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TRANSLATIONS
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Te Poko Uri
Te Poko Uri is,
it seems, the female counterpart of Te Kioe Uri. Pokopoko
means womb or any deep concave object. A
female rat is kio'e pokohata. According to Manuscript E the
kuhane stands at the rim of Rano Kau when she gives
it the name Te Poko Uri ('the dark abyss').
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Not much is said
about the signs, mostly the discussion relates to structure.
We have to wait until maitaki (Ga5-5, Ga5-10, and
Ga5-13) and maro (Ga5-15).
The running figure in Ga5-7 may be the sun. His long 'neck'
(gao) should remind us about the residences of the
king:
| ... The traditions show that
the residences of the king were fairly flexible.
The building of new 'houses' was obviously the
result of (male) births in the royal family. In
each case, the house that was built last is left
to the newborn son and his mother, together with
a specific servant, while the king has a new and
separate residence constructed for himself.
Ms. E clearly demonstrates this
procedure, which was followed in spite of
Hotu Matua's quarrel with Vakai. In
the text four houses are associated with the
four sons. Later residences of Hotu Matua
have different names and are the scenes of
different activities. The four sons and the four
houses are coordinated as shown in Table 10:
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TABLE 10 |
| 1.
Hare Tupa Tuu |
1.
Tuu Maheke |
| 2.
Hare Pu Rangi |
2.
Miru (Te Mata Nui) |
| 3.
Hare Moa Viviri |
3.
Tuu A Hotu Iti (Te Mata Iti) |
| 4.
Hare Moa Tataka |
4.
Tuu Rano Kau |
The first house is located in
Oromanga. It is the residence (maara
noho) of the immigrant king that was
envisioned in the dream voyage and sought by the
explorers. The second and the third houses are
also said to have been in Anakena, a
short distance away ('60 meters', according to
my informant). Supposedly, the same is true of
the fourth house. It is difficult to translate
the names of the houses. Below is an incomplete
list of possible translations:
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tupa tuu |
'the
crab has arrived'; 'the litter has
arrived'; 'a stone tower has been
erected' |
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pu rangi |
'the
shell trumpet calls'; 'hole in the
sky'; 'royal tribe' |
|
moa viviri |
'rooster who turns around';
'energetic son' |
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moa tataka |
'the
roosters form a circle'; 'son who
departs' (? RAR.)' or 'son who
doesn't fulfill the expectations (?
MAO.)'; 'son who unites many around
himself' |
It appears that the names of
the houses of the four sons are arranged in
pairs and express some characteristics of the
descendents who live in them. Only Ms. E shows
this type of connection.
Arturo Teao mentions some of
the names of the houses, but he does not
associate them with the respective sons.
According to him, 'Hare Tupa Tuu' is the
first residence of the king after the
immigration (TP:44). After the quarrel with
Vakai, Hotu Matua moves to 'Hare
Moa Viviri' and later to 'Hare Moa
Tataka'.
The second and the third
residences are associated with successful
agricultural activities (TP:51). Then this
source deviates from Ms. E: the fourth residence
is 'Te Ngao O Te Honu', and the island
king is accompanied to this place by a small
adopted boy. The fifth residence is 'Taro
Tataka'. In each case, the king is followed
by Vakai.
According to Leonardo
Pakarati, 'the neck of the turtle' was the
birthplace of the youngest son, Tuu Hotu
Iti. He has no information about the
place called 'taro is standing in a circle'.
Ms. E lists as the last
residences 'Aro Huri' (for three
months), 'Maunga Pua' (for three
months), and 'Tavarivari A Umi'.
As already mentioned, 'Aro Huri'
is a slight elevation in the flank of Maunga
Koua, and it is the fourth point of
demarcation along the border of the tabooed
royal district. 'Maunga Pua' is
the old name for the mountain now called 'Maunga
Koua'. It is the fifth point of
demarcation along the border of the royal
precinct. The last name could not be located ... |
A residence of the
king is, I guess, a conjunction of the sun with some event
('costume') along his time cycle. Even if we will postpone
the maitaki and maro glyphs, we ought to
consider the meaning of the central of the conjunction, viz.
Ga5-7--8:
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Ga5-6 |
Ga5-7 |
Ga5-8 |
Ga5-9 |
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117 |
118
(29.5) |
119 |
120 |
Is it not Te
Kioe Uri who is at left in Ga5-7? Is it not Te Poko
Uri at right? The characteristic in form of a long and
high neck definitely is male, and water (vai) at
right likewise is a characteristic of the female. Yet I have
earlier, at vai in the glyph dictionary, identified
this type of glyph with the sun:
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Summary: The sun is symbolized by GD16 glyphs.
The
label vai for GD16 has been chosen
because Metoro pointed to the sun as the
source of the important rain. Although also
other glyph types were referred to as vai
by Metoro, the more rounded versions of
GD16, as for instance in the calendars for the
year in E and G, definitely appears to be
connected with water.
Other versions of GD16 are not so rounded, and
the idea probably then is not water but the
canoe of the sun. In Rei (GD13) the
sun canoe is seen as from afar (sideways), in
GD16 it appears as seen close by. |
Possibly we can
save the situation by saying that vai is the
'residence' of 'the king'. He is 'sitting on a mat' here:
...
The
older sister of god and man, La'ila'i, is the firstborn to all the eras
of previous creation. By Hawaiian theory, as firstborn La'ila'i is the
legitimate heir to creation; while as woman she is uniquely able to transform
divine into human life. The issue in her brothers' struggle to possess her is
accordingly cosmological in scope and political in form. Described in certain
genealogies as twins, the first two brothers are named simply in the chant as 'Ki'i,
a man' and 'Kane, a god'. But since Ki'i means 'image' and Kane
means 'man', everything has already been said: the statuses of god and man are
reversed by La'ila'i's actions. She 'sits sideways', meaning she takes a
second husband, Ki'i, and her children by the man Ki'i are born
before her children by the god Kane ...
His 'neck' is working like tao:
We should rmember the fate of Oto Uta:
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...
ka hati toou ngao e oto uta e te ariki e / mo
tau papa rangaranga o haho i te tai / mo tuu
huehue rangaranga o haho i te tai / mo tau
hahave rere ai ka pae / mo tae ngu rere ai ka
pae / mo te ika aringa riva nei he aku renga ai
ka pae
Broken is your neck, oh Oto Uta, oh king!
/ Floating (?) like a raft (?) out at sea. / To
be erected for the drifting huehue (fish)
out at sea. / Able (?) to put an end to the
flight of the flying fish hahave; / Able
(?) to put and end to the flight of the flying
fish ngu; / Put an end to this fish, a
dorado, with the good face! (E:87-90) ... |
To 'break the
neck' is to break the rule (hatiga te kohe), the
'wooden staff' is transformed into tau papa (or 'canoe')
floating on the sea. Then to be erected again in the new
surroundings.
| Gao
1. Neck. 2. Glans penis (te gao o
te kohio), neck of penis. Vanaga.
Neck, throat, (naho G);
gao pukupuku, scrofula; hore te gao, to
cut the head off; arakea gao, scrofula.
Gaogao, calm. Gaoku, to eat greedily.
Gaopu, to choke on a bone. Churchill. |
| Hore
(Hore, horehore): to
cut with a knife or with an obsidian blade (also:
horea). Horeko, solitary,
lonely; kona horeko, solitary place,
loneliness. Vanaga.
To hew, to cut off, to amputate,
to castrate, to cut with a knife, to decapitate, to
abridge, to incise, to set landmarks; a notch,
incision, tenon; hore poto, to cut short off;
hore te gao, to chop the head off. Churchill. |
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...
There is room for wordplay between goe and
gao, also between goe and ma-go.
In a way the 'Rain God' climbing may depict the
curious interlocking figures of sun and earth. He
walks on earth, he climbs and he is inside the
earth: The central picture should also refer to
earth:
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The change from
Te Kioe Uri to Te Poko Uri presumably is
reflected in the end glyphs of the 17 and 18th periods:
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17 |
18 |
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Ga5-9 |
Ga5-16 |
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120 = 4
* 30 |
127 = 7
* 18 + 1 |
Ga5-9 has a kiore with straight back, then in
Ga5-16 it is back to normal again. Ga5-9 has a sign of
straightness:
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Ga2-15 |
Ga3-5 |
Ga3-9 |
Ga3-16 |
Ga3-19 |
Ga3-21 |
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Ga3-24 |
Ga4-4 |
Ga4-6 |
Ga4-8 |
Ga4-10 |
Ga4-13 |
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Ga4-15 |
Ga4-19 |
Ga4-22 |
Ga4-27 |
Ga5-3 |
Ga5-9 |
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Ga5-16 |
Ga5-21 |
Ga5-29 |
Ga6-4 |
Ga6-8 |
Ga6-9 |
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Ga6-10 |
Ga6-11 |
Ga6-15 |
Ga6-16 |
Ga6-18 |
Ga6-20 |
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Ga6-16 |
Ga6-18 |
Ga6-20 |
Ga7-4 |
Ga7-10 |
Gb6-1 |
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Gb6-4 |
Gb7-27 |
Gb7-29 |
Gb8-2 |
Having observed this sign, we also can see that the maro
string is likewise more angular than normal. But this sign
is more subtle and seems to be used also in a few other
glyphs. We must await to the maro 'chapter' for
further studies.
I should add
something of the above to the page in the dictionary:
Behind the fat
bird there is a viri sign. Below the wings it must be
dark (uri). It is a female bird, because we can see
her egg below. It is a season of swift 'running' (horo),
full of new life, it is summer (hora). The 'neck' (gao)
is long in Ga5-7 and all 'eat greedily' (gaoku).
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