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TRANSLATIONS
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My interpretation: The central figure
is the Sun God and he holds the two halves of the year. In his right
hand the 1st half year ends with a half-circle at midsummer. It is formed
like the high dome of the midsummer sky.
His left hand
holds the 2nd half of the year, depicted with a kind of Y (the necks and heads of two
small birds). His hands are located at the equinoxes.
The year begins in
midwinter (bottom left from us seen) and moves upwards to midsummer
(top left). Then via a jump to the right (from us seen) the Y sign
arrives. It is located at the beginning of the 2nd half of the year.
Below the
equinoxes (at his 4-fingered hands) the 'staffs' are black. Only
from spring equinox to midsummer it there truly a lifegiving light.
The heads of the
two great 'bird staffs' (seasons) are hanging down and their
'tails' are at midsummer. The central line divides the year into two
similar, yet clearly different, halves. In the vertical middle of
the central line is a curious creature with a three-fingered tail at
right (from us seen). The 'tail side' of the year is the 'back side'
of the year, the left side.
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I have not referred to the earlier
rei miro chapter in the dictionary, where the 'curious creature' is
said to represent the moon (as if it was another type of rei miro
pendant):
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'The strongly curved fish on the
chest of the central Tiahuanaco deity is carved in the
form of a moonshaped pectoral ...'
From Posnansky I have copied
pictures of the Gateway of the Sun and then enlarged the
mentioned pectoral:
'... The prominent place of this
crescentic pectoral worn by the supreme [sun] deity is
remarkable when we recall that a moon-shaped pectoral was the
specific royal emblem worn by the Easter Island kings of
allegedly divine descent, who directed all rongo-rongo
ceremonies. These crescentic royal pectorals are also among the
commonly occurring glyphs in the rongo-rongo script.
On the Tiahuanaco deity,
the crescentic pectoral in the shape of a fish is generally
considered to symbolize his power over the sea and water, just
as the feathers and condor heads show his power over the sky and
air.
That the crescentic pectoral of
the Easter Island kings have a similar symbolic value seems
clearly indicated by the early claim that it represented the
ancestral type of boat (Jaussen, 1893, p. 9). ...' (Heyerdahl 4) |
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The toa
glyphs are not very frequent, but the Y-signs are. Presumably,
therefore, toa glyphs are to be understood as a
combination of tao and the Y-sign.
One more example of
toa
glyphs will be mentioned, this time fetched from Large Santiago
Tablet:
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And the summary page:
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When the
lifegiving water (vai ora) of Tane no longer is
present the vegetation withers and dies. The season of straw
has arrived. This comes, according the rongorongo
texts, with the heat of high summer (or noon
by reason of a similar structure for the diurnal cycle). The sign of
desiccation is formed like Y and it is used in the
toa
glyphs e.g. to indicate that the wooden pillars needed to raise the sky
must be dry (no longer living).
These pillars held
up the sky roof not only during daylight but also during the night.
Indeed, because they must be dry (in order to be hard enough) the
work with raising the sky roof should begin in the season
of straw when sun is declining, not when sunlight is increasing
and the greenery growing.
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Excursion:
Untangling the
structures of the night and day calendars in Tahua by way of
using the words of Metoro, the small signs in the glyphs,
counting, and the use of the parallel texts in H/P/Q. |
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