TRANSLATIONS

TRANSLATIONS

I have decided to add some explanations at the end of the page and a link to a new page with further explanations:

Another reversed hau tea is located at the beginning of the preceding glyph line, and it is drawn exactly as in Gb5-1:

		32
Gb3-30	Gb4-1		Gb4-33	Gb5-1
320	321		354	355

Here 320 = 10 * 32, where 32 probably alludes to the 5th term in the 'growth series': 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 ... If so, then it probably means that at Gb3-30 the season of growth is ending, which also a pau sign at bottom right indicates.

A new (black) season without growth (which needs sun light) evidently begins with Gb4-1. If we add the glyphs from Gb4-1 up to and including Ga4-2 we reach 236 = 8 * 29.5:

		149			83
Gb3-30	Gb4-1		Gb8-30	Ga1-1		Ga4-2
320	1		151	152		236

A takaure season (winter) with sun 'absent', a dark season, is beginning with Gb4-1 and ending with Ga4-2.

The calendar is 16 * 29.5 = 472 glyphs long (1 more than the number of glyphs on the tablet) and half the calendar describes when sun is 'absent', half when sun is 'present'.

The end of growth (Gb3-30) comes before the reversal of light at Hatinga Te Kohe (Gb5-1) and in between is Akahanga located, where the king is buried. The reversal of light does not indicate the death of the king but the succession of his rule by the queen, the moon. The events are connected, though, and the chain of events extends both backwards and forwards.

A normal reversal (as in Gb4-1) does not need a preceding normally oriented glyph (as in Gb4-33--34). Partly the reason for the two glyphs at Hatinga Te Kohe may be to indicate the presence of the moon (which has 2 'faces'). Partly the reason may be to indicate the moon taking over the rule from the sun (shown by Gb4-33).

The kuhane (the moon) was not 'careless' but deliberate, I think:

... The dream soul went on. She was careless (?) and broke the kohe plant with her feet. She named the place 'Hatinga Te Koe A Hau Maka O Hiva'...

Barthel has put a question mark here. The original (E:8):

"... reva a hau maka.o hiva.he oho hokoou te kuhane he tuu ki akahanga he nape i te ingoa ko akahanga.a hau maka.o hiva.he oho hokoou te kuhane he ata pe hiva he hati te kohe i te vae ha nape i te ingoa ko hatinga te kohe.a hau maka. o hiva ..."

I think the meaning of he ata pe hiva is rather something like 'she made a shadow of the sun rule' (which went to Hiva). The little word pe presumably alludes to Te Pei, the station where 'a.m.' sun 'falls on his face'.

Ata, âta

Ata 1. Dawn, first light before sunrise; ku-hamu-á te ata , dawn has broken; ku-tehe-á te ata, it's already dawn (lit.: the lights have flown). 2. Particle inserted between the imperative prefix ka and the verb to signify 'well, carefully, intelligently': ka-ata-hakarivariva, prepare it well. Between the prefix e and kahara it expresses 'to make sure that, to take good care that...' : e-ata-kahara koe o oona, be careful not to get dirty; e-ata-kahara koe o kori te moa o te tahi pa, be sure not to steal chickens of another property. 3. More: iti, small; ata iti, smaller; he-ata-ata iti-iti ró, the smallest of all. Vanaga.

Âta 1. Shadow: he-veveri te poki, ana tikea toona âta, the child is frightened at seeing his shadow; person's reflection (in mirror, in water): he âta oou-á, it's your own reflection. 2. To be frightened by a shadow: he-âta te îka, the fish are frightened (and they flee) by people's shadows. Vanaga.

1. Image, picture, portrait, design; to draw, to paint (shadow sense). P Mgv: ata, image, likeness, portrait, shadow of a human being, form, shape, appearance, imprint, impression. Mq.: ata, image, statue, portrait, shadow, surface; to design, to mark. Ta.: ata, shade, shadow appearance, form, representation of an object, cloud, cloudy. 2. Transparency, end of day, sunset (bright sense); e ata, red clouds; ku ata, transparent; ata mea, ata tea, ata tehe, dawn, daybreak, sunrise; ataata, end of day, sunset. P Mgv.: ata, morning or evening twilight, daybreak, dawn; ata haihai, evening twilight, a beautiful sunset; ataiai, twilight, clouds red with the sunset; atakurakura, a beautiful sunrise or sunset; atareureu, dawn, the first peep of day, morning twilight. Mq.: ata, to appear, to rise, to shine (of stars); ata uá, morning twilight; ataata, diaphanous, transparent. Ta.: ata, twilight. 3. A designation of space; ata hakahohonu, abyss; ata hakaneke mai, nearby, close at hand; ata tapa, lateral, marginal. 4 ? Ata kimikimi, to inquire; ata puo, to hill a plant; ata ui, to examine, to taste. Churchill.

Atahenua (ata 3 - henua 1), landscape, countryside. Atakai: 1. Generous, hospitable, beneficent, indulgent, liberal, obliging; prodigality, indulgence; rima atakai, benevolent, generous, open-handed; gift, liberality. 2. Calm, unperturbed, grateful. Churchill.

Ata-ta T, evening (? ataata). Atatehe (ata 2 - tehe 1), dawn; popohaga atatehe, morning, early in the morning. Churchill.

The bamboo needed to be broken in order to let out the female (subdued as long as the male rules):

... Several Asian cultures, including that of the Andaman Islands, believe that humanity emerged from a bamboo stem. In the Philippine creation myth, legend tells that the first man and the first woman were split open from a bamboo stem that emerged on an island created after the battle of the elemental forces (Sky and Ocean).

In Malaysian legends a similar story includes a man who dreams of a beautiful woman while sleeping under a bamboo plant; he wakes up and breaks the bamboo stem, discovering the woman inside.

The Japanese folktale 'Tale of the Bamboo Cutter' (Taketori Monogatari) tells of a princess from the Moon emerging from a shining bamboo section. Hawaiian bamboo ('ohe) is a kinolau or body form of the Polynesian creator god Kane.

An ancient Vietnamese legend tells of a poor, young farmer who fell in love with his landlord's beautiful daughter. The farmer asked the landlord for his daughter's hand in marriage, but the proud landlord would not allow her to be bound in marriage to a poor farmer. The landlord decided to foil the marriage with an impossible deal; the farmer must bring him a 'bamboo tree of one-hundred sections'. The benevolent god Bụt appeared to the farmer and told him that such a tree could be made from one-hundred sections from several different trees. Bụt gave the him four magic words to attach the many sections of bamboo: 'Khắc nhập, khắc xuất', which means 'put in immediately, take out immediately'. The triumphant farmer returned to the landlord and demanded his daughter. The story ends with the happy marriage of the farmer and the landlord's daughter ...

The link chain of events leads to this page:

Describing events which are connected as the links in a chain is not easy when the chain has no end - you can begin anywhere. (How easily our language accepts the end of a chain to mean the beginning of the chain.) The following is my preliminary and imaginative reconstruction of the chain (although based on too limited knowledge):

Hatinga Te Kohe probably means the rule of the sun is broken, i.e. it is the moon queen who has broken his rule. But the sun is already dead and buried in the earth, at Akahanga:

		28
Akahanga			*Hatinga Te Kohe*

Moon is taking command by acting at Hatinga Te Kohe, nobody will rule unless she does. At the end of glyph line Gb3 growth has reached to its limit (pau), but sun died already before that. Evidently it takes some time from the death of sun until the effects of his healthy rays have abated:

Moving backwards we will find the first signs of what will happen already at midsummer, with the downturn at Te Pei. From there his strength is declining.

	28
Te Pei		*Te Pou*

Indeed, some say sun vanished at the apex of midsummer - it is no longer the real sun who is shining in the sky. Te Pou is the last of the kuhane stations with a definite article, and presumably it means the soul of the sun has risen into the night sky to become the magnificent Te Pou. Sirius is probably not visible until Te Pou.

His earthly stand-in, the king of the island, rules from midsummer, as if he was the sun. Evidently he is not without success, because growth continues. Then he makes a fatal move, he drinks water at Hua Reva - and everybody understand he is just a mortal (otherwise he should have avoided the sweet water - which quenches fire). From that time he is doomed:

He is no longer an image of the sun, he is only a sack filled with fluid, like all of us.