|
TRANSLATIONS
The words of Metoro
at Bb6-13 agree well with what he said at Ab8-43:
 |
|
Ab8-43 |
|
o te pito motu |
The 'cut-off' (motu)
navel string (pito) presumably indicates how at a
certain important time mother and child becomes two.
After that the feeding continues by way of nipples
(Pb3-21 and Qb4-7).
Earlier we have the similar
looking glyph as a 'crossing over place' in Mamari:
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Ca5-17 |
Ca5-18 |
Ca5-19 |
Ca5-20 |
|
hakahagana te honu |
tagata
moe hakarava hia |
ka moe |
hakapekaga mai |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Ca5-21 |
Ca5-22 |
Ca5-23 |
Ca5-24 |
| te Rei |
te manu |
te
henua |
tuu te
rima i ruga |
Which reminds me of the
Hawaiian piko = 'junction of blade and stem'
(i.e. mother = stem and blade = child, I suppose):
|
Pito
1. Umbilical cord; navel;
centre of something: te pito o te henua,
centre of the world. Ana poreko te poki,
ina ekó rivariva mo uru ki roto ki te hare o
here'u i te poki; e-nanagi te pito o te
poki, ai ka-rivariva mo uru ki roto ki te
hare, when a child is born one must not
enter the house immediately, for fear of
injuring the child (that is, by breaking the
taboo on a house where birth takes place);
only after the umbilical cord has been
severed can one enter the house. 2. Also
something used for doing one's buttons up
(buttonhole?). Vanaga.
Navel. Churchill.
H Piko 1. Navel,
navel string, umbilical cord. Fig. blood
relative, genitals. Cfr piko pau 'iole,
wai'olu. Mō ka piko, moku ka piko,
wehe i ka piko, the navel cord is cut
[friendship between related persons is
broken; a relative is cast out of a family].
Pehea kō piko? How is your navel [a
facetious greeting avoided by some because
of the double meaning]? 2. Summit or top of
a hill or mountain; crest; crown of the
head; crown of the hat made on a frame (pāpale
pahu); tip of the ear; end of a rope;
border of a land; center, as of a fishpond
wall or kōnane board; place where a
stem is attached to the leaf, as of taro. 3.
Short for alopiko. I ka piko nō
'oe, lihaliha (song), at the belly
portion itself, so very choice and fat. 4. A
common taro with many varieties, all with
the leaf blade indented at the base up to
the piko, junction of blade and stem.
5. Design in plaiting the hat called
pāpale 'ie. 6. Bottom round of a
carrying net, kōkō. 7. Small wauke
rootlets from an old plant. 8. Thatch above
a door. 'Oki i ka piko, to cut this
thatch; fig. to dedicate a house. Wehewehe. |
We have also collected all glyphs where Metoro said pito:
|
|
|
|
|
Bb3-41 |
Bb6-13 |
Bb7-26 |
|
mai tae vere hia - ki te
pito o te
henua |
kua motu
te pito
o te fenua |
kua aga ko
te pito |
|
|
|
|
|
Ab8-43 |
Aa4-38 |
Aa4-39 |
|
o te
pito motu |
ki te
henua - ki uta ki te
pito o te
henua |
I was making an effort to write about GD14 (henua ora)
in the glyph dictionary, a topic very close to
te pito, because both their important times are
located at the 'end'.
Indeed, I therefore think this might be the proper place to
document what I have written about henua ora:
|
A few preliminary
remarks and imaginations:
1. This
type of glyph appears to have connections with life and death, or
more precisely with the miracle of
growth.
"When the man, Ulu,
returned to his wife from his visit to the temple at Puueo,
he said, 'I have heard the voice of the noble Mo'o, and he
has told me that tonight, as soon as darkness draws over the sea and
the fires of the volcano goddess, Pele, light the clouds over
the crater of Mount Kilauea, the black cloth will cover my
head. And when the breath has gone from my body and my spirit has
departed to the realms of the dead, you are to bury my head
carefully near our spring of running water. Plant my heart and
entrails near the door of the house. My feet, legs, and arms, hide
in the same manner. Then lie down upon the couch where the two of us
have reposed so often, listen carefully throughout the night, and do
not go forth before the sun has reddened the morning sky. If, in the
silence of the night, you should hear noises as of falling leaves
and flowers, and afterward as of heavy fruit dropping to the ground,
you will know that my prayer has been granted: the life of our
little boy will be saved.' And having said that, Ulu fell on
his face and died.
His wife sang a dirge of lament,
but did precisely as she was told, and in the morning she found her
house surrounded by a perfect thicket of vegetation. 'Before the
door,' we are told in Thomas Thrum's rendition of the legend, 'on
the very spot where she had buried her husband's heart, there grew a
stately tree covered over with broad, green leaves dripping with dew
and shining in the early sunlight, while on the grass lay the ripe,
round fruit, where it had fallen from the branches above. And this
tree she called Ulu (breadfruit) in honor of her husband.
The little spring was concealed by
a succulent growth of strange plants, bearing gigantic leaves and
pendant clusters of long yellow fruit, which she named bananas. The
intervening space was filled with a luxuriant growth of slender
stems and twining vines, of which she called the former sugar-cane
and the latter yams; while all around the house were growing little
shrubs and esculent roots, to each one of which she gave an
appropriate name. Then summoning her little boy, she bade him gather
the breadfruit and bananas, and, reserving the largest and best for
the gods, roasted the remainder in the hot coals, telling him that
in the future this should be his food. With the first mouthful,
health returned to the body of the child, and from that time he grew
in strength and stature until he attained to the fulness of perfect
manhood.
He became a mighty warrior in those days, and was
known throughout all the island, so that when he died, his name,
Mokuola, was given to the islet in the bay of Hilo where
his bones were buried; by which name it is called even to the
present time." (Campbell)
|
|
2. Growth
is always a kind of
rebirth and rebirth implies that somebody has to die first.
Without death the world would be overcrowded.
"And they were sacrificed and buried. They were
buried at the Place of Ball Game Sacrifice, as it is called. The
head of One Hunaphu was cut off; only his body was buried
with his younger brother. 'Put his head in the fork of the tree that
stands by the road', said One and Seven Death.
And when his head was put in the fork of the tree, the tree bore
fruit. It would not have had any fruit, had not the head of
One Hunaphu been put in the fork of the
tree. This is the calabash, as we call it today, or 'the skull of
One Hunaphu', as it is said. And then
One and Seven Death were amazed at the
fruit of the tree. The fruit grows out everywhere, and it isn't
clear where the head of
One Hunaphu is; now it looks just the way
the calabashes look. All the
Xibalbans see this, when they come to
look."
(Popol
Vuh)
Rapa Nui
cranium (USNM 31064a) according to Van Tilburg |
|
3. In this picture of a moai paapaa (ref. Métraux) we can see
that the creator has used what looks like an upside down version of GD14 as a
picture for the vulva:
 
The uterus is the origin of new life (ora),
and we can therefore understand Metoro when he said henua ora rua
(rua = two)
at Ab6-91--92:
 
A mother is equal to the fertile and living earth (henua
ora),
while man contrariwise must represent death (by being a warrior).
A preliminary assessment of the meaning of GD14 glyphs is that we
see an upside down
vulva. The GD14 glyphs are nearly always oriented this way. |
|
4. GD14 presumably shows a
kind of 'nut' at the bottom, from which
new growth emerges. This 'nut' must be 'broken' in order to free the
new life, 'breaking
the nut'.
"...in the ceremonial course of
the coming year, the king is symbolically transposed toward the
Lono pole of Hawaiian divinity; the annual cycle tames the
warrior-king in the same way as (e.g.) the Fijian installation
rites. It need only be noticed that the renewal of kingship at the
climax of the Makahiki coincides with the rebirth of nature.
For in the ideal ritual calendar, the kali'i battle follows
the autumnal appearance of the Pleiades, by thirty-three days - thus
precisely, in the late eighteenth century, 21 December, the winter
solstice. The king returns to power with the sun.7
7
The correspondence between the winter solstice and the kali'i
rite of the Makahiki is arrived at as follows: ideally, the
second ceremony of 'breaking the coconut', when the priests assemble
at the temple to spot the rising of the Pleiades, coincides with the
full moon (Hua tapu) of the twelfth lunar month (Welehu). In
the latter eighteenth century, the Pleiades appear at sunset on 18
November. Ten days later (28 November), the Lono effigy sets
off on its circuit, which lasts twenty-three days, thus bringing the
god back for the climactic battle with the king on 21 December, the
solstice (= Hawaiian 16 Makali'i). The correspondence is
'ideal' and only rarely achieved, since it depends on the
coincidence of the full moon and the crepuscular rising of the
Pleiades.
Whereas, over the next two days,
Lono plays the part of the sacrifice. The Makahiki
effigy is dismantled and hidden away in a rite watched over by the
king's 'living god', Kahoali'i or
'The-Companion-of-the-King', the one who is also known as
'Death-is-Near' (Koke-na-make). Close kinsman of the king as
his ceremonial double, Kahoali'i swallows the eye of the
victim in ceremonies of human sacrifice (condensed symbolic trace of
the cannibalistic 'stranger-king').
The 'living god', moreover, passes
the night prior to the dismemberment of Lono in a temporary
house called 'the net house of Kahoali'i', set up before the
temple structure where the image sleeps. In the myth pertinent to
these rites, the trickster hero - whose father has the same name (Kuuka'ohi'alaki)
as the Kuu-image of the temple - uses a certain 'net of
Maoloha' to encircle a house, entrapping the goddess Haumea;
whereas, Haumea (or Papa) is also a version of
La'ila'i, the archetypal fertile woman, and the net used to
entangle her had belonged to one Makali'i, 'Pleiades'.
Just so, the succeeding
Makahiki ceremony, following upon the putting away of the god,
is called 'the net of Maoloha', and represents the gains in
fertility accruing to the people from the victory over Lono.
A large, loose-mesh net, filled with all kinds of food, is shaken at
a priest's command. Fallen to earth, and to man's lot, the food is
the augury of the coming year. The fertility of nature thus taken by
humanity, a tribute-canoe of offerings to Lono is set adrift
for Kahiki, homeland of the gods.
The New Year draws to a close. At the next full moon,
a man (a tabu transgressor) will be caught by Kahoali'i and
sacrificed. Soon after the houses and standing images of the temple
will be rebuilt: consecrated - with more human sacrifices - to the
rites of Kuu and the projects of the king."
(Islands
of History) |
|
5.
The three more or less
vertical lines in GD14 may be seen as the rays of the sun and the
'nut' at the bottom is perhaps covered with earth formed like a
little hill, therefore the double wedge.
"Ta'aroa tahi tumu,
'Ta'aroa origl. stock' - most commonly Ta'aroa or
Te Tumu - existed before everything except of a rock (Te Papa)
which he compressed and begat a daughter (Ahuone) that is
Vegetable Mole.*
* Ahuone means
'earth heaped up' - a widespread name for the Polynesian first
woman. It sounds as if Cook also heard the term applied to the banks
of humus and rotting material on which taro is grown. In the
English of his day this was known as 'vegetable mould'."
(Record by Captain Cook. Ref.: Legends of the South Seas.)
Death and rebirth
are so fundamental and difficult to understand that we here must
continue with more explanations. Dr. Jung (ref. Campbell) seems to
be the best authority in our civilization:
"Do we ever understand what we think? We understand
only such thinking as is a mere equation and from which nothing
comes out but what we have put in. That is the manner of working of
the intellect. But beyond that there is a thinking in primordial
images - in symbols that are older that historical man; which have
been ingrained in him from earliest times, and, eternally living,
outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the
human psyche. It is possible to live the fullest life only when we
are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them. It is
a question neither of belief nor knowledge, but of the agreement of
our thinking with the primordial images of the unconscious. They are
the source of all our conscious thoughts, and one of these
primordial images is the idea of life after death."
"A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy
or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species
to which he belongs. The afternoon of human life must have a
significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to
life's morning.
The significance of the morning undoubtedly lies in
the development of the individual, our entrenchment in the outer
world, the propagation of our kind and the care of our children. But
when this purpose has been attained - and even more than attained -
shall the earning of money, the extension of conquests, and the
expansion of life go steadily on beyond the bounds of all reason and
sense?
Whoever carries over into the afternoon the law of
the morning - that is, the aims of nature - must pay for so doing
with damage to his soul just as surely as a growing youth who tries
to salvage his childish egoism must pay for this mistake with social
failure.
Moneymaking, social existence, family and posterity
are nothing but plain nature - not culture. Culture lies beyond the
purpose of nature. Could by any chance culture be the meaning and
purpose of the second half of life? In primitive tribes, we observe that the old people
are almost always the guardians of the mysteries and the laws, and
it is in these that the cultural heritage of the tribe is
expressed." |
|
The
preliminary remarks and imaginations lead us to the idea that
henua ora in some way is connected with the mysteries of
life, growth, ageing and death. In the Keiti
calendar of the year henua ora appears in the 10th period (i.e. in the
6th of the 12 half-months long summer) and also in
the 1st period:
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
 |
These 31
glyphs evidently function as end-of-period markers in
the same way as what we have seen in the Keiti
calendar. The only difference is the
'feathers' (meaning 'end'). |
|
31 |
 |
Here
(left) is the last (32nd) end-of-period marker, a special design
- as there also is a special design in the 24th and last end-of-period marker in
Keiti (right). |
 |
|
Ga7-14 |
Eb6-19 |
|
|
Next I chose
the 19th period of G and can see two parallel sequences of
glyphs in Keiti:
|
|
Autumn equinox in E should be located in the 18th period:
|
|
We can now try again with the table of comparison:
|
|
The glyphs tell us more. Important is to notice how already in
the 15th period the coming dark half of the year is defined:
|
15 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Ga4-23 |
Ga4-24 |
Ga4-25 |
Ga4-26 |
Ga4-27 |
6 + 6
= 12 half-months (representing the dark two quarters) are visualized
by wedge-marks inside the perimeters of the ovals in Ga4-23--24.
Autumn equinox occurs around the 21st of March (south of the
equator), i.e. before the 1st of April (when the last quarter of the
year begins). We should therefore not be surprised to find already
in the 15th period this message. Equinoxes do not occur on the 1st
of a month.
In E
the half-months are defined as 360 / 24 = 15 days. In period 15 of G
we should - therefore - read (6 + 6) * 15 = 180 days for the dark
half of the year.
|
|
The measure 180 for the winter half gives us automatically 360 -
180 = 180 days for the summer too. In G summer begins with
period no. 7 and ends with period no. 12, i.e. there are only 6
periods during summer (the same number as the number of flames
around the sun, GD12).
The length of such a summer period must be
longer than 15 days:
180 / 6 = 30
But
we can
reformulate into half-periods: 12 * 15 = 180. The winter
season may then (for harmony's sake) be formulated as:
13 * 14 = 182
12 +
15 = 13 + 14. Furthermore 13 and 14 are
inside 12 and 15, suggesting that
13 and 14 are female in character.
365 -
180 - 182 = 3. There are signs that the rongorongo creators thought
about 3 dark nights at the end of a year. A working hypothesis is
therefore that the calendar in G covered a whole year.
|
|
"They walked
in crowds when they arrived at Tulan, and there was no fire.
Only those with Tohil had it: this
was the tribe whose god was first to generate fire. How it was
generated is not clear. Their fire was already burning when
Jaguar Quitze and Jaguar Night
first saw it: 'Alas! Fire has not yet become ours. We'll die from
the cold', they said. And then Tohil spoke: 'Do not grieve.
You will have your own even when the fire you're talking about has
been lost', Tohil told them.
'Aren't you a true god! Our
sustenance and our support! Our god!' they said when they gave
thanks for what Tohil had said.
'Very well, in truth, I am your
god: so be it. I am your lord: so be it,' the penitents and
sacrificers were told by Tohil.
And this was the warming of the
tribes. They were pleased by their fire.
After that a
great downpour began, which cut short the fire of the tribes. And
hail fell thickly on all the tribes, and their fires were put out by
the hail. Their fires didn't start up again. So then
Jaguar Quitze and Jaguar Night
asked for their fire again: 'Tohil,
we'll be finished off by the cold', they told Tohil. 'Well, do not grive', said
Tohil. Then he started a fire. He
pivoted inside his sandal." (Popol Vuh)
 |
|
Already at
the beginning of the 'solar canoe' voyage the destination is
known. How else could the (straight) courses between the turning
(cardinal) points be defined? Already at birth the final
destination is know - death. 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). |
|
'There was noise at
night at Marioro, it was Hina beating tapa in
the dark for the god Tangaroa, and the noise of her mallet
was annoying that god, he could endure it no longer. He said to
Pani, 'Oh Pani, is that noise the beating of tapa?'
and Pani answered, 'It is Hina tutu po beating
fine tapa.'
Then Tangaroa
said, 'You go to her and tell her to stop, the harbour of the god is
noisy.' Pani therefore went to Hina's place and said
to her, 'Stop it, or the harbour of the god will be noisy.' But
Hina replied, 'I will not stop, I will beat out white tapa
here as a wrapping for the gods Tangaroa, 'Oro, Moe,
Ruanu'u, Tu, Tongahiti, Tau utu, Te
Meharo, and Punua the burst of thunder'.
So Pani returned and told the god that Hina would not
stop.
'Then go to her again', said Tangaroa, 'and make her stop.
The harbour of the god is noisy!' So Pani went again, and he
went a third time also, but with no result. Then Pani too
became furious with Hina, and he seized her mallet and beat
her on the head. She died, but her spirit flew up into the sky, and
she remained forever in the moon, beating white tapa. All may
see her there. From that time on she was known as Hina nui aiai i
te marama, Great-Hina-beating-in-the-Moon." (World of the
Polynesians) |
|
"My son, said Makea tutara
one evening at dusk, when they were sitting outside the house, I
have heard from your mother and from others that you are brave and
capable, and that in everything you have undertaken in your own
country you have succeeded. That says a great deal for you. But I
have to warn you: now that you have come to live in your father's
country you will find that things are different. I am afraid that
here you may meet your downfall at last. 'What do you mean?' said
Maui. 'What things are there here that could be my downfall?'
'There is your great ancestress
Hine nui te Po', said Makea, gravely. And he
watched Maui's face as he mentioned the name of
Great Hine the Night, the daughter and the
wife of Tane and goddess of death. But Maui did not
move an eyelid. 'You
may see her, if you look', Makea went on, pointing to where
the sun had gone down, 'flashing over there, and opening and
closing, as it were'. His thoughts were on death as he spoke. For it
was the will of Hine nui, ever since she turned her back on
Tane and descended to Rarohenga, that all her
descendants in the world of light should follow her down that same
path, returning to their mother's womb that they might be mourned
and wept for.
'Oh, nonsense', said Maui
affectionately to the old man. 'I don't think about that sort of
thing, and you shouldn't either. There's no point in being afraid.
We might just as well find out whether we are intended to die, or to
live forever.' Now Maui had not forgotten what his mother
once said about Hine nui te Po: that he would some day
vanquish her, and death would then have no power over men. He
remembered this now, and was not moved by his father's fears. But
Hine nui was the sister of Mahuika, and she knew of
Maui's dangerous trickery at the abode of fire, and was resolved
to protect her other descendants from further mischief of this kind.
'My child', said Makea now
in a tone of deep sorrow, 'there has been a bad omen for us. When I
performed the tohi ceremony over you I missed out a part of
the prayers. I remebered it too late. I am afraid this means that
you are going to die.' 'What's she like, Hine nui te Po?'
asked Maui. 'Look over there', said Makea, pointing to
the ice-cold mountains beneath the flaming clouds of sunset. 'What
you see there is Hine nui, flashing where the sky meets the
earth. Her body is like a woman's, but the pupils of her eyes are
greenstone and her hair is kelp. Her mouth is that of a barracuda,
and in the place where men enter her she has sharp teeth of obsidian
and greenstone.'
'Do you think she is as fierce as
Tama nui te ra, who burns things up by his heat?' asked
Maui. 'Did I not make life possible for man by laming him and
making him keep his distance? Was it not I who made him feeble with
my enchanted weapon? And did the sea not cover much more of the
earth until I fished up land with my enchanted hook?' 'All that is
very true', said Makea. 'And you are my last-born son, and
the strength of my old age. Very well then, be it as it will. Go
there, and visit your ancestress if that is what you wish. You will
find her there where the earth meets the sky.' And they sat for a
while in the dusk, until the red clouds turned grey and the
mountains into black.
Next morning early, Maui
went out looking for companions for the expedition. The birds were
up when he left, and among them he succeeded in finding several who
were willing to go with him. There was tiwaiwaka, the little
fantail, flickering about inquisitively and following Maui
along the track as if he might have something for him. There was
miromiro, the grey warbler, tataeko, the whitehead, and
pitoitoi, the robin, who is almost as tame and curious as the
fantail. Maui assembled a party of these friends and told
them what he intended to do. They knew it was an act of great
impiety to invade the realm of Hine nui te Po with
mischievous intentions.
And now, they learned, it was
Maui's idea to enter her very body. He proposed to pass through
the womb of Great Hine the Night,
and come out by her mouth. If he succeeded, death would no longer
have the last word with regard to man; or so his mother had told him
long ago. This, then, was to be the greatest of all his exploits.
Maui, who once
had travelled eastward to the very edge of the pit where the sun
rose, and southward over the great Ocean of Kiwa to where he
fished up land, and all the way to the dwelling-place of Mahuika
- Maui now proposed a journey to defy great Hine in
the west. Taking his enchanted weapon, the sacred jawbone of Muri
ranga whenua, he twisted its strings around his waist. Then he
went into the house and threw off his clothes, and the skin on his
hips and thighs was as handsome as the skin of a mackerel, with the
tattoed scrolls that had been carved there with the chisel of
Uetonga. And off they went, with the birds twittering in their
excitement.
When they arrived at the place
where Hine nui lay asleep with her legs apart and they could
see those flints that were set between her thighs, Maui said
to his companions: 'Now, my little friends, when you see me crawl
into the body of this old chieftainess, whatever you do, do not
laugh. When I have passed right through her and am coming out of her
mouth, then you can laugh if you want to. But not until then,
whatever you do.' His frieds twittered and fluttered about him and
flew in his way. 'O sir', they cried, 'you will be killed if you go
in there.' 'No', said Maui, holding up his enchanted jawbone.
'I shall not - unless you spoil it. She is asleep now. If you start
laughing as soon as I cross the threshold, you will wake her up, and
she will certainly kill me at once. But if you can keep quiet until
I am on the point of coming out, I shall live and Hine nui
will die, and men will live thereafter for as long as they wish.' So
his friends moved out of his way. 'Go on in then, brave Maui',
they said, 'but do take care of yourself'.
Maui
at first assumed the form of a kiore, or rat, to enter the
body of Hine. But tataeko, the little whitehead, said
he would never succeed in that form. So he took the form of a
toke, or earth-worm. But tiwaiwaka the fantail, who did
not like worms, was against this. So Maui turned himself into
a moko huruhuru, a kind of caterpillar that glistens. It was
agreed that this looked best, and so Maui started forth, with
comical movements.
The little birds now did their
best to comply with Maui's wish. They sat as still as they
could, and held their beaks shut tight, and tried not to laugh. But
it was impossible. It was the way Maui went in that gave them
the giggles, and in a moment little tiwaiwaka the fantail
could no longer contain himself. He laughed out loud, with his
merry, cheeky note, and danced about with delight, his tail
flickering and his beak snapping. Hine nui awoke with a
start. She realised what was happening, and in a moment it was all
over with Maui. By the way of rebirth he met his end.
Thus died this Maui we have
spoken of, who was formed in the topknot of Taranga and cast
in the sea, but was saved and nurtured to lead a life of mischief.
And thus did the laughter of his companions at the last and most
scandalous of his exploits deprive mankind of immortality. For
Hine nui always knew what Maui had it in mind to do to
her. But she knew that it was best that man should die, and return
to the darkness from which he comes, down that path which she made
to Rarohenga. Wherefore our people have the saying: 'Death
came to the mighty when Maui was strangled by Hine nui to
Po, and so it has remained in the world'."
(Maori Myths) |
|
"12. Odysseu's arrival home: Transformed by
Athene into the semblance of a beggar (Noman, still), the returned
master of the house was recognized only by his dog and his old, old
nurse. The latter spied above his knee the old scar of a gash
received from the tusk of a boar. (Compare Adonis and the boar,
Attis and the boar, and, in Ireland, Diarmuid and the boar.) Hushing
the nurse, Odysseus watched for some time the shameless behavior of
the suitors and maidservants in his house; whereafter, and at last:
13. Penelope, offering to marry any one of those
present who could draw the powerful bow of her spouse, set up a
target of twelve axes to be pierced. None of the suitors
could even string the bow. Several tried manfully. The recently come
beggar then offered and was mocked. However, as we read:
He already was handling
the bow, turning it every way about, and proving it on this side and
that, lest the worms might have eaten the horns when the lord of the
bow was away...
And Odysseus of many
counsels had lifted the great bow and viewed it on every side, and
even as when a man that is skilled in the lyre and in minstralsy,
easily stretches a cordabout a new peg, after tying at either end
the twisted sheep-gut, even so Odysseus straightway bent the great
bow, all without effort, and took it in his right hand and proved
the bowstring, which rang sweetly at the touch, in tone like a
swallow.
Then great grief came
upon the wooers, and the color of their countenance was changed, and
Zeus thundered loud showing forth his tokens. And the steadfast
goodly Odysseus was glad thereat, in that the son of
deep-counselling Cronus had sent him a sign.
Then he caught up a
swift arrow which lay by his table, bare, but the other shafts were
stored within the hollow quiver, those whereof the Achaeans were
soon to taste.
He took and laid it on
the bridge of the bow, and held the notch and drew the string, even
from the settle whereupon he sat, and with straight aim shot the
shaft and missed not one of the axes, beginning from the first
ax-handle, and the bronze-weighted shaft passed clean through and
out at the last.
The solar hero having thus demonstrated his
passage of the twelve signs and his lordship of the palace, he
proceeded masterfully to the shooting down of the suitors. 'And they
writhed with their feet for a little space, but for no long while.'
After which, 'Thy bed verily shall be ready,' said
the wisely wifely Penelope. 'Come tell me of thine ordeal. For
methinks the day will come when I must learn it, and timely
knowledge is no hurt'." (Campbell 3)
|
|
"... the name [Vindler,
one of the epithets of Heimdall] is a subform of vindill
and comes from vinda, to twist or turn, wind, to turn
anything around rapidly. As the epithet 'the turner' is given to
that god who brought friction-fire (bore-fire) to man, and who is
himself the personification of this fire, then it must be synonymous
with 'the borer' ...
The Sibyl's prophecy
does not end with the catastrophes, but it moves from the tragic to
the lydic mode, to sing of the dawning of the new age:
Now do I see / the Earth anew / Rise all green / from the waves
again ... / Then fields unsowed / bear ripened fruit / All ills grow
better."
(Hamlet's Mill) |
|
To summarize:
While rei miro signifies a 'canoe' which is turning
around, in order to begin a new straight course, henua ora
is at the opposite end of the 'travel'. The turning around
the 'canoe' is a shaky operation which takes place before the next
phase of the travel can begin. Therefore we find rei miro
immediately before the new straight course (= season in the
calendar).
At the final end
of the 'travel', beyond the 'full stop', henua ora is
located. There is no more movement and the 'canoe' is in its
harbour. The canoe is 'sleeping'.
We therefore find
henua ora immediately after the last straight course (=
season in the calendar). |
|
