TRANSLATIONS

TRANSLATIONS

The glyph dictionary:

Let us now investigate where ragi glyphs appear in the calendars looked at so far. Neither in the calendars for the week (in H and P) nor in the Mamari moon calendar are there any ragi glyphs. In the Keiti calendar for the year, though, we find four instances, in the 1st, 4th, 6th, and 22nd periods.

Eb1-38 is open at the bottom, indicating a state of 'death' (whatever swallowed will fall right through):

1st period
	Eb1-37	Eb1-38	Eb1-39	Eb1-40	Eb1-41	Eb1-42	Eb2-1

	Eb2-2	Eb2-3	Eb2-4	Eb2-5	Eb2-6	Eb2-7

	Eb2-8	Eb2-9	Eb2-10	Eb2-11	Eb2-12	Eb2-13	Eb2-14

E.g. Eb1-40 confirms the interpretation. Henua ora glyphs are located at the end of cycles and means 'return to mother', the universal 'recycling station'. The old year is only a 'spirit' and the first part of the 1st period describes the end of the previous year.

The significance of non-closed glyph perimeters was described at niu (and illustrated with the Entrail Snatcher):

... Rongorongo glyphs are created according to a system where only contours are to be drawn. The single contour line as a rule is closed, it is in principle a deformed circle which has neither beginning nor end.

Presumably the origin of the system is the Cat's Cradle patterns (kaikai), where a string without ends is the instrument for exhibiting the moving figures.

When a glyph is 'open', i.e. the 'string' has ends (the contour line is broken), the glyph carries a message: 'not of this world' ('supernatural') ...

The description of henua ora as the universal 'recycling station' has not been mentioned in the glyph dictionary earlier. Yet, the concept has been described:

... Henua ora is the final destination. In the frame of reference in form of a canoe voyage it is the ultimate harbour which governs the journey. In the frame of reference in form of a journey of life it means death, where 'earth' (mother nature) is the receptacle

Movement is cyclical:

"... 'The rays drink up the little waters of the earth, the shallow pools, making them rise, and then descend again in rain.' Then, leaving aside the question of water, he summed up his argument: 'To draw up and then return what one had drawn - that is the life of the world' ..." (Ogotemmêli)

Henua ora is designed to be a kind of cup (receptacle) ...

In Eb1-42 we maybe can read the 'weeping' from the 'eye of the sun' at right (the 'male eye'), generating offspring, one for each 'year'. The two old 'years' ('eyes') are finished in Eb2-1 (together with the 4 quarters, one feather for each).


Eb1-42	Eb2-1