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TRANSLATIONS
The god with angry eyes (mata riri) could have his name from a
wordplay with Matariki (the Pleidades), I think:
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'Atua Mata Riri ki 'ai ki roto ki 'a Taporō:
ka pū te poporo. |
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God with angry eye by lying with
Sweet Lime made the poporo plant. |
The Pleiades mark the beginning of summer, and the god with angry eye(s)
could be the high summer blazing sun. Nothing says mata in Mata
Riri must be plural. Two 'eyes' at 'noon' is just an indication of the
two 'years' of the past (left) respectively the future (right)
Sweet Lime is a yellow citrus fruit, more in the same category as the sun
than the shaddock; a most curious name - I associate it with haddock,
another word without any explanation (according to English Etymology).
Captain Shaddock, the Commander of an East-India Ship, gave his name to the
fruit, but a name must be pursued to a full explanation.
The Tahitian name Taporō for
Sweet Lime could be ta-poro, in which case both ta and poro
indicate a cutting, chopping down movement. Ta as in tattoo and
Tavake means dark, while poro adds a flavour of a dry season when
leaves are falling. Together it means autumn:
| Poro
To chip (vt), to nick, to notch; chips, nicks,
dents, splits, gaps, breaks; hoe poro, broken knife, with
nicks; poroporo, blunt; poroporo hata, nicks or
notches on the edge of something. Vanaga.
To notch. PS Sa.: polo, to cut up, to
carve. Porohata, to sink into ruin, to crumble;
poroieko, to slip, to slide. Churchill.
Pau.: Poro, to proclaim, to call by
name. Mgv.: poro, to call, to name. Ta.: poro, to
cry, to proclaim. Churchill.
Mgv.: Pororo, the July season when the
leaves fall. Mq.: pororo, dry, arid. Sa.: palolo-mua,
July. Ma.: paroro, cloudy weather. Churchill. |
The high summer (mata riri) mates with autumn and the result could be
the late in the year dark poporo berries - not the plant. Or with
such a great step as a quarter from midsummer to autumn the offspring should
come as a poporo plant in midwinter.
Other ways of reading Taporō is
tapo-ro or ta-po-ro. I will not investigate them, not now
anyhow.
Instead we must go on with the glyph dictionary. Though I just remember
(from somewhere in Barthel's writings) tapairu (queen) which can be
played with by saying taporo instead (in the proper season).
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3.
Then there is the question about the 'roof' and the
little 'eye':
The 'roof' probably
illustrates how in the middle of the day (or other solar period,
e.g. the year) the intensity of the sun is at its greatest, at maximum.
The same sign is used for the top of the head in tagata:
We say sun 'beams' because once we had a world
view similar to that of the Polynesians. With 'beams' are meant
wooden posts, such as are used to build a house. In the warm climate
of Polynesia the standing beams support the roof and often leaves
the spaces between them open to let in the breeze.
The sun beams come down from above and the sky will naturally be
imagined as a kind of high roof. In other words, hau tea
may be a stylized picture of a
house.
Sun (and the moon and other 'planets' too) move
against the background of the stars which were fixed on the 'roof'
of the sky (the firmanent). The locations changed over the cycle of
movement and it was customary to name the locations and to call them
'houses' (or 'mansions'). For instance was Leo considered to be the
House of the Sun:
"The Egyptian king Necepsos, and his
philosopher Petosiris, taught that at the Creation the sun
rose here [in Leo] near Denebola; and hence Leo was Domicilium
Solis, the emblem of fire and heat, and, in astrology, the House
of the Sun, governing the human heart ..." (Allen)
It is probable that the Easter Islanders shared the idea of
'residences' which sun, moon and stars frequented while they
wandered across the sky. An example may be the month Ko Koró,
at which time 'new houses are occupied':
... Because of the increasing heat, work ceases in the fields. Time
for fishing, recreation, and festivities. The new houses are
occupied (reason for the festivities). Like the previous month, a
good time for surfing (ngaru) on the beach of Hangaroa O
Tai ... |
At the creation sun rose in Leo and it was high summer. Can a tradition of
creation at high summer have been continued all the way to Easter Island,
motivating Atua Mata Riri as the beginning?
To 'occupy a new house' is like taking a new wife. A good month for
'surfing' on the beach of Hangaroa O Tai. Here we have the main town
of Easter Island, located on the west coast, outside the regular calendar
coasts (south and north). The west coast is the site of the 'black cloth',
where recirculation is accomplished.
The last of the kuhane stations in G is One Tea, a sandy beach
at the opposite side of the island, where the moon queen dies. Then comes
high summer (Poike) - where sun takes a new wife?
Atua Mata Riri should be at Poike. He should have his
'residence' there. But in hau tea the little 'eye' is not at the apex
but at right:
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4.
The little 'eye' is normally located at right in hau
tea:
Presumably the little 'eye' normally symbolizes sun, which south of
the equator will be seen rising at right at the eastern horizon and
move towards left and reach a maximum at noon. Then follows the
decline towards left and the western horizon.
The pupil of the sun 'eye' cannot be drawn in
rongorongo, because only the border line is permitted.
Exceptions to this rule indicates how another element (sign) has
been inserted between the sign and the viewer. The pupil is part of
the eye, and therefore it cannot be drawn (otherwise than as a pupil
without the rest of the eye).
Focus is foremost on east, the place of birth of all heavenly bodies
except the moon moving 'withershins' from west to east.
The little 'eye' is located above the vertical line in the 'front'
of the glyph, the line which may be indicating the eastern
horizon in
the morning. The horizon in the west may similarly be represented by
the vertical line at left.
The central, noon, vertical line is a separate unit, not connected
with the rest of hau tea. Which makes sense, because at noon
sun is not at any horizon. The vertical line is not a real line,
just an imaginary one. |
The vertical line, separate - another entity, occurs also at noon:
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Ha6-1 |
Ha6-2 |
Ha6-3 |
Ha6-4 |
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Ha6-5 |
Ha6-6 |
Ha6-7 |
Ha6-8 |
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5.
The 'residences' of Hotua Matua, the sun king on
Easter Island (even if he was a real historical person his
characteristics and deeds became like that of the sun, hiding his
true person), presumably were connected with his wife, queen
Vakai, who over time became a moon queen. Sun forms a pair with
the moon.
Ships are female according to ancient tradition, and so are houses, I
suggest. Vakai is a name which begins with vaka =
canoe. An instructive stone sculpture (designed to be a myth map) has a
hare paega on the back of what probably is sun as a fish:
The front of the fish is the male sun, while the back is its female
part. Gods can be both male and female and change sex according to
the location in the cycle.
Working with cloth and making white tapa was the business of
women, and one of them, Hina, was dispatched of to the moon because
she disturbed the gods by her beating tapa. Ships, houses, the back side, darkness,
moon, birth, death - and cloth were female. The hau tea glyph
must therefore be
female - given the name of the glyph. Tea means
white and the moon is white. |
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