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TRANSLATIONS
A stoneage people should care about stones and I cannot imagine that their great constructions were arbitrary. Therefore I toy with the idea that the 3 (or 4?) uprights in Ahu Te Peu represent the 3 'wives of the sun':
I.e. the pattern 3 + 1 is originating from the 9 months with 'present sun' + the 3 months with 'absent sun', maybe also reflected in such glyph sequences as:
Black here characterizes the 'dead' status of the 3 seasons which during 'summer' are 'red', while red illustrates the hope for a good new beginning, cfr Pure Va:
Black and red are 'dead' respecively 'full of life' in this table too. The picture of Ahu Te Peu is from Métraux: "... seaward wall of Ahu-te-peu, formed of large, upright slabs of lava rock, chinked with smaller rocks, and upper horizontal courses made of flat blocks of basalt, among which are some slabs from house foundations ..." We have met Te Peu earlier: ... The dream soul turned around and hurried back to Hiva, to its (Home)land, to Maori. She slipped into the (sleeping) body of Hau Maka, and the body of Hau Maka awakened. He arouse and said full of amazement 'Ah' and thought about the dream ... The story then continues with how Hau Maka told his brother Hua Tava about the dream and how also the king (Hotu Matua) was informed, and that the king then decided to make an expedition to the island with the explorers being the two sons of Hau Maka and the five sons of Hua Tava. For the present purposes that part of the story is not necessary. Hua Tava should be red in contrast to Hau Maka, maybe. Haumea and Makemake together equals (I guess) Haumaka, and Makemake is the white skull of death with empty black eye-sockets, while hau is the (white?) string around. Hua in huatava must be the 'fruit', while tava has many meanings:
Given that we think in terms of birds, tavake should be the meaning (in hua-tava) and we remember the 16 birds:
There could be a structure with tava-ke, tuvi and tavi, yet another triplet. Where is the 4th odd bird? Ta-iko? If so, the we would rather have: Ta-vake, ta-iko, tavi with the 4th odd bird being tuvi. I think that must be correct, because ta is action downwards (also with allusions to tattoo - black):
The left 8 maybe represent the 1st half of the year, the 'black' birds, and the right 8 the 2nd half of the year, the 'red' birds. Yet, curiously the 2nd half of the year is the season of ta (black tattoo marks, downward motion, cutting the fruits). Vake (in ta-vake) is a word I cannot find in my dictionary, neither can I find it in Vanaga nor in Churchill's list of Rapanui words. However, I have a suspicion that vake is the ancient word behind va'e, because I found relevant meanings in Churchill's list over the Tahitian language, viz.: vae = (side) timbers of a boat, to divide:
I mean: ta-vake is expressing the black (etc) - ta - season on the other side (taha) of midsummer, at which point (knee, vake) the division - vake - is located. ... While the dream soul seems to be conducting an inventory of two-thirds of the shoreline, which refers to the terrain and the existence of plants and animals, she moves on to an anticipated 'political level' once the future residence of the king has been located on the bay of Anakena. The last third of the shore of Easter Island, the future home of the aristocratic Miru tribe and of the western federation Ko Tu'u, who grouped themselves around the Miru, is no longer surveyed and named one place at a time. Only two localities are mentioned: Papa O Pea and Ahu Akapu. Métraux received the following information about the first place: '... the young princes were raised in a village Papa-o-pea, near Ahu Ohau, not far from Ahu-te-peu' (ME:132).
About the second place he writes in a different context: 'According to a tradition which I was unable to check, each new king went to live at Ahu-a-kapu, near Tahai on the west coast. Later when he had yielded his authority to his son, he went to ahu Tahai and then to Anakena where he spent his last years' (ME:132). Our sources show that Ahu Akapu [sic!] was the residence of the abdicated king. The area around Papa O Pea is substantiated in another context as the residence of the future king (Barthel 1963:412; Lavachery 1935:101-102), while all the available information points to Anakena as the residence of the ruling king of the island. The dream soul, therefore, is seeking out those three places of Miru territory where traditionally the king resided before, during, and after his reign. In connection with these three places, the king performs a task called hakaheuru (literally, 'making something come about'). In RAP. this means 'to mingle', and the action has to be related to the office of the king. Based on MAO. whakaauru 'to ally oneself to, to join', I thought of the assembling of the followers, as one would expect for the installation of the king or his moving to a new residence ... In the scheme of kuhane stations we can find Papa O Pea as number 27:
What does Papa O Pea mean? Clearly papa means about the same thing as henua:
The rocksteady foundation at the bottom (of it all), down in the salty sea, that is papa, the shoulderblade (papa) of mother earth (cfr Papa-Tu'a-Nuku). Maybe nuku is the nightside equivalent of henua? As to pea we find allusions to remnants from a great feast:
We should remember the dinner where Tuu Ko Ihu found the skull of Hotu Matua hanging from the ceiling: ... When Tuu Ko Ihu had finished his dinner, he rested. At that time he saw the skull hanging above, and the king was very much amazed. Tuu Ko Ihu knew that it was the skull of King Hotu A Matua, and he wept. This is how he lamented: 'Here are the teeth that ate the turtles and pigs (? kekepu) of Hiva, of the homeland!' After Tuu Ko Ihu had reached up with his hands, he cut off the skull and put it into his basket. Out (went) the king, Tuu Ko Ihu, and ran to Ahu Tepeu. He had the skull with him. King Tuu Ko Ihu dug a hole, made it very deep, and let the skull slide into it. Then he cushioned the hole with grass and put barkcloth on top of it, covered it with a flat slab of stone (keho), and covered (everything) with soil. Finally, he put a very big stone on top of it, in the opening of the door, outside the house ... ... The action moves from the site of Hotu Matua's grave (on the southern shore) to a hiding place near the northwest cape ('Vai Poko', TP:59, wordplay with puoko?) and then temporarily to the residence of Tuu Ko Ihu on the western shore. The more recent action takes place well within Miru territory. The three key locations - Akahanga, Vai Matā, and Ahu Tepeu - are all archeologically important cult centers ... Vai Poko (maybe alluding to puoko), the northwestern cape of Easter Island, surely must mark an important point (tara) in the sacred eventspace geography.
Moving counterclockwise around the island, the natural burial place is the point where sun descends into the 'sea', as perhaps is alluded to in Aa1-11:
(ihe kuukuu ma te maro). The name is, though, not tai p(u)oko, but vai poko.
Tai poko (breakers) it is not. Instead the meaning must be to allude to the voyage of the sun inside the dark night. We remember Vakai = vaka-î (full of life), as I have guessed. Another allusion could be Vakai = va(ka)i (the sweet water of life). Or (wrong: and) maybe we should think: Vakai = va-kai?
The va- part we must postpone. It is already too mind-boggling. The hollow (poko) into which the skull of Hotu Matua is carefully inserted by Tuu Ko Ihu is a symbol of the womb (pokopoko) of mother earth, in which sun will be safely carried across the sea to emerge in due time, i.e. at spring equinox = the three islets off Orongo (the southwestern tara). The 2 stations of the kuhane beyond the 26 of visible sun correspond to the stretch of events between these two tara (equinoxes). The sound of drums (rutu-a te pahu - at Ab1-1--4) is equal to the sound of slapping the water (pokopoko), as if by the wing (kara) of a frigate bird (taha) - Ab1-42. I think the skull of Hotu Matua is equivalent to the 'will' in ancient Egypt:
Earlier I thought it strange that the great moai would face inwards instead of watching the sea. Their mighty backs (tu'a) are turned away from the salty ocean. The Ahu Haga O Hônu is described by Métraux:
Combining the layout of Ahu Haga O Hônu with the drawing of the back side of Ahu Te Peu we can read his comments: "... The central portion of this wall projects outward towards the sea to form a platform or stage on which the statues were erected. This salient [from L. salīre, leap] corresponds to the body of the ahu and the two lateral walls may be considered the wings. The wings make me imagine the whole structure as an architectual representation of GD11:
The head corresponds to the red 'hats' (tikitiki?) of the moai erected highest on the stage. A little below this stage the main body of the construction, made of piled-up stones, slopes inland, extending into a long, slanting surface (tahua) which stops at a low row of slabs. The approach to the slope is sometimes paved with big boulders which continue onto the large surface (tahua) ... Here we get a plausible explanation for the name Tahua of our tablet. It is a large surface for gathering people at crucial times. The reason why the great moai are facing inwards must be that the sea (tai) represents the winter season. It is the summer season (inlands, uta) which is important and demands the attention of the chiefs.
Mother earth needs the rays from eye (mata) of the sun: ... Since I was very curious to know whereof the preparations of these people might consist, I got up before sunrise and hid in some bushes near the clearing that the little fellows had chosen the night before for their preparations. When it was still dark the men arrived; but not alone. They were accompanied by the woman. The men crouched on the ground and cleared the area of all bits of growth, after which they smoothed it flat. One of them then drew something in the sand with his finger, while the other men and the woman muttered formulae of some kind and prayers; after which silence fell, while they waited for something. The sun appeared on the horizon. One of the men, with an arrow in his drawn bow, stepped over to the cleared ground. In a couple of moments the rays of the sun struck the drawing and at the same instant the following took place at lightning speed: the woman lifted her hands as though reaching for the sun and uttered loudly some unintelligible syllables; the man released his arrow; the woman cried out again; then the men dashed into the forest with their weapons. The woman remained standing a few minutes and then returned to the camp ... The above was a kind of introduction to the subject I had in mind to pursue. I wish to return to 3 + 1 in the taha form:
The word taha (fregate bird) makes me remember the brothers of Maui: ... His 4 elder brothers have names which tell us about their positions in the cycle of the year:
As Maui roto evidently stands in the middle (roto), he must be at midsummer (solstice), i.e. he is standing at the close of the 2nd quarter (not at the beginning, not in the middle of the 2nd quarter). Marking poles are located at the end. We remember Marotiri, the rejected old marker (probably corresponding to Vai poko of the new system): ... Sala-y-Gómez lies east of Easter Island and is therefore a suitable place for a new birth. Furthermore, around the island the fishing is good and birds swarm around it. Motu Motiro Hiva is the best symbol for the fruitfulness of mother nature.
... The economic value of the numerous sea birds is based on their eggs and on the use of their feathers. During the sping months, bird eggs (mamari) were a welcome addition to the menu. In November 1957, I observed men and boys going out to the steep rock of Marotiri, the last extensive nesting ground for the sea birds, and returning with hundreds of bird eggs, which were immediately distributed in the village and consumed. While there were no longer rules limiting the number of eggs taken, such regulations must have existed in the old culture, at least in the Motu Nui area. According to the mythology, the sea birds came from Motu Matiro Hiva (i.e., Sala-y-Gomez), stirred up by the gods Makemake and Haua (Knoche 1925:259-260; ME:312-313; Felbermayer 1971:111-113). Attempts by the birds to nest at various points along the southern shore never succeeded because time and again the people took away their eggs. The first protected place is Motu Nui, the 'place without people, where it is good for the birds' (kona tangata kore oira i rivariva i te manu) ... The other brothers, therefore, must also be standing at the end of their periods. This is affirmed by the name of Maui pae (the edge). The edge is here to be interpreted as the very last part of the year ... In the scheme 3 + 1 the four brother's reasonably cover the whole of the regular (calendrical) year, and Maui pae personifies the last quarter. Maui taha maybe can be identified is some way with the taha bird, that is my idea. Maui roto is in the middle of the 'summer'. Maui taha follows. We should investigate the distribution of the GD11 glyphs on side a of Tahua. |
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