The string needs to be investigated. The way to do this goes by Hamlet's Mill, and we need a long text from the beginning of the chapter 'The Dephts of the Sea':

"Hast thou entered into the springs of the Sea? Or hast thou walked in the search of the depths? (Job XXXVIII. 16)

It will help now to take a quick comparative look at the different 'dialects' of mythical language as applied to 'Phaeton' in Greece and India. The Pythagoreans make Phaeton fall into Eridanus, burning part of its water, and glowing still at the time when the Argonauts passed by.

Ovid stated that since the fall the Nile hides its sources. Rigveda 9.73.3 says that the Great Varuna has hidden the ocean. The Mahabharata tells in its own style why the 'heavenly Ganga' had to be brought down. At the end of the Golden Age (Krita Yuga) a class of Asura who had fought against the 'gods' hid themselves in the ocean where the gods could not reach them, and planned to overthrow the government. So the gods implored Agastya (Canopus, alpha Carinae = Eridu) for help.

The great Rishi did as he was bidden, drank up the water of the ocean, and thus laid bare the enemies, who were then slain by the gods. But now, there was no ocean anymore! Implored by the gods to fill the sea again, the Holy One replied: 'That water in sooth hath been digested by me. Some other expedient, therefore, must be thought of by you, if ye desire to make endeavour to fill the ocean.'

I must insert here the high summer glyph in Tahua, where on the contrary the return of water is described as successful:

The ua sign can be regarded as the Y-sign of kai - a double set of 3 'fingers.

It was this sad state of things which made it necessary to bring the Galaxy 'down'.

The Galaxy, being a kind of river, would provide the necessary water to refill the sea. Suddenly we have improved our understanding of Aa6-66, where Metoro said that the Galaxy (Goe) 'went asleep' (moe):

The Galaxy 'went asleep' because it disappeared from the sky. Also the Tahua creator identified, it seems, the Galaxy with a source of water.

In Aa6-67 the 'red fish' (ika mea) in turn disappeared because the water from the river in the sky refilled the dry surface of the earth at bottom - ki to vaha o to ika mea (into the 'mouth' of the 'red fish').

This is reminiscent of the detail in the Jewish tradition about Eben Shetiyyah, that the waters sank down so deeply that David had to recite the 'fifteen songs of ascension' to make them rise again.

Now Agastya, the great Rishi, had a 'sordid' origin similar to that of Erichtonios (Auriga), who was born of Gaia, 'the Earth', from the seed of Hephaistos, who had dropped it while he was looking at Athena ¹.

¹ Besides Greece and India, the motif of the dropped seed occurs in Caucasian myths, particularly those which deal with the hero Soszryko. The 'Earth' is replaced by a stone, Hephaistos by a shepherd, and Athena by the 'beautiful Satana', who watches carefully the pregnant stone and who, when the time comes, calls in the blacksmith who serves as midwift to the 'stone-born' hero whose body is blue shining steel from head to foot, except the knees (or the hips) which are damaged by the pliers of the smith. The same Soszryko seduces a hostile giant to measure the depth of the sea in the same manner as Michael or Elias causes the devil to dive, making the sea freeze in the meantime.

In the case of the Rishi:

He originated from the seed of Mitra and Varuna, which they dropped into a water-jar on seeing the heavenly Urvashi. From this double parentage he is called Maitrāvaruni, and from his being born from a jar he got the name Khumbasambhaya ¹ (Khumba is the name of Aquarius in India and Indonesia, allegedly late Greek influence.)

¹ ... let us mention that the Egyptian Canopus is himself a jar-god; actually, he is represented by a Greek hydria ...

On the very same time and occasion there also was 'born' as son of Mitra and Varuna - only the seed fell on the ground not in the jar - the Rishi Vasishta. This is unmistakbaly zeta Ursae Majoris, and the lining up of Canopus with zeta, more often with Alcor, the tiny star near zeta (Tom Thumb, in Babylonia the 'fox'-star) has remained a rather constant feature, in Arabic Suhayl and as-Sura. This is the 'birth' of the valid representatives of both the poles, the sons of Mitra and Varuna and also of their successors.

On Easter Island high summer is dry and sun far south, 'close to Canopus'. From there water comes back. The time anciently was equal to Aquarius. North of the equator Aquarius marked the time of water because sun was as far away south as possible, south of the equator was seen the mirror image - sun quite too hot and the dry earth in need of being reimpregnated.

Stone or earth, the heavenly rain saved the situarion. Twins were born, one representing the southern sea and one representing the northern sky.

To follow up the long and laborious way leading from Rigvedic Mitrāvaruna (dual) to the latest days of the Roman Empire where we still find a gloss saying 'mithra funis, quo navis media vincitur' - 'mithra is the rope, by which the middle of the ship is bound', would overstep the frame of this essay by far. Robert Eisler relying upon his vast material, connected this fetter or 'rope', mithra, right away with the 'ship's belt' from the tenth book of Plato's Republic.

Of the inseparable dual Mitrāvaruna, Varuna is still of greater relevance, particularly because it is he who 'surveyed the first creation' (RV 8.41.10), he who hid the Ocean - Ovid had it that the sources of the Nile were hidden - and he who is himself called 'the hidden Ocean' (RV 8.41.8).

Varuna states about himself: 'I fastened the sky to the seat of the Rita' (RV 4.42.2). And at that 'seat of Rita' we find Svarnara, said to be 'the name of the celestial spring ... which Soma selected as his dwelling'.¹

¹ ... Soma is addressed as 'lord of the poles', and to Agni is given the epithet svarnaram thrice ... But we did hear about 'Agni, like the felly the spokes, so you surround all the gods', and Soma and Agni supplement each other ...

This is no other 'thing' than Hvarna (Babylonian melammu) which the 'bad uncle' Afrasiyab attempted to steal by diving to the bottom ot Lake Vurukasha, although Hvarna belonged to Kai Khusrau ... Thus in whichever dialect the phenomenon is spelled out, the fallen ruler of the Golden Age is held to dwell nearest to the celestial South Pole, particularly in Canopus which marks the steering oar of Argo, Canopus at the 'confluence of the rivers'.

This is true whether Varuna fastened the sky to the seat of the Rita (and his own seat), whether Enki-Ea-Enmesharra, dwelling in Eridu, held all the norms and measures (Rita, Sumerian me: Akkadian: parsu) - Thorkild Jacobsen called him very appropriately the 'Lord modus operandi' - or whether Kronos-Saturn kept giving 'all the measures of the whole creation' to Zeus while he himself slept in Ogygia-the-primeval."

Thus, I think, the beginning of everything (including the year) should be fastened to 'Canopus', i.e. high summer for the Easter Islanders. Te Pei is station number 8 and why couldn't varu (8) be referring to Varuna - the symbol 8 is formed as the image of dual, twins. The string connecting the northern summer sky to the deepest winter water (as to a ship's anchor) must be the same string as that which goes down to Te Pe'i (who nibbles at the bait).