TRANSLATIONS

TRANSLATIONS

The shape of Y for the 2nd half of the year is that of a forked stick. To illustrate twins is might do. A forked stick was used for picking fruits from the tree. Only one 'fruit' need picking at midsummer, the head of the spring snake:

"The Huichol Indians admire the beautiful markings on the backs of serpents. Hence when a Huichol woman is about to weave or embroider, her husband catches a large serpent and holds it in a cleft stick, while the woman strokes the serpent with one hand down the whole length of its back; then she passes the same hand over her forehead and eyes, that she may be able to work as beautiful patterns in the web as the markings on the back of the serpent." (The Golden Bough)

The palm over the eye is like a black cloth. It is time to move on, to maitaki:

A few preliminary remarks and imaginations:

1. The three balls arranged vertically in a pile maybe could illustrate three months, three quarters or some other time measure composed of three subunits.

"Among the Nahyssan of S. Carolina time was measured and a rude chronology arranged by means of strings of leather with knots of various colour, like the Peruvian quipos. The Dakota use a circle as the symbol of time, a smaller one for a year and a larger one for a longer period: the circles are arranged in rows, thus: OOO or O-O-O. The Pima of Arizona make use of a tally. The year-mark is a deep notch across the stick..." (Nilsson)

The vertical straight line could then represent a string tightly drawn to make the measure exact. A vertical straight line is used at noon in Ha6-3 in order to indicate that the 2nd part of the daylight (waning) is about to begin:


Ha6-1	Ha6-2	Ha6-3	Ha6-4

The vertical straight line is also used in other glyph types, e.g.:


kahi	poporo	henua ora

The first two glyphs show at the top end a bifurcation sign (Y), while in henua ora this sign is put upside down at the bottom (a sign of negation). Beyond the first growth the plant stem divides into twins.

The Y sign is absent in Ha6-3--4, presumably because the 'twin' phase comes later than noon. The double vertical lines may indicate, though, that this bifurcation will happen just at noon.

Perhaps, therefore, double maitaki glyphs are located at midsummer:

Not only does the spider use a string for his movement, there are myths which talk about a cardinal string hanging down from the sky roof:

... Proclus informs us that the fox star nibbles continuously at the thong of the yoke which hold together heaven and earth; German folklore adds that when the fox succeeds, the world will come to its end. This fox star is no other than Alcor, the small star g near zeta Ursae Majoris (in India Arundati, the common wife of the Seven Rishis, alpha-eta Ursae; see ... Arundati and Elamitic Narundi, sister of the Sibitti, the 'Seven'), known as such since Babylonian times. The same star crosses our way again in the Scholia to Aratus where we are told that it is Electra, mother of Dardanus, who left her station among the Pleiades, desperate because of Ilion's fall, and retired 'above the second star of the beam ... others call this star fox'.

This small piece of evidence may show the reader two things: (1) that the Fall of Troy meant the end of a veritable world-age. (For the time being, we assume that the end of the Pleiadic age is meant; among various reasons, because Dardanos came to Troy after the third flood, according to Nonnos.); (2) that Ursa Major and the Pleiades figuring on the shield of Achilles, destroyer of Troy, have a precise significance, and are not to be taken as testimony for the stupendous ignorance of Homer who knew none but these constellations, as the specialists want us to believe. There are indeed, too many traditions connecting Ursa and the Pleiades with this or that kind of catastrophe to be overlooked. Among the many we mention only one example from later Jewish legends, some lines taken out of a most fanciful description of Noah's flood, quoted by Frazer:

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 ...

I did not mention that the Belt of Orion (Tautoru) was named tui (the string):

Tui

1. To sew mats, to make strings. E-tahi tuitui reipá i Te Pei, ekó rava'a e-varu kaukau; i-garo ai i Hiva, i te kaiga, a necklace of mother-of-pearl is on te Pei, few will find it (lit: eight groups of people); it has remained in Hiva, in our homeland. 2. The three stars of Orion's Belt. Vanaga.

Two pieces (at least) of the great cosmic puzzle here obviously should be put together, viz. to 'nibble' and a string of mother-of-pearl (both of which point to Te Pei and to Hiva):

... Now there was on one of the islands (i.e., Marae Renga or Marae Tohio) a certain Haumaka, who had tattooed Hotu, and received from him in return a present of mother-of-pearl which had been given to Hotu's father by an individual called Tuhu-patoea. Tuhu had seen that the men who went down to get pearls were eaten by a big fish, so he invented a net by which the precious shell could be obtained without risk, and the pearl so procured he had presented to his chief, Ko Riri.

This man, Haumaka, had a dream, and during it his spirit went to a far country, and when he awoke he told his six men whose names are given, to go and seek for it; they were to look for a land where there were three islets and a big hole, also a long and beautiful road. (RM:277-278) Another description of Hau Maka is given by Brown who received his information from Juan Tepano in 1922: ... the king of Marae Renga, called Haumaka, had a similar dream (moe mata) descriptive of the islet which Hotu Matua was to make for and of the bay where he should land. When he awoke he sent off six men ... to spy out the land for the great pioneer ... (Brown 1924:40)

TP:23 also shows that Hau Maka must have held a high rank (Ko Hau Maka, Ariki). However, he did not have the same position as Hotu Matua himself, who called him 'little king' (ariki iti) and gave him instructions (E:14). The unique relationship between Hau Maka and Hotu Matua is obviously based on the tattooing that had taken place. If one draws on the customs of other Polynesian islands for comparison, the Marquesans come to mind, among whom tattooing was the prerogative of the son of the chief. The tattoo master had the right to demand a handsome reward, such as a precious headdress (von den Steinen 1925:59 ff., 85). In the homeland of the emigrants, the reward consisted of a mother-of-pearl ornament, which was handed over to the tattoo master by the father of the tattooed [i.e., by the father of Hotu Matua to Haumaka]. The precious object that was the generous reward for the tattoos of Hotu Matua has its own special history. Short segments from two native manuscripts can be used to support the statement made by Routledge:

Ko Tuu pa toe'o	Ko Tuupato eo
Ko te ruku o te rei o kope roa
Maaku hura
Maaku mau	Ko te hura maaku mau
Maaku tito	Ko te hura matitotito
Maaku tongi	Ko te hura matogitogi
Kia Ene	Ko ene
Kia Tuu Tai a Ene	Ko Tuutai
Kia Ruhi	Ko Ruhi
(Ms. F, Gabriel Hereveri)	(Ms. E:16, according to Hau Maka)

We seem to be dealing with a recitation or perhaps even the magic incantation of a master in charge of the nets. Tu'u Pato Eo, as the name can be reconstructed from all three versions, means 'the diver of the ornament of the tall youth'. His invention is the net called hura (HM:443 'una red [net] pequeña en forma de embudo que se amarra en la punta de un palo'; ME 185 incorrectly kupenga ura).

The master of the nets boasts how the net works for him: 'the fish nibbles on the bait', tito; 'the fish pulls more vigourously', tongi; 'the fish is caught', ma'u. I am not familiar with the following four names, but perhaps it is no coincidence that in TUA. ene (definition 1) means 'to make a fish net'. At any rate, the extent to which Ms. E and Ms. F agree leads one to believe that Routledge's information, which was published in only a drastically shortened version, represents genuine knowledge of the past, which the 'old ones' [korohua] had retained ...

At high summer a big fish is deep down, threatening those who dive for pearls. The son of the chief is a tattoo master, making black marks (like strings or nets or cloth) over the red hide - string games (kaikai) on the Robin Hood hide.