TRANSLATIONS

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5. The myths can help us to understand the concept of a 'joint' in time, possibly also delivering some of the technical vocabulary needed for precision.

The Hawaiian myth about Ulu and Mokuola is telling about the succession between father and son, but behind the curtain we can identify 'father' and sun.

Mokuola is the name of the little son who needs nourishment.

... Then summoning her little boy, she bade him gather the breadfruit and bananas, and, reserving the largest and best for the gods, roasted the remainder in the hot coals, telling him that in the future this should be his food. With the first mouthful, health returned to the body of the child, and from that time he grew in strength and stature until he attained to the fulness of perfect manhood. He became a mighty warrior in those days, and was known throughout all the island, so that when he died, his name, Mokuola, was given to the islet in the bay of Hilo where his bones were buried; by which name it is called even to the present time ...

Mokuola is equal to motu-ora, the living island. At new year a canoe is sent afloat on the ocean, maybe named Te Oraora Miro (The Living Wood). Motu (island) means 'cut off'.' The head ('breadfruit', kuru) of the father (koro) is cut off and buried in order to secure a new generation.

Another myth which gives clues for understanding the 'break in time' is that about Kui (who drowns) and Fakataka, who swims on to deliver a little baby on the reef:

... There is a couple residing in one place named Kui and Fakataka. After the couple stay together for a while Fakataka is pregnant. So they go away because they wish to go to another place - they go. The canoe goes and goes, the wind roars, the sea churns, the canoe sinks. Kui expires while Fakataka swims. Fakataka swims and swims, reaching another land. She goes there and stays on the upraised reef in the freshwater pools on the reef, and there delivers her child, a boy child. She gives him the name Taetagaloa.

When the baby is born a golden plover flies over and alights upon the reef. (Kua fanau lā te pepe kae lele mai te tuli oi tū mai i te papa). And so the woman thus names various parts of the child beginning with the name 'the plover' (tuli): neck (tuliulu), elbow (tulilima), knee (tulivae). They go inland at the land. The child nursed and tended grows up, is able to go and play. Each day he now goes off a bit further away, moving some distance away from the house, and then returns to their house. So it goes on and the child is fully grown and goes to play far away from the place where they live ...

The curious naming of the parts of the child is now understood: it relates to the different 'joints' separating the 'limbs' of the golden sun boy, who eventually is growing up to a tall tagata:

The Rosetta Stone has Greek text in parallel with the Egyptian hieroglyphs, therefore it was possible to decipher the meaning of the hieroglyphs.

The meaning of the Polynesian word plays can be deciphered by using myths. The 'language of myth' is like the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone - a key to understanding the unknown 'wordplay language'.

Remarkably, the language of myth is global and not limited to any special spoken language. It is a koiné (common language) like the Greek of Hellenistic times.

I will give another example:

"Mysingr ('son of the Mouse') loaded Grotte on his ship, and with him he also took the giantesses. He ordered them to grind again. But this time they ground out salt.

'And at midnight they asked whether Mysingr were not weary of salt. He bade them grind longer. They had ground but a little while, when down sank the ship,'

'the huge props flew off the bin, // the iron rivets burst, // the shaft tree shivered, // the bin shot down, // the massy mill-stone rent in twain.'

'And from that time there has been a whirlpool in the sea where the water falls through the hole in the mill-stone. It was then that the sea became salt.'

Here ends Snorri's tale. Three fundamental and far-reaching themes have been set: the broken mill, the whirlpool, the salt. As for the curse of the miller women, it stands out alone like a megalith abandoned in the landscape. But surprisingly it can also be found, already looking strange, in the world of Homer, two thousand years before.

It is the last night in the Odyssey which precedes the decisive confrontation. Odysseus has landed in Ithaca and is hiding under Athena's magic spell which protects him from recognition. Just as in Snorri, everybody sleeps. Odysseus prays to Zeus to send him an encouraging sign before the great ordeal.

Straightaway he thundered from shining Olympus, from on high from the place of the clouds; and goodly Odysseus was glad. Moreover, a woman, a grinder at the mill, uttered a voice of omen from within the house hard by, where stood the mills of the shepherd of the people. At these handmills twelve women in all plied their task, making meal of barley and of wheat, the marrow of men.

Now all the others were asleep, for they had ground out their task of grain, but one alone rested not yet, being weakest of all. She now stayed her quern and spake a word, a sign to her Lord (epos phato sema anakti).

'Father Zeus, who rulest over gods and man, loudly hast thou thundered from the starry sky, yet nowhere is there a cloud to be seen: this is surely a portent thou art showing to some mortal. Fulfill now, I pray thee, even to miserable me, the word that I shall speak. May the wooers, on this day, for the last and latest time make their sweet feasting in the halls of Odysseus! They that have loosened my knees with cruel toil to grind their barley meal, may they now sup their last!'

'The weakest of all', yet a giant figure in her own right. In the tight and shapely structure of the narrative, the episode is fitted with art, yet it stands out like a cyclopean stone embedded in a house. There are many such things in Homer." (Hamlet's Mill)

We have found one such 'cyclopean stone' already, viz. 22.

Fornander has shown that to 'open the mouth' (like a thunderclap or to utter a curse) is equal to render apart:

HAKI, v. Haw., also ha'i and ha'e, primary meaning to break open, separate, as the lips about to speak, to break, as a bone or other brittle thing, to break off, to stop, tear, rend, to speak, tell, bark as a dog; hahai, to break away, follow, pursue, chase; hai, a broken place, a joint; hakina, a portion, part; ha'ina, saying; hae, something torn, as a piece of kapa or cloth, a flog, ensign ...

At 'midnight', when all are sleeping, a new 'day' will 'see the light' and the 'knees' of the mill woman have come loose:

 ... They that have loosened my knees with cruel toil to grind their barley meal ...

 It could be that the twin 'knee-caps' are the two sons of next cycle being separated (hati):

 

Aa8-68 Aa8-69 Aa8-70 Aa8-71 Aa8-72 Aa8-73
Aa8-74 Aa8-75 Aa8-76 Aa8-77 Aa8-78 Aa8-79
Aa8-80 Aa8-81 Aa8-82 Aa8-83 Aa8-84 Aa8-85

At the 'knee' in Aa8-81 a little 'eye' has appeared, 12 glyphs earlier it was not there.

Ma to ua mata said Metoro and he may have seen the crest of a wave in the sea (as if rolling up on the reef - the new land emerging from the waters). The sound of breakers thundering up on the reef will be heard far away.

Aa8-80 is the first of the twin glyphs at day number 354 (counted from te pito motu). A 'little clod of earth' is separating at the top.

Aa8-72 shows hoea at left and haati at right. It looks like a hanged person, the old 'wave' from which the head will be taken in order to secure a new one:

 

The hoea glyphs are of different kinds and the meaning varies according to what signs constitute the upper and lower parts, e.g.:

 

hua (at the top) indicates a new sun (son) will come
three 'fingers' (at the top) indicate sun is born
pau (at bottom right) indicates sun is finished

Hoea glyphs consequently show what the situation is as regards the light coming from the sky.