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TRANSLATIONS
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Map from Wikipedia:
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What has been said earlier
about the deluge in the glyph dictionary? First we have the myth about
Amalivaca:
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"M415.
Tamanac. 'The girls who were forced to marry'
Amalivaca, the ancestor of the
Tamanac, arrived at the time of the great deluge in
which all Indians, with the exception of one man and one
woman who had taken refuge on the top of a mountain, had
been drowned.
While travelling in his boat, the
demiurge carved the figures of the sun and moon on the
Painted Rock of the
Encaramada.
He had a brother called Vochi.
Together they levelled the earth's surface. But in spite of
all their efforts, they were unable to make the river
Orinoco run both ways.
Amalivaca had daughters who were very
fond of travel. So he broke their legs in order to force
them to be sedentary and to populate the land of the
Tamanac ..."
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"... the
resemblance between the respective names between
the demiurges in M415
and M416,
in both of which they are subjected to the
ordeal of a flood which destroys mankind and
then entrusted with the reorganization of the
world, suggests that the two symmetrical
episodes of the original legless couple and the
demiurge's daughters with broken legs should be
treated as inverted sequences.
Amalivaca
broke his daughters' legs in order to prevent
them travelling hither and thither and to force
them to remain in one place, so that their
procreative powers, which had no doubt been put
to wrong uses during their adventurous
wanderings, should henceforth be confined to
increasing the Tamanac
population.
Conversely,
Mayowoca
bestows legs on a primeval and, of necessity,
sedentary couple, so that they can both move
about freely and procreate.
In M415,
the sun and the moon are fixed or, to be more
exact, their joint representation in the form of
rock carvings provides a definitive gauge of the
moderate distance separating them and the
relative proximity uniting them. But, since the
rock is motionless, the river below should -
supposing creation were perfect - flow both
ways, thus equalizing the journeys upstream and
downstream.
Anyone who has travelled in a canoe knows that a
distance that can be covered in a few hours when
the journey is downstream may require several
days if the direction is reversed.
The river
flowing two ways corresponds then, in spatial
terms, to the search, in temporal terms, for a
correct balance between the respective durations
of day and night ... such a balance should also
be obtainable through the appropriate distance
between the moon and the sun being measured out
in the form of rock carvings ..." (The Origin of
Table Manners) |
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I think the main point has
been missed in The Origin of Table Manners. To begin with the sun and
the moon whose images were carved on a rock - the rest of the world was
inundated, but the sun and the moon were visible in spite of this. We
can read in Tahua:
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Aa1-1 |
Aa1-2 |
Aa1-3 |
Aa1-4 |
| tagata ui |
ki tona marama |
e tagata noho ana - i te
ragi |
te tagata - hakamaroa ana i
te ragi |
Metoro said tagata
ui ki tona marama. Indeed the moon was visible (ui = to
inspect) at the beginning of time (here the year). The 'man' (tagata)
is depicted as a child, and it is the very young sun 'person'.
The main shapes of Aa1-1--2 are like Janus, facing both ways. The form
of waning moon is stamped on the sun child (he is waxing and the moon is
waning). The form of waxing moon (south of the equator) is also used for
counting 'nights', time is measured by the moon. Although the head of
the sun child is looking forward, his back is looking back, thereby
making a Janus image together with the moon crescent.
At winter solstice old sun has stopped and a new sun will take over, the
son of the old sun. Yet the son is the same sun, only his 'garment' has
changed:
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Hb9-40 |
Hb9-41 |
In Aa1-3--4 time has started
to run again. The 'esquimaux' would perceive young men on their way to
harpooning whales:
... among the Esquimaux, boys are forbidden to play cat's
cradle, because if they did so their fingers might in later life become
entangled in the harpoon-line. Here the taboo is obviously an
application of the law of similarity, which is the basis of homoeopathic
magic: as the child's fingers are entangled by the string in playing
cat's cradle, so they will be entangled by the harpoon-line when he is a
man and hunts whales ...
Strings and nets belong in the 2nd half of the year, when it is growing
dark:
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Aa1-9 |
Aa1-10 |
Aa1-11 |
Aa1-12 |
| e moa te herehua |
ka hora ka tetea |
ihe kuukuu ma te maro |
ki te henua |
Metoro said herehua
at Aa1-9, to bind up the 'fruit', but he also played on hakahererua
= to exchange, i.e. he said that the other side of the 'coin' has
arrived. The moa are sun
birds, formed somewhat like arms, with elbows at left:
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Aa1-5 |
Aa1-6 |
Aa1-7 |
Aa1-8 |
| ko te moa |
e noho ana ki te moa |
e moa te erueru |
e moa te kapakapa |
As Ogotemmêli explained it the
joints were formed by the sudden impact when the 'smith' crashed down
and came into contact with the earth. Suddenly the quick journey took an
abrupt end. In Aa1-9--10 the
bent 'legs' in Aa1-5--8 are seen reversed, formed as 'arms' pointing
upwards. The first half of the year ends with Aa1-8. Flight on 'flapping
wing' (standing still in the air) is kapakapa, but kapa is
also a song for the dead (used by Metoro to allude to the end of
the 1st half year):
| Kapa
Mgv.: a song for the dead, chant. Mq.:
kapa, a heathen song. Mgv.: aka-kapakapa, an
eager desire balked by timidity. Ta.: apaapa, to
flutter the wings. To.: kabakaba, id. Ma.:
kapakapa, to flutter. Churchill.
Tu.: Kapakapa, portion, particle.
Ta.: apaapaa, fragment, bit, chip. Churchill.
In Polynesia gliding flight is expressed
by lele, flight on flapping wing by kapa. In
Nuclear Polynesia kapa does not pass into the wing
sense except through the aid of a composition memeber kau.
In Samoan 'au we find this to mean a stalk, a handle;
in reference to the body its sense as that of some
projecting member is exhibited in 'aualuma (the
'au in front) as a very delicate euphemism for the
penis. So 'apa'au would mean literally the projecting
member that flaps. Churchill 2. |
I decide to add manu
kapa (a label I find suitable) to the glyph dictionary:
The structure of the year according to Aa1-1--12:
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winter solstice |
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Aa1-1 |
Aa1-2 |
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early spring |
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Aa1-3 |
Aa1-4 |
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Aa1-5 |
Aa1-6 |
Aa1-7 |
Aa1-8 |
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early autumn |
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Aa1-9 |
Aa1-10 |
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late autumn |
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Aa1-11 |
Aa1-12 |
Summer solstice is not
described. Winter solstice is a more important part of the calendar,
because a gap in time must be described.
... Amalivaca, the ancestor of
the Tamanac, arrived at the time of the great deluge in which all
Indians, with the exception of one man and one woman who had taken
refuge on the top of a mountain, had been drowned. While travelling in
his boat, the demiurge carved the figures of the sun and moon on the
Painted Rock of the
Encaramada.
He had a brother called Vochi.
Together they levelled the earth's surface. But in spite of all their
efforts, they were unable to make the river Orinoco
run both ways. Amalivaca had daughters
who were very fond of travel. So he broke their legs in order to force
them to be sedentary and to populate the land of the Tamanac
...
The canoe is necessary beyond
the solstice, because there is still water everywhere. The same
phenomenon occurs at both solstices, because the canoe (tao) is
the image of movement. Therefore there must be water after a solstice. 4
of the 18 tao signs in G can be explained this way:
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Ga1-22 |
Ga1-25 |
Ga5-10 |
Ga6-9 |
Ga7-14 |
Ga7-19 |
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Ga8-19 |
Gb1-24 |
Gb2-12 |
Gb2-22 |
Gb2-23 |
Gb4-28 |
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Gb2-32 |
Gb2-35 |
Gb3-2 |
Gb7-17 |
Gb7-23 |
Gb8-4 |
Winter solstice must come
before Ga1-22 and Ga1-25. Summer solstice must come before Gb1-24 and
Gb2-12. Of course it is
impossible to have a river run both ways at once, especially if the
river in question refers to the flowing of time from winter solstice to
summer solstice respectively the other way around half a year later. The
tide cannot move both ways at the same time.
The 'daughers' with broken legs are 'young roosters' according to
Tahua. The 'canoes' must be put aside when 'earth' (the 'island') is
reached. The Rain God is beginning his journey in the sky waters, then
he descends by way of the air, to land on earth and begin his planting:
  
The 'snake' under his canoe probably represents the river
of stars, the Milky Way. In midair the Rain God carries two 'harpoons'.
On land his feet make prints.
Amalivaca had a brother, Vochi, and together they levelled
the surface of the 'earth', presumably referring to summer solstice.
Maybe they are the same characters as Mawali and Tini:
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"... The Katawihi distinguish two rainbows: Mawali in the
west, and Tini in the east. Tini and Mawali were twin
brothers who brought about the flood that inundated the
whole world and killed all living people, except two young
girls whom they saved to be their companions. It is not
advisable to look either of them straight in the eye: to
look at Mawali is to become flabby, lazy, and unlucky at
hunting and fishing; to look at Tini makes a man so clumsy
that he cannot go any distance without stumbling and
lacerating his feet against all obstacles in his path, or
pick up a sharp instrument without cutting himself ...
... The Mura also believed that there were two rainbows, an
'upper' and a 'lower' ... Similarly, the Tucuna
differentiated between the eastern and the western rainbows
and believed them both to be subaquatic demons, the masters
of fish and potter's clay respectively ...
... In South America the rainbow has a double meaning. On
the one hand, as elsewhere, it announces the end of rain; on
the other hand, it is considered to be responsible for
diseases and various natural disasters [dis-aster]. In its
first capacity the rainbow effects a disjunction between the
sky and the earth which previously were joined through the
medium of rain. In the second capacity it replaces the
normal beneficient conjunction by an abnormal, maleficient
one - the one it brings about itself between sky and earth
by taking the place of water ..."
(The Raw and the Cooked) |
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serpent (rainbow) is responsible for the dis-junction. The
paradisical normal state of watery darkness uniting sky and
earth is disrupted by light, letting in all sorts of
'maleficient' creatures. |
In spring the sky roof is
uplifted, and a rainbow snake would be a proper symbol for light coming
in through the rain clouds of winter. Mawali and Tini
'brought about the flood', they appear to function as the Thunder Twins,
and they belong at the end of a solstice.
One of the twins (Mawali) give qualities of laziness, presumably
it is 'St. John' (which functions as a natural character and is the
mortal one). The other (Tini) seems to be caught in the 'bushes',
a clumsy character 'lacerating' his feet. His time is later, at the time
of stumbling when darkness has come. He needs a stick and he will rise
to heaven at Hua Reva.
In ancient Egypt new year follows the inundation of the Nile:
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"...
Instead of that old, dark, terrible drama of the king's
death, which had formerly been played to the hilt, the
audience now watched a solemn symbolic mime, the Sed
festival, in which the king renewed his pharaonic
warrant without submitting to the personal inconvenience of
a literal death.
The rite was
celebrated, some authorities believe, according to a cycle
of thirty years, regardless of the dating of the reigns;
others have it, however, that the only scheduling factor was
the king's own desire and command. Either way, the real hero
of the great occasion was no longer the timeless Pharaoh
(capital P), who puts on pharaohs, like clothes, and puts
them off, but the living garment of flesh and bone, this
particular pharaoh So-and-so, who, instead of giving himself
to the part, now had found a way to keep the part to
himself. And this he did simply by stepping the mythological
image down one degree. Instead of Pharaoh changing pharaohs,
it was the pharaoh who changed costumes.
The season of year for
this royal ballet was the same as that proper to a
coronation; the first five days of the first month of the
'Season of Coming Forth', when the hillocks and fields,
following the inundation of the Nile, were again emerging
from the waters. For the seasonal cycle, throughout the
ancient world, was the foremost sign of rebirth following
death, and in Egypt the chronometer of this cycle was the
annual flooding of the Nile. Numerous festival edifices were
constructed, incensed, and consecrated; a throne hall
wherein the king should sit while approached in obeisance by
the gods and their priesthoods (who in a crueler time would
have been the registrars of his death); a large court for
the presentation of mimes, processions, and other such
visual events; and finally a palace-chapel into which the
god-king would retire for his changes of costume.
Five days of
illumination, called the 'Lighting of the Flame' (which in
the earlier reading of this miracle play would have followed
the quenching of the fires on the dark night of the moon
when the king was ritually slain), preceded the five days of
the festival itself; and then the solemn occasion (ad
majorem dei gloriam) commenced. The opening rites were
under the patronage of Hathor. The king, wearing the belt
with her four faces and the tail of her mighty bull, moved
in numerious processions, preceded by his four standards,
from one temple to the next, presenting favors (not
offerings) to the gods.
Whereafter the
priesthoods arrived in homage before his throne, bearing the
symbols of their gods. More processions followed, during
which, the king moved about - as Professor Frankfort states
in his account - 'like the shuttle in a great loom' to
re-create the fabric of his domain, into which the cosmic
powers represented by the gods, no less than the people of
the land, were to be woven ..."
"... The king,
wearing now a short, stiff archaic mantle, walks in a grave
and stately manner to the sanctuary of the wolf-god
Upwaut, the 'Opener of the Way', where he anoints the
sacred standard and, preceded by this, marches to the palace
chapel, into which he disappears. A period of time elapses
during which the pharaoh is no longer manifest.
When he reappears
he is clothed as in the Narmer palette, wearing the kilt
with Hathor belt and bull's tail attatched. In his
right hand he holds the flail scepter and in his left,
instead of the usual crook of the Good Shepherd, an object
resembling a small scroll, called the Will, the House
Document, or Secret of the Two Partners, which he exhibits
in triumph, proclaiming to all in attendance that it was
given him by his dead father Osiris, in the presence
of the earth-god Geb.
'I have run', he
cries, 'holding the Secret of the Two Partners, the Will
that my father has given me before Geb. I have passed
through the land and touched the four sides of it. I
traverse it as I desire.' ... " (Campbell 2) |
The Secret of the Two Partners
could refer to the Thunder Twins (or the two partners could be sun and
moon, the 1st respectively 2nd halves of the year).
New Year came when land rose up, not when the sun child was born high in
the sky. And new year followed summer solstice, it was not an event in
winter.
... In ancient Egypt
there was also a special type of bird to indicate this,
the benu bird (named phoenix by the Greeks).
According to Wilkinson the benu bird was a heron
(Ardea cinerea - cǐnis
= ashes) and '... standing for itself on an
isolated rock or on a little island in the middle of the
water the heron was an appropriate image for how the
first life appeared on the primary hill which arose from
the watery chaos at the time of the original creation.'
'Similarly to the sun the
heron rose up from the primary waters, and its Egyptian
name, benu, was probably derived from the
word weben, to 'rise' or 'shine'. This
magnificent wader was also associated with the
inundations of the Nile.'
But herons have straight
beaks in order to be able to harpoon frogs and fishes.
The picture above, also from Wilkinson, instead suggests
a slightly bent beak.
'As a symbol for the sun
the heron was the sacred bird of Heliopolis [helios
= sun, polis = city], which became the mythical
phoenix of the Greeks. Without doubt through its
association with the descending and rising sun the heron
was comprehended as lord over the royal jubilee of
rejuvenation, which was staged for a pharao who had
reigned in thirty years.'
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In ancient Egypt it was Sirius
who had a 'finger' involved in creating the flood. But the deluge was
also once connected with the beginning of the year as announced by the
Pleiades:
| ... Now the
deluge was caused by the male waters from the sky meeting the
female waters which issued forth from the ground. The holes in
the sky by which the upper waters escaped were made by God when
he removed stars out of the constellation of the Pleiades; and
in order to stop this torrent of rain, God had afterwards to
bung up the two holes with a couple of stars borrowed from the
constellation of the Bear. That is why the Bear runs after the
Pleiades to this day; she wants her children back, but she will
never get them till after the Last Day ... |
Holes are made by pointed
objects (like whale harpoons), and we should look again at a page at
tara in the glyph dictionary:
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Ca1-1 |
Ca1-2 |
Ca1-3 |
Ca1-4 |
Ca1-5 |
Ca1-6 |
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Ha1-1 |
Ha1-2 |
Ha1-3 |
Ha1-4 |
Ha1-5 |
Ha1-6 |
Ha1-7 |
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Pa1-1 |
Pa1-2 |
Pa1-3 |
Pa1-4 |
Pa1-5 |
Pa1-6 |
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Ea9-25 |
Ea9-26 |
Ea9-27 |
Ea9-28 |
Ea9-29 |
Ea9-30 |
Ea9-31 |
Ea9-32 |
Bent
henua (Pa1-1 and Ea9-25) - presumably meaning the halves
of a sea shell (pure) - together with ragi
(Ca1-1, Ha1-2, and Pa1-1) possibly allude to the primal
situation in which Tagaroa dwelt alone in his dome.
Water is the opposite of fire (light, life), and being alone
in the vast primordial darkness, Tagaroa must have
been as if down in the water. The word tarai may
explain why tara glyphs appear at the beginning of
the texts (C, H, and P):
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Tarai
1.
Deluge, sound of water; ua
tarai, a smart shower. 2. To carve, to
square, to rough-hew, to shape; taraia,
rough-hewn. P Pau.: tarai, to cut, to
hew, to carve. Mgv.: tarai, to rough-hew,
to carve. Mq.: taái, to cut, to
rough-hew, to work wood or stone. Ta.: tarai,
to cut, to fashion. Churchill.
Sa.: talai, to adze.
To.: talai, to smooth off rough edges.
Fu.: talai, to cut off knots or thorns
... Churchill 2. |
Here - I
suggest - a possible explanation of why tara glyphs
appear above is the necessity in rongorongo texts to
use a glyph type in rebus fashion. Tara could be used
to allude to tarai - the deluge at the beginning
before light forced sky and earth apart,
Glyph play
and word play, however, probably worked together. Tarai
means also 'to cut off knots or thorns' (and similar) -
tara = thorn and tarai = eliminate thorns. The
Polynesian language is full of words derived from wordplay.
Therefore it is quite possible to express complex ideas by
way of the rongorongo system of writing. Another
glyph play is seen in Ea9-25--26: the thumb is like the
point (tara) in the tara glyph.
The
instrument for eliminating thorns, to rough-hew at the
beginning of building a canoe, is the adze. Yet on atolls
the working
tool was a sea shell.
In ancient
Babylonia they imagined the earth was upwards bulging
because down below under the earth, in the darkness, there
was a huge freshwater reservoir (apsū). The form of
the earth was therefore like an overturned boat:
"Da ferner sofort
nachgewiesen werden wird, dass sich der apsū unter
der Erde ihrer ganzen Ausdehnung nach befindet und ein
Höhlung unter der Erde nur verursacht werden kann durch eine
Wölbung der Erde, werden wir nicht umhinkönnen, diese
Vorstellung von dem apsū wieder gespiegelt zu sehen
in dem Bericht des Diodor, dem gemäss
die Erde von den Chaldäern in der Gestalt eines
umgestülpten Bootes vorgestellt wurde." (Jensen)
I suggest the same kind of world view was shared by the
creators of the rongorongo texts. Above there was a
sky dome. Below the earth was also dome-shaped (like an
overturned canoe, like hare paega). |
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