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1. The glyph
type suggests a
hanging fruit and may therefore indicate a season late in
summer. In hua poporo there are 4 hanging 'fruits', and
from the summary can be quoted:
... The 'berries' in the
hua poporo glyphs indicate how the 'fruits' are ripe for
harvest, they will fall and a new dark season will enter (popo).
The 'balls' (popo) announce the coming drops. Maybe - as if
by sympathetic magic - the fruits will fall with the rain ...
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hua
poporo |
hoea |
In hua poporo there is a central 'stem'
growing from a kind of nut. In hoea the opposite
stage could be meant, where the fruit (carrying a nut in its
center) is ready to drop to the ground as a prelude to next
generation. The idea of a ripe fruit soon to fall and how the
next generation is depending on it is beautifully described in
the Hawaiian myth about Ulu and Mokuola:
...When
the man, Ulu, returned to his wife from his visit to the
temple at Puueo, he said, 'I have heard the voice of the
noble Mo'o, and he has told me that tonight, as soon as
darkness draws over the sea and the fires of the volcano
goddess, Pele, light the clouds over the crater of
Mount Kilauea, the black cloth will cover my head.
And when the breath has gone from my body and my spirit has
departed to the realms of the dead, you are to bury my head
carefully near our spring of running water ...
The fall happens when the year has reached a
ripe age (the time of the 'dark cloth' for the year), when
the year will 'fall on its face'. The association to hoea
(tattooing instrument) is relevant - by tattooing darkness is
created. Furthermore, with old age breath tends to
wheeze with fatigue (hoe). And at the final comes
Hatinga Te Kohe, the 'breaking of the bamboo' (or at least
some kind of plant, kohekohe):
Hoe 1. Paddle.
Mgv.: hoe, ohe, id. Mq., Ta.: hoe, id. 2. To wheeze with fatigue (oeoe 2).
Arero oeoe, to stammer, to stutter; Mgv. oe, to make a
whistling sound in breathing; ohe, a cry from a person out of
breath. Mq.: oe, to wheeze with fatigue. 3. Blade, knife; hoe hakaiu, clasp-knife, jack-knife;
hoe hakanemu, clasp-knife; hoe pikopiko, pruning knife.
4. Ta.: oheohe, a plant. Ma.: kohekohe, id. Churchill.
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Fornander:
"I think Mr. Gill is fully justified, 'by the analogy of
dialects', in considering the final -a in A-tu-a as an
intensive suffix; and the examples he quotes could be multiplied ad
infinitum from every dialect of the Polynesian.
That conceded, there remains Tu as the root of the
words Tua and Atua. Does the meaning of Tu explain the
derivation of Tua?
In all the Polynesian dialects Tu or Ku means
primarily 'to rise up, to stand, be erect'. In N. Zeal. Tu-mata was
the name of 'the first son, born of heaven and earth'; in Saparua and Ceram
Tu-mata means 'man'; in Fiji Tu is used interchangeably with
Ta, to express the sense of a father when spoken to by his children
...
As the Polynesian Atua, if I am correct, cannot be
derived from Fatu or Atu, nor from Aitu or Iku,
Mr. Gills's explanation, that the word refers to the 'Lord, who is the
core and kernel of humanity', and that it indicates that He is the
very 'core of life of man', cannot be maintained as a correct analysis
and etymology.
I think it more probable that man's ideas developed gradually
from things natural to things supernatural, adapting the phraseology of the
former to the exigencies of the latter, for the sake of distinction, and
that thus from the original Tu, 'to be erect, powerful, increasing,
superior', were derived the expressions of Tu and Tua for
'man, father, elder brother', subsequently 'husband, lord, master'; and
finally the Polynesian A-tua, 'god. spirit', anything of a
supernatural or incomprehensive character."
Hoea can therefore (probably) be regarded as an intesified hoe.
How can an added -a be distinguished from an added -î (as in
Vakaî) I wonder.
If in Fiji Tu is not distinguished from Ta, then somebody
should be mistaken, I think. I have suggested that ta (as in tattoo)
indicates the season of waning sun. Now I can read in Fornander that
Tu-mata was the first-born son of heaven and earth - or as I understand
it: the season of waxing sun.
Mr. Gill's explanation 'core and kernel of humanity' is congruent with my
suggestions of how to read hoea glyphs.
Next page:
2. Instead of the straight center 'stem' in hua
poporo we can in hoea see
its opposite, a curve. The curve in general in
the rongorongo
system of writing probably
represents the final stage of a development. For instance does
haú end in a curve, as noted in the summary:
... The haú glyphs are characterized by a bent 'branch',
marked with 'feathers' on the outside:
The bent 'branch' represents the path of a luminary, beginning
at bottom and moving up and counterclockwise, ending at the tip
...
Close to the end of the kuhane journey
she describes a curve:
... The dream soul came to
Rangi Meamea and looked around searchingly. The dream soul
spoke: 'Here at last is level land where the king can live.' She
named the place 'Rangi Meamea A Hau Maka O Hiva'. The
mountain she named 'Peke Tau O Hiti A Hau Maka O Hiva'.
The dream soul moved along a curve from Peke Tau O Hiti
to the mountain Hau Epa, which she named 'Maunga Hau
Epa A Hau Maka O Hiva' ...
The word paupau - suggesting Hanga Te
Pau, the 366th and last day of the year - means 'curved'. At
Te Pei both haú (Gb1-6) and curved leg + clubfoot
(Aa6-12) apparently are used to indicate the final stage of the
first part of the kuhane journey:
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The curve at bottom of hoea can be said to be paupau (an
intensified pau), and pau is the opposite - it sounds - of
pua. In meaning probably too, because Pua Katiki is high up on
Poike.
The standing tall figure in Gb1-6 is expressing the concept of maximized
tu, the point where tu'a (the back side) is beginning. If the
first half of the cycle is identical with raising up (tu) the sky,
then of course the turnpoint will disable tu immediately (Gb1-7). The
season of ta takes over.
A haú glyph has tu at left and ta at right. The season
of ta is shorter than the season of tu.
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3. The
occurrence of 'fingers' instead of a 'fruit' in some variants of
hoea indicates the 'fruit' should be imagined as a
closed fist,
the meaning of which is connected with how Polynesians count (by
raising one finger at a time from the clenched fist).
At rima the 'fingers' in kai position have been contrasted
with fingers oriented outwards, and the fingers have been compared
to the flow to and from the sun:
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Ha5-52 |
kai |
...What is nourishing the sun? Whatever
it is mother nature has her rules: What you take you
must - sooner or later - return, or in the words of
Ogotemmêli:
'The rays
drink up the little waters of the earth, the shallow
pools, making them rise, and then descend again in
rain.' Then, leaving aside the question of water, he
summed up his argument: 'To draw up and then return what
one had drawn - that is the life of the world' ...
If we reverse the 'eating gesture' it
ought to mean the process when sun returns what he has
taken. The top parts in Ga2-25--26 exemplify 'reversed
eating gestures':
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Ga2-25 |
Ga2-26 |
The glyphs can therefore be labelled
'fire generators', and their appearance around new year,
when a new 'fire' (sun, year) is to be alighted, appears
to be appropriate ...
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4. At
rima the explanations then continue with an observation
regarding the hoea glyphs - how their
orientation evidently
governs their meaning:
When a hoea glyph is open towards right it is reversed and
its meaning is also reversed - it becomes an announcer of increasing
light instead of darkness. The normal hoea glyph therefore
implies that light will 'come back' (return again). 'I will be back'
the man from the future said.
In Aa1-1 the little 'person' belongs to the new generation, the one
who is nourished by the old. The lower (older) part of
Aa1-1 is oriented backwards, referring to the dark past, but the
head has its mouth open towards the light future:
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hoea |
Aa1-1 |
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The bent curve (paupau) of the sun's 'orbit' is at right in haú,
because ta comes after tu. The movement first goes up and then
turns to go down at right, a clockwise movement. But I have written
'counterclockwise' at haú:
... The haú glyphs are characterized by a bent 'branch',
marked with 'feathers' on the outside:
The bent 'branch' represents the path of a luminary, beginning
at bottom and moving up and
counterclockwise,
ending at the tip
...
South of the equator sun moves counterclockwise and moon clockwise. The
haú glyphs are always oriented with tu at left and ta at
right. The 'luminary' I wrote, presumably feeling it may be the moon. If it
is the moon, then the pattern still applies, tu comes before ta.
Probably the haú sign was first created to describe the path of the moon,
but late it became a symbol for the path of any luminary. They all rise up
at first.
But I have to change counterclockwise to clockwise and will do so now.
