Tongatonga (Deep Darkness; Milky Way), Tawhiri-rangi (Sky-sweep; God of Winds) and Te Ikaroa (Long Fish; part of the Milky Way, probably the dark rift), suspended within the house called Rangi-tukia (Occupied Sky).'

When Kewa arrived at the base of Great Mountain he shouted to Tongatonga: 'The family of gods have finally decided that the children in your charge are to be taken hence and affixed to the front of Rangi-nui of Tamaku.' Tamaku, 'smoothed off', was the name of the second heaven from the bottom.

Since the guardians of the high-born children had also been assigned the arduous task of procuring food for their charges they made not the slightest objection to relinquishing them to Kewa. Kewa and Tongatonga ascended the mountain and looking down from its great height saw the children frolicking gaily on the sands of Te Rehu-roa, the Long Mist. When summoned to the summit they obeyed immediately. Their mode of progression was extremely odd, for they were round like an eye-ball and climbed the mountain by rolling over and over, as they had no legs. When they reached the courtyard called Sky-mat they disappeared quite docilely into their house.

Then all the guardians procured baskets in which to transport the family. There was the basket of the Sun, Chief of the sky; the basket of the Moon, the Year-builder; the basket of Autahi, Canopus, and the younger stars, and the basket of Wide Space for the multitude of small star children. The tiny stars were placed in the canoe Uruao, Cloud-piercer, which can be seen in the sky (Tail of the Scorpion), and the canoe was given into the charge of Tama-rereti, Swift-flying Son, as its navigator. He was enjoined to tend carefully the little star children lest they be jostled about by their elder brothers and some of them fall to earth.

The whole celestial family was thus conveyed to the sky to be distributed artistically about on the surface of Rangi the Sky-father. Provision had to be made for the Sun, Moon, and planets to travel about on their ancestor, so Rongo-from-the-side-of-heaven and Rongo-of-the-great-side were sent aloft by Tane to lay out the ara matua, 'parent path', and its twelve divisions, in order that all the heavenly bodies might travel decorously without colliding with one another."

The gods in Polynesia were bird-like beings, creatures of the sky. In Haida Gwaii the gods were creatures of the sea:

"Like the blankets who can speak to one another, the long eyes of the old god on the seafloor startle a few visitors in museums around the world. Haida sculpture, by convention, make the heads impossibly large for the bodies of their figures, and the eyes impossibly large for the heads, but these exaggerated eyes are of many different kinds.

The eyes of amphibians and fish, for instance, are usually represented as circular, the eyes of sharks as vertically elliptical, and the eyes of mammals and birds as ovoid.

But throughout the Northwest Coast, elongated eyes are a distinguishing mark of the god of wealth, who lives in a house on the floor of the sea, surrounded by seals.

The usual Haida name for this spirit-being is Tangghwan Llaana, or Sea Dweller. His Tlingit name is Gunaakadeit (a word whose etymology still stumps me). In Tsimshian he is Nagunaks, which simply means 'located in the water'.

A two-dimensional, frontal view of his face appears on the sides of countless Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian storage chests. In these representations, the eyes are generally stretched sideways and equipped with double pupils. Each eye becomes a face within a face. In three-dimensional representations, the eyes more often protrude.

The Nuuchahnulth trader and hunter Saayaacchapis put it this way to Edward Sapir in 1913: A'iihh'atma qasii hhawwihlmis'i ... Cchushaama yaaqwihl'itq cchusha: 'Wealth has big eyes ... He is wary of those he suspects.'

Common though he is on Haida storage boxes, this god of wealth is rare on Haida poles. Nevertheless, he appeared in a prominent form on three of the two dozen housepoles standing in Skaay's village, Ttanu, in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Here his eyes are elongated vertically, in keeping with the form of the pole itself. They reach across his cheeks and well beyond his chin. In the end of each such elongated eye, where the pupil ought to be, there is not just a face but a complete small creature, like a not-quite-human child.

... People unfamiliar with Haida tradition have often misunderstood this figure as 'the weeping woman of Ttanu', but early Haida interpretations are unanimous in regarding it as the image of a submarine old man." (Sharp as a Knife)

The 'Weeping God' was clearly not only a person in pre-Inca Peru and on Easter Island but also on the Northwest Coast.

If he is not weeping on the Northwest Coast, then he probably is not weeping on Easter Island or in Peru either. The not-quite-human 'tear' presumably is the 'tadpole' of next generation.

If space had allowed, his eyes maybe would have been like those on the sides of the boxes: '... A two-dimensional, frontal view of his face appears on the sides of countless Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian storage chests. In these representations, the eyes are generally stretched sideways and equipped with double pupils. Each eye becomes a face within a face. In three-dimensional representations, the eyes more often protrude ...'

The storage chests contain riches, which connects to ragi. Maybe the meaning of ragi primarily is 'riches', rather than sky.

Twin pupils side by side we have not seen before, yet the right version from Orongo above has double pupils, one inside the other. The elongated eye with a pupil in form of a 'not-quite-human child' makes one think about the double pupil words in the English language:

pupil¹ ... orphan who is minor and hence a ward ... one under instruction ... L. pūpillus, -illa orphan, ward ... of pūpus boy, pūpa girl ...

pupil² ... circular opening in the iris of the eye ... L. pūpilla ... secondary dim. of pūpa, girl, doll, pupil of the eye ... The application of the L. words to the pupil of the eye is based on, or parallel to, that of Gr. kórē maiden, girl, doll, pupil (the allusion being to the tiny images of persons and things that may be seen therein ... (English Etymology)

The sun in Eastern Polynesia delivers warmth, light and progeny, which as if by magic emerges through the eye of the sun. Likewise rain must come through some opening in the eye - of the weeping god.

The pupil is dark and the surrounding iris lighter in colour. In the dark new life is generated - 9, 19 and 29.