TRANSLATIONS
A few preliminary
remarks and imaginations:
1.
If I had chosen another label than rona, then it
could have been
hakarava.
I would like to draw attention to the expression hakarava
hakaturu for 'quadrangular'. At first rava seems to have
nothing to do with 'geometry'. Upon reflection, though, we can 'see
the light':
Rava
1. Enough, sufficient;
ku-rava-á,
that's enough, it is sufficient. 2. To be satiated, to
be satisfied; ku rava-á
te tagata i te kai, the man has eaten his
fill. 3. Used very commonly before verbs to express
someone much inclined towards this action:
tagata rava taûa, quarrelsome person;
rava kai,
glutton; rava haúru,
sleepy-head; rava kî,
chatterbox; rava tagi,
cry-baby; rava keukeu,
hard-working; vara
is often used instead of
rava. Vanaga. |
Metoro said hakarava three times at
GD84, but he said it also at 13 other types of glyphs, which made me
decide rona had to be the label. Moreover, wordplays
involving (haka)rava and its reverse variant vara seem
to occur: kavahaa, vari, hakavari, hakareva, hakaraoa.
The essence of rona as an idea apparently is to be in
contrast to runu, and I guess the pair represents the 2 halves
of a 'bicycle' (a month, a year, etc), maybe with rona as
the 'front wheel' and runu as the 'back wheel'.
Together they will then form the 'quadrangular earth' - growth
('eat until you are satisfied or die') respectively stagnation ('the season
of straw') - the 2 sides of reality. In 'spring' everything grows
but in autumn the priority is 'offspring':
"Stagnant ... (of liquid)
†that is at rest in a vessel; not
running or flowing ... L. stagnant ... f. stagnum pool
..." (English Etymology)
"Straw¹
... (coll. sg.) stems or stalks of cereals ...
Straw²
... (arch.) scatter ... cover with something scattered ..." (English Etymology)
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2.
We have identified other kinds of 'head
down' figures earlier:
Such glyphs evidently mean 'descending', and
moe glyphs - we have seen - apparently are located 'inside the
doorstep' to the new 'room'. Ea2-17 is probably also inside the
'doorstep' to the new
season, because 217 = 3 * 72 + 1. Spring has 3 'feathers' and autumn
2 (and then 5 * 72 = 360).
The new 'limb' will always begin before the old one vanishes completely:
... The final day of
the month ... 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 head down motif in rona glyphs probably was used in the
same way, and rona glyphs should therefore stand immediately
inside the border line to a new season.
The bottom of rona is in my prototype presumably a
nuku sign. In autumn there are no rima (arms, 'fire').
Nuku would then, I think, correspond to hakaturu (in the
expression hakarava hakaturu) or to Runu ('the
back wheel of the bicycle'). The appearance of 2 vowels u seems to be a sign
for the 'back wheel' (and U means Moon in Mayan).
The peculiar situation is that rona glyphs could
have been used to indicate the end of runa when rona
already has taken over - reminiscent of how moe indicates the
end of the old season where the new season already has begun.
The 'arms' in my rona example are to be
understood rather as 'wings' than 'arms'. But with 2 wings it cannot be
Spring Sun, because he has only one wing (kara etahi).
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3.
My glyph catalogue contains all sorts of strange 'persons'
which have the
abnormal body orientation characterizing rona. The
head can be oriented in various ways and empty hands are not
unusual:
One of the alternatives to nuku at bottom
is vae:
Vae was used at the end (the 'going
away') of the old year (Sun), which strengthens my idea of rona
glyphs being located at the threshold to a new season. In vae
there is 1 leg and in nuku there are 2.
The twisted body shape could be a sign of how
'the pendulum of time' must move in the other direction after
having come to a full stop. Maybe a pendulum or a see-saw (or
any oscillating movement in mother nature for that matter) can feel beforehand
that the direction is going to change? How should one else
explain why the old movement is slowing down? Can we civilized
people explain it better?
The variety of forms in rona indicates
these glyphs are compositions incorporating several signs. There
are many oscillations in mother nature, not only between waxing
and waning lights in the sky. In order to differentiate between
them it is necessary to add signs.
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In the niu chapter Chalchihuitzli ('Precious
Stone of Sacrifice') was mentioned, and for various reasons there is
reason to repeat the story:
"...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)
The complete myth can be read in the Index under
Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca (alternatively at
hahe).
In an extraordinary picture of myth Chalchihuitzli appears
together with a person (of obviously central importance) who has a
twisted body shape:
She is here the Aztec
version of Chalchiuhtilicue as she was called in their
language:
"... In
Aztec mythology, Chalchiuhtlicue (also
Chalciuhtlicue, or Chalcihuitlicue) ('She of
the Jade Skirt') was the goddess of lakes and streams.
She is also a patroness of birth and plays a part in
Aztec baptisms. In the myth of the five suns, she had
dominion over the fourth world, which was destroyed in a
great flood. She also presides over the day 5 Serpent
and the trecena [a 13-day period] of 1 Reed.
Her husband
was Tlaloc and with him, she was the mother of
Tecciztecatl and ruler over Tlalocan. In her
aquatic aspect, she was known as Acuecucyoticihuati,
goddess of oceans, rivers and any other running water,
as well as the patron of women in labor. She was also
said to be the wife of Xiuhtecuhtli. She is
sometimes associated with a rain goddess,
Matlalcueitl.
In art,
Chalciuhtlicue was illustrated wearing a green
skirt and with short black vertical lines on the lower
part of her face. In some scenes babies may be seen in a
stream of water issuing from her skirts. Sometimes she
is symbolized by a river with a heavily laden prickly
pear tree growing on one bank ..."
(Wikipedia) |
The
curious man in the middle of the flowing tail of
Chalchiuhtlicue shows by his legs at left that he must be
swimming on his back (tu'a),
but at right he is turned around with his stomach below.
I can count to 13
'flames' issuing from her long flowing 'skirt', and in addition
there are 16 sun symbols. 13 + 16 = 29, suggesting Moon.
Moving from top
left and counterclockwise sun symbols and 'flames' (maybe
droplets?) alternate in a regular pattern (with a sun symbol
arriving before a 'flame'). After the 7th sun symbol, however,
another sun symbol (the 8th) arrives. Equally: after the 13th
'flame' the 15th sun symbol is followed by another (the 16th)
sun symbol. We recognize 8 and 16 as cardinal numbers from the
rongorongo texts.
The crack in the body of the swimmer (Sun) comes
after 3 segments, and then follows 4 more. (They cannot be ribs,
because such are 2 * 12 = 24 in number.) He represents the
year and his position is midsummer. Spring is in the past
(therefore at left and on its back) and autumn lies in front.
Further on is a mysterious coffer, maybe a coffin, for the time
when he becomes tired and his face will fall down.
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