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TRANSLATIONS
These double 'persons' maybe means the end of the '2nd half' (of the month respectively the year). Though at the same time the right of the two persons ought to indicate 'next' period. That we learnt from the Egyptian double lions (aker):
'... The 'mountains' are here lions and the sun the negative image behind their backs. They are the lions of yesterday and tomorrow according to Wilkinson ... ... The concept of back implies north in Chinese thought, i.e. the last phase of the year. We should here also recall the Mayan 'seating' and what Makemson thought about takurua: Meshing with the 260-day count is a 'Vague Year' or Haab of 365 days, so called because the actual length of the solar year is about a quarter-day more, a circumstance that leads us to intercalate one day every four years to keep our calendar in march with the sun. Although the Maya were perfectily aware that the Haab was shorter than the tropical year, they did not change the calendar accordingly. Within the Haab, there were 18 named 'months' of 20 days each, with a much-dreaded interval of 5 unlucky days added at the end. The Maya New Year started with 1 Pop, the next day being 2 Pop, etc. The final day of the month, however, carried not the coefficient 20, but a sign indicating the 'seating' of the month to follow, in line with the Maya philosophy that the influence of any particular span of time is felt before it actually begins and persists somewhat beyond its apparent termination.' (The Maya) ... At the risk of invoking the criticism, 'Astronomers rush in where philologists fear to tread', I should like to suggest that Taku-rua corresponds with the two-headed Roman god Janus who, on the first of January, looks back upon the old year with one head and forward to the new year with the other, and who is god of the threshold of the home as well as of the year... There is probably a play on words in takurua - it has been said that Polynesian phrases usually invoke a double meaning, a common and an esoteric one. Taku means 'slow', the 'back' of anything, 'rim' and 'command'. Rua is a 'pit', 'two' or 'double'. Hence takurua has been translated 'double command', 'double rim', and 'rim of the pit', by different authorities. Taku-pae is the Maori word for 'threshold'... Several Tuamotuan and Society Islands planet names begin with the word Takurua or Ta'urua which Henry translated Great Festivity and which is the name for the bright star Sirius in both New Zealand and Hawaii. The planet names, therefore, represent the final stage in the evolution of takurua which was probably first applied to the winter solstice, then to Sirius which is the most conspicious object in the evening sky of December and January, and was then finally employed for the brilliant and conspicious planets which outshone even the brightest star Sirius. From its association with the ceremonies of the new year and the winter solstice, takurua also aquired the meaning 'holiday' or 'festivity' ... The Great Festivity (Takurua) is what we have observed in Thursday:
The two back-to-back sitting / seating persons in H introduces the (red-marked) 'Janus' figure. The one at left is evidently the old period (ghostly Y hand), while the new period is eating (kai), which we should remember for future reference - eating means life. The year was - it seems - divided into two halves, with midsummer marking end of the 1st half and beginning of the 2nd half. In the 1st half the sky is pushed up by the force from the solar rays, in the 2nd half the fire slowly attenuates and darkness returns. Only moon and stars then keep the sky up. We should recapitulate: '... we should think about the year and the day as having a structure similar to that seen in the Mamari moon calendar. We have identified similar signs of birth of new moon and birth of new day (Ca6-28 respective Ha5-53):
Ca7-14 corresponds to Ohua and I propose that in Aa4-63 we have a similar sign:
Ohua occurs (according to my interpretation) 5 nights before full moon:
Ca7-21 has two back-to-back moon sickles, perhaps signifying that waxing moon (right?) is leaving and waning moon is arriving. Ca7-16 is, maybe, exhibiting the old waxing moon 'fruit', while Ca7-23 could be the new waning moon 'canoe'. The bulge is round in Ca7-16, but has an apex in Ca7-23, certainly signs. In Ca7-24 the little sitting figure has his back towards left and therefore we may guess (in congruence with Ca7-21) that he is the leaving 'person', i.e. the waxing moon. His hand gesture towards the mouth (normal for GD52) also identifies him as a growing person. In Ca7-15 we cannot see the 'feet' and maybe that is because gods (atua) cannot be seen - like the missing face of the Egyptian smith. If there - on side a of Tahua - is a structure similar to that in the Mamari moon calendar, then we ought to find glyphs 'parallel' to Ca7-14 etc in the interval between Aa4-63—72 and Aa5-4--7:
Is the elbow ornament in Aa5-6 a picture of the canoe in which the 2nd half year will arrive? The beginning, the middle and the end; these stations in the cycles are certainly marked with similar signs in the rongorongo texts. Aa5-7 (GD33, viri) exhibits the concept of 'double' (or '2') because the end is the beginning. I suggest that GD33 (viri) is yet another way of visualizing 'takurua'. '... In Aa5-7 the first complete viri of the solar year appears:
I have numbered starting from Aa4-63 because that is where the internal long parallel with side b begins (at Ab5-1). Redmarked are 26 and 46 because 1334 = (26 + 20) * 29. The old bird at 46 is GD23 which I earlier have identified as meaning 'ending' (= reversal and new beginning). Evidently viri is here outside - given that Aa4-63 is inside - the measure of 26. However, another indicator says that Aa4-63 is outside (and viri no. 26) - because counting from the beginning of side a (from Aa1-1) we have 314 (= 100*π) as Aa4-64:
Another 'proof' of viri being inside is obtained by counting from the beginning of line a5:
Aa5-1 is GD42 which I earlier have identified as a marker of beginning. Excluding Aa5-1 viri is no. 6, the solar number. Adding this 6 to the earlier 20 we receive the wished for 26. I now suggest that Aa5-17 may contain the missing second part of the viri that is embedded in Aa1-1:
Aa5-17 is an aberrant form of GD26 with the 'head' as a separate part, the only such in Tahua (in the same way as Aa1-1 is an aberrant unique form of GD42). Furthermore, we recognize hakaturu, the point of turnaround, as Aa5-18 (no. 350 from Aa1-1):
This long recapitulation was necessary to update our minds about the midsummer festivities. My earlier suggestion that Aa1-1 is the '1st person' (sun, living) in the viri doublet seems to be confirmed when we look at Ca8-29 ('new moon'):
The separately drawn sun neck and head is probably to be explained as sun being another 'person' than the moon which is 'seating' down. Aa1-1 is showing its front side, while we see the back side in Ca8-29. This fact may be due to the moon in its new waxing (see the kai gesture) phase - south of the equator - has its convex side at left. Whereas moon is waxing from the received sunrays, the sun in its waxing solar cycle is moving ahead (front first of course). In Aa5-1 the 'knee' in the standard GD42 is at left, just as in the quartet Aa1-5--8:
Discussing 'splitting up' viri into two parts we can see the difference: In the quartet the full 'double' viri may be imagined (though still with front forward). The normal viri always has its 'knee' twoards right:
Maybe Maúre (Ca7-21) exhibits viri too (below the little waning moon at left):
Let us return to the table at the beginning:
Are not Ca5-18--19 exhibiting viri in the forms of their backs? Comparing these five glyphs with each other, it seems reasonable to suggest that Ca8-28 equals Ca5-18 in having a mouth formed like a wedge. On the other hand, the foot of Ca8-28 is large (and spreading out the toes), more similar to the foot in Ca5-19 than in Ca5-18. Maybe the toes function (in the rongorongo texts) like the fingers: they signify 'light'. Waxing moon in Ca8-29 has more light as input (hand towards mouth) than waning moon (Ca8-28). Contrariwise the toes are larger in waning moon than in waxing moon. The fingers towards mouth mean input, the toes mean output. But then we may draw the conclusion that it is Ca5-19 which is the old solar year. Confirmation is seen in the arm like hua (the next generation). If the form of the back signifies viri, we have another confirmation: Viri means the end of a period and should be oriented with 'knee' at right (signifying that midsummer is in the past). In Ca5-18 the arm is not suggesting hua, it is held straight up and is more congruent with henua (GD37). I am not convinced by these arguments. Instead I prefer to interpret the left figure always as the old period and the right figure as the new period. If so, then Ca5-18 (the old sun) has small toes because his fire is just about to be quite finished (zero). In Ca8-29 the new moon still has not got any light for us, therefore small toes in that glyph. In the Mamari moon calendar Ca6-22--23 (according to my interpetation Ohiro and Oata) do not show us the normal night glyphs, they are instead assymmetric (formed like bananas):
Therefore, during these first two nights the moon is black - no light for us. Ab8-84 does not conform to the aker pattern, because the faces are oriented towards each other. But the 'legs' show assymmetry: the two at right (future) are upwards oriented while the two at left (past) are downwards oriented. The right head is more voracious than the left. The fact that Ab8-84 is located as the last glyph on side b should be understood to mean that the period is ending and that the new period already is making itself felt - the new period is sitting down ('seating') making itself comfortable. I am currently reading Heyerdahl 6 ('American Indians in the Pacific') and from that book I have become assured that I fruitfully can compare the rongorongo glyphs with what anciently was written in America. For example: the different Mayan signs for 'time zero' (according to Gates) do resemble viri:
Other rongorongo glyph types are also similar, like GD22 (pú) and GD71 (Makemake):
The bottom part of GD71 furthermore resembles viri. The word pú means not only hole(s) but also e.g. 'to come forward to greet someone met on the road', which sounds like 'seating'. "Since we now have ample evidence that neither the present Maori-Polynesian [meaning those later Polynesians arriving (or being influenced by) stock from Hawaii and Hakai Strait] in the East Pacific nor the historically known Chibcha, Quechua, or Aymara of the Andes are responsible for the abandoned stone images left in their own habitats, we may, so to speak, cut away all these superimposed tribes, languages, and cultures as mere secondary overgrowth, concealing and confusing our view of the possible continuity behind the makers of the earlier stone carvings. Disregarding the ever-present stamp of local style or convention, we shall immediately discover that all these athropomorphic stone figure have one characteristic in common: they were associated with unroofed religious sites, and wherever information is available they all represent ancestor gods and genealogical heroes. Furthermore, although human in shape and details, they are all wilfully distorted in their proportions, with their heads always enlarged quite beyond reason. Thus Emory ... says of the large-headed Necker statuettes: 'The head is more than a fourth the height of the body, and in some more than a third.' Linton (1925, p. 71), in his work on the archaeology of the Marquesas, says of the locat stone figures: 'The head was evidently considered the most important part of the figure, and upon it the artist expended his greatest skill. The legs were considered least important; in many figures they are shortened disproportionally or even omitted.' Further: 'All the heads are disproportionally large, some of them forming a third of the total height of the figures.' Métraux (1940, p. 293), quoting Lavachery, says of the Easter Island statues: 'The long head is about three sevenths of the total height of the statue.' Comparable proportions can be seen on all the Polynesian monliths ... Posnansky (1914, p. 87) has shown how a number of loose stone heads have been found at the site of Tiahuanaco, some of which may have been architectual decorations such as are seen also on the stone walls at the Chavín site (Pomar 1949, opp. p. 49). Stone heads without attachement to any body occur occasionally around Lake Titicaca and on its islands, and also northwards through the Andes ... We have already seen that the custom of carving colossal stone heads can be traced right back to the unidentified people behind the so-called 'Olmec' culture of Southern Mexico. Stirling's opionion (1940) is that the 'Olmecs' seem to have a central position in the local American culture complex: 'Present archaeological evidence indicates that their culture, which in many respects reached a high level, is very early and may well be the basic civilization out of which developed such high art centres of the Maya, Zapotecs, Toltecs, and Totonacs.' The people who left behind these giant Mexican heads had also carved their ears holding immense circular ear-plugs decorated with a cross, and they had placed them on paved stone foundations, facing east." (Heyerdahl 6) I think about how the head of the Hawaiian Ulu saved the life of his son Mokuola. An expression from Easter Island gives us the same general idea: he-pú-mai a mu'a, he-moaha, 'he came to my rescue and saved my life'. In Larousse I found this picture of 'the old god at the centre':
"Xiuhtecuhtli, the fire god, as Huehueteotl, 'the old god at the centre'. One of the oldest deities of ancient America, this clay figure from the Veracruz culture shows him seated with a brazier on his head. Xiuhtecuhtli was lord of the present 'Sun', or era, his ceremonies being particularly important at the end of every fifty-two-year cycle when all fires were put out and a fresh one was kindled on a prisoner's breast in order to keep time moving."
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