TRANSLATIONS

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Mars represents as number 21 the beginning of next double cycle of 10, he is the child garment (like Horus):

21 * 5 (Mars)
420 210 105 105

420 = the first number which satisfies both 60 and 70. 420 = 7 * 60 which means both 7 'flames of the sun' and 60 weeks. The two celestial orbits cannot agree until we reach day 420. Tama (14 * 29.5 = 413) connects to Mars by number 14, 'one more' than 13:

13 * 5 (Moon)
260 130 65 65

Who is the father? It must be Jupiter, because he is joined to Venus (the 'star of rebirth') by his position in the week and by number 9. By creating a son he has to give up his own life:

9 * 5 (Jupiter)
360 180 90 90
180 90 45 45

Where does Mercury come into the picture? What role has (s)he to play in this game?

15 * 5 (Mercury)
300 150 75 75

He has 'two more' than 13. Let us here continue with the series of pages from 'Mercury', the first of which is:

 

In Hamlet's Mill there are several interesting pictures with cosmic significance. Like numbers pictures are inherently ambivalent and they can therefore be used to 'map' each other much more easily than normal text. The following is one of them:

I will use this picture to clarify - or at least to suggest - the difference in meaning conveyed by henua signs on one hand and 'strings' on the other. We need to differentiate between 'bands' forming ovals on one hand and circumferences defined by 'strings' on the other:

vaha kai vai mama pure pu

The collapsing 'hourglass' (Meru) is the main element in the circle formed by double 'bands' at bottom right in the picture above, but inside this circle are lots of clues of use for us when reading the pictures in the rongorongo texts.

Before we focus on these clues, however, let us take notice of the jar at top right, from which somebody is rising fresh as new after having taken a bath in the presumably fluid container. Immediately to the right is another jar, with 6 bands (one of them with 6 dots). I guess this jar illustrates the other opening, the one in the west where the newborn god in the left jar later will go down head first.

And then there is at left of the newborn god a goddess holding a 'square' blanket in front of her, hiding the process of regeneration from our eagre / eager eyes. Time runs from left to right in the picture.

 

I have hinted at language as a third 'map' (in addition to numbers and pictures). What happens behind the blanket? What takes place in the dark? Like monkeys we are curious and cannot resist lifting the blanket. We have eager eyes.

"Before we move on to many motifs, which will be shown as related to the same 'eddy-field' or whirl, it is appropriate to quote in full a version of the fire and water story from the Indians of Guyana. This not only provides charming variations, but presents that rarest of deities, a creator power neither conceited nor touchy nor jealous nor quarrelsome nor eager to slap down unfortunates with 'inborn sin', but a god aware that his powers are not really unlimited. He behaves modestly, sensibly and thoughtfully and is rewarded with heartfelt cooperation from his creatures, at least from all except for the usual lone exception:

The Ackawois of British Guyana say that in the beginning of the world the great spirit Makonamia (or Makunaima; he is a twin-hero; the other is called Pia) created birds and beasts and set his son Sigu to rule over them. Moreover, he caused to spring from the earth a great and very wonderful tree, which bore a different kind of fruit on each of its branches, while round its trunk bananas, plantains, cassava, maize, and corn of all kinds grew in profusion; yams, too, clustered round its roots; and in short all the plants now cultivated on earth flourished in the greatest abundance on or about or under that marvellous tree.

In order to diffuse the benefits of the tree all over the world, Sigu resolved to cut it down and plant slips and seeds of it everywhere, and this he did with the help of all the beasts and birds, all except the brown monkey, who, being both lazy and mischievous, refused to assist in the great work of transplantation. So to keep him out of mischief ['disobeying the chief'] Sigu set the animal to fetch water from the stream in a basket of open-work, calculating that the task would occupy his misdirected energies for some time to come. 

In the meantime, proceeding with the labour of felling the miraculous tree, he discovered that the stump was hollow and full of water in which the fry of every sort of fresh-water fish was swimming about. The benevolent Sigu determined to stock all the rivers and lakes on earth with the fry on so liberal a scale that every sort of fish should swarm in every water. But this generous intention was unexpectedly frustrated. For the water in the cavity, being connected with the great reservoir somewhere in the bowels of the earth, began to overflow; and to arrest the rising flood Sigu covered the stump with a closely woven basket. This had the desired effect. But unfortunately the brown monkey, tired of his fruitless task, stealthily returned, and his curiosity being aroused by the sight of the basket turned upside down, he imagined that it must conceal something good to eat. 

So he cautiously lifted it and peeped beneath, and out poured the flood, sweeping the monkey himself away and inundating the whole land. Gathering the rest of the animals together Sigu led them to the highest points of the country, where grew some tall coconut-palms. Up the tallest trees he caused the birds and climbing animals to ascend, and as for the animals that could not climb and were not amphibious, he shut them in a cave with a very narrow entrance, and having sealed up the mouth of it with wax he gave the animals inside a long thorn with which to pierce the wax and so ascertain when the water had subsided. After taking these measures for the preservation of the more helpless species, he and the rest of the creatures climbed up the palm-tree and ensconced themselves among the branches.

During the darkness and storm which followed, they all suffered intensely from cold and hunger; the rest bore their sufferings with stoical fortitude, but the red howling monkey uttered his anguish in such horrible yells that his throat swelled and has remained distended ever since; that, too, is the reason why to this day he has a sort of bony drum in his throat. 

Meanwhile Sigu from time to time let fall seeds of the palm into the water to judge of its depth by the splash. As the water sank, the interval between the dropping of the seed and the splash in the water grew longer; and at last, instead of a splash the listening Sigu heard the dull thud of the seeds striking the soft earth. 

Then he knew that the flood had subsided, and he and the animals prepared to descend. But the trumpeter-bird was in such a hurry to get down that he flopped straight into an ant's nest, and the hungry insects fastened on his legs and gnawed them to the bone. That is why the trumpeter-bird has still such spindle shanks. The other creatures profited by this awful example and came down the tree cautiously and safely. Sigu now rubbed two pieces of wood together to make fire, but just as he produced the first spark, he happened to look away, and the bush-turkey, mistaking the spark for a fire-fly, gobbled it up and flew off. The spark burned the greedy bird's gullet, and that is why turkey's have red wattles on their throats to this day.

The alligator was standing by at the time, doing no harm to anybody, but as he was for some reason an unpopular character, all the other animals accused him of having stolen and swallowed the spark. In order to recover the spark from the jaws of the alligator Sigu tore out the animal's tongue, and that is why alligators have no tongue to speak of down to this very day ..." (Hamlet's Mill)

Under the 'overturned basket' (behind the black cloth) the Flood threatens. English Etymology:

eagre ... tidal bore. The forms are of three types: (i) higre, hyger, hygre ... (ii) agar ..., aiger ... (iii) eagre, eager ... perh. ult. repr. OE. ægur, ēgur, ēagor, ēogor flood, tide; but this can only be if the g is a stopped cons., and if such a deriv. as ēa river + gār spear ... may be assumed ...

This is extraordinary useful for us. Ea ('House of the Water', according to Larousse) was the god of water in ancient Mesopotamia. The spear (vero) is the weapon of Sagittarius: