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TRANSLATIONS
Now too many balls are up in the air - we must try to put them down to earth again. My intention for a long while has been to discuss why there are 2 'cut' marks across the thoat in Aa1-11:
But time is not yet ready for that, it seems. Instead those balls need attention. First: The night immediately immediately before full moon is called Rakau according to Englert, but He Raakau according to Atan. Rakau means tree etc:
Atan's Raakau does not appear in the explanations of Vanaga and Churchill. But evidently the words rakau and raakau should be split in two: ra-kau respectively raa-kau, that we have learned about Polynesian word constructions. To the already complex meanings of kau (swim, spread out, swarm, flood, multiply, wide etc) must be added 'tree, wood etc':
We have met kau = tree earlier, when trying to understand the mysterious nikau:
Even earlier I had arrived at the conclusion that GD18 (niu) was a symbol for the generating fatal power (in the dark X-area): "...the great high priest and monarch of the Golden Age in the Toltec city of Tula, the City of the Sun, in ancient Mexico, whose name, Quetzalcoatl, has been read to mean both 'the Feathered Serpent' and 'the Admirable Twin', and who was fair of face and white of beard, was the teacher of the arts to the people of pre-Columbian America, originator of the calendar, and their giver of maize. His virgin mother, Chimalman - the legend tells - had been one of the three sisters to whom God, the All-Father, had appeared one day under his form of Citlallatonac, 'the morning'. The other two had been struck by fright, but upon Chimalman God breathed and she conceived. She died, however, giving birth, and is now in heaven, where she is revered under the honourable name of 'the Precious Stone of Sacrifice', Chalchihuitzli. Quetzalcoatl, her child, who is known both as the Son of the Lord of the High Heavens and as the Son of the Lord of the Seven Caves, was endowed at birth with speech, all knowledge, and all wisdom, and in later life, as priest-king, was of such purity of character that his realm flourished gloriously throughout the period of his reign. His temple-palace was composed of four radiant apartments: one toward the east, yellow with gold; one towards the west, blue with turquoise and jade; one toward the south, white with pearls and shells; one towards the north, red with bloodstones - symbolizing the cardinal quarters of the world over which the light of the sun holds sway." (Campbell) One of the three sisters - the Sycomore Lady (?) - conceived, gave birth and died. The baby was a 'twin' with himself, both Lord of the High Heavens and Son of the Lord of the Seven Caves. His temple-palace was composed of 4 radiant apartments, pointing in the 4 cardinal directions with different coloured rays of light. The 4 henua at the top of the spinning top in GD18 is, I believe, a graphic representation of the 4 radiant apartments:
In Egypt we hear the same story, and I cite myself: 'Osiris went into the sarcophagus, the coffin traveled on the water and became a tamarisk, and then the tamarisk became a pillar in a palace, and from that pillar the coffin emerged again. During the return voyage the coffin was opened and Osiris emerged to life again. This is the main story, how the sun temporarily dies to emerge in the east full of life next morning. Certainly we should expect some echo of this grand old myth in the rongorongo day calendars.' 'Tamarix can spread both vegetatively, by adventitious roots or submerged stems, and sexually, by seeds. Each flower can produce thousands of tiny (1 mm diameter) seeds that are contained in a small capsule usually adorned with a tuft of hair that aids in wind dispersal. Seeds can also be dispersed by water. Seedlings require extended periods of soil saturation for establishment.
Tamarix species are fire-adapted, and have long tap roots that allow them to intercept deep water tables and exploit natural water resources. They are able to limit competition from other plants by taking up salt from deep ground water, accumulating it in their foliage, and from there depositing it in the surface soil where it builds up concentrations lethal to many other plants.' '... I guess it is just a coincidence that 'tamarisk' (tamarix) is a word that starts with 'tama'. Though 'rix' sounds like a king (latin rex). The probable reason for the appearance in myth of the tamarisk tree is rather its strange 'customs': withstanding fire, subduing competition and giving multiple offspring (floating in the air and on the water with help of a tufty sail of hair).' The Tree of Life is also the Tree of the Sun (Tama nui te ra). '... Why do you wish to kill Tama nui te ra?' This was his name, meaning Great Son of the Day, which was never known before ...' '... The dream soul went on and came to Tama. She named the place 'Tama', an evil fish (he ika kino) with a very long nose (he ihu roroa) ...'
Here we have a kind of confirmation: tama means 'sun rays', but also 'rods of a frame'. The 4 pillars, to be aligned (tama) one at each cardinal point, are sun beams (presumably differently coloured). The sun (te Raá) is the son, the son of the day, i.e. he is his own father:
In Churchill 2 we can learn that there is such a close connection between the concepts of son and father that the same word had to be marked in different ways to make the distinction clear: "In the Polynesian this [tama na, father in the Efaté language] is distinguished from táma child by the accent tamā or by the addition of a final syllable which automatically secures the same incidence of the accent, tamái, tamana ..." I guess that Atan with He Raakau meant the tree (rakau) of the sun / life (Raá).
The meaning of kau as moving feet, swimming etc is referring to signs of life. If you are still, then you are dead (which some animals have understood, lying there absolutely still to give the aggressor the impression that they have died). The opposite to death is multiplying, spreading out. Swimming is connected with water and so is life. The waters are located at winter solstice, I guess. The coconut palm likes the sea-shore and the royal child appears among the reeds. The case may be more complicated, however: "As more intimately associated with agriculture and therefore closer to the lives of primitive peoples, the seasons undoubtedly antedated the year as an economic institution. In Samoa, for example, the usual Polynesian word for season tau (kau in Hawaii and Tonga) had come to be the word for year." (Makemson) In the centuries when the Polynesians criss-crossed the oceans there certainly was enough contact between Hawaii on one hand and the rest of Eastern Polynesia on the other hand for words and ideas to be transferred:
The words taku and rua indicate that at solstice sun slows down (taku) and that there is a Janus situation (rua). The tree (kau) of life / sun (Raá) stands at the 'rim of the pit' (rua). A tree stands still. Why does not sun moves on? "The ten or twelve days when the Sun appeared to linger at the winter solstice were a period of deep concern to primitive man, who trembled lest the luminary hesitate too long or fail to return to give life and warmth to earth and mankind. Hence the reference to the 'long pit' [marua-roa - a term used by the Maori for both solstices (and for the seasons of the solstices)]. Rua or lua is the cavern on the horizon from which the Sun rises or the corresponding pit on the western horizon through which he descends to the Underworld, and the 'long pit' was the one in which he remained for several successive days rising at the same point and setting at the same point while apparently making up his mind to retrace the path toward the equinoxes. In the short winter days when food was scarce and the earth unproductive and one looked forward with longing to the welcome warmth of spring it was impossible not to feel apprehension until the lengthening of the hours of daylight became perceptible, bringing assurance of the renewal of life." (Makemson) Answer: the sun is being reborn and time has to stop for that: '... the silver fir, which also likes sandy soil and sea breezes, is as old a birth-tree as the palm, being the tree under which the God of Byblos was born ...' If I have read the calendar of the moon in Mamari right, then we have He Raákau as the 14th night (Ca7-23):
The full moon is often in the rongorongo texts symbolized (I believe) by a triangular sign:
In the following night, the 15th (and glyph no. 24 in the line), the full moon appears:
But perhaps the mother dies like Chimalman - the 'staff' is broken - becoming a star ('the Precious Stone of Sacrifice', Chalchihuitzli.) Atan's He Omo Tohi is explained as the 'sucking time':
I find that Hotu is a kind of reverse of Tohi, which sound similar to Tohil: '... He pivoted inside his sandal: The verb phrase here is xub'aq uloq [xubac uloc], 'he drilled hither'; FV gives b'aq as 'to drill'. Just as he had promised Tohil gives his followers fire when others had lost it, acting as a fire drill. He pivots on one leg, which serves as the drill, and his sandal serves as the platform. His one-legged pose and the fire identify him with the Classic Maya personage known to iconographers as God K or GII, whose fire is usually shown as a burning torch sticking out of his forehead but sometimes comes out of the mouth of the snake that serves as the longer of his legs or (sometimes) his only leg (Taube 1992:69-79). Tohil is also a manifestation of the god called Hurricane or Thunderbolt Hurricane elsewhere ...' Here I find it useful to summarize:
Interestingly omo also means 'to paint', and I wonder if that is not part of the explanation for why Atan told about differently coloured 'balls'. Another, similar type of remark: The complex meanings of ta'u (year etc) and tau (perch etc) seem - I think - to have a common 'trunk' (tumu).
Solstice is the origin, I guess, because we find 'anchorage' as one of the explanations of tau. Another, with similar meaning, is 'to perch' (referring to moa - 'said of chickens on tree branches at night'). Also: 'rock on the coast, taller than others so that something can be deposited on it without fear of seeing washed it away by the waves; hakarere i ruga i te tau, to place something on such a rock'. Tau clearly refers to solstice. Ta'u may have its origin somewhere else, but if so then tau and ta'u must have converged into a common conceptual group of meanings.
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