TRANSLATIONS

next page previous page up home

When comparing the text of K with the text of G the redmarked 177 + 177 = 354 glyphs = 12 lunar months à 29.5 nights are of central importance:

 

'side a' Gb7-31 - Gb8-5 6 266 472
Gb8-6 - Gb8-30 25
Ga1-1 - Ga2-28 58
Ga2-29 - Gb1-6 177
'side b' Gb1-7 - Gb7-3 177 204
Gb7-4 - Gb7-31 29

A numerical connection can be established between the two central glyph lines of the G text and the twice 26 glyphs presumably located in 'summer' according to K (and located in 3 glyph lines measured out from -14 glyphs):

 

48
Ka4-13 Ka4-14 Ka4-15 Kb2-12 Kb2-13 Kb2-14 Kb2-15
80 81 82 131 132 133 134
2 * 26 = 52
a1 30 b1 26
a2 29 b2 35
a3 24 b3 30
a4 27 b4 33
a5 30 b5 29
a6 29 b6 28
a7 34 b7 31
a8 26 b8 30
sum 229 sum 242

If these 52 glyphs (identified as number of nights in G) refer also to number of nights in K, we should be able to 'map' the K text on to the G structure. Let us compare with the glyphs in Ga8 and Gb1:

48
Ka4-13 Ka4-14 Ka4-15 Kb2-12 Kb2-13 Kb2-14 Kb2-15
48
Ga7-33 Ga7-34 Ga8-1 Gb1-24 Gb1-25 Gb1-26 Gb2-1

The story told by the glyphs are not parallel, or at least very differently told. Instead, the parallel story - as read in the glyphs - is located much earlier:

48
80 81 82 131 132 133 134
60
83 84 85 146 147 148 149

26, I guess, is a member in the series 16, 26, 36, 46, where 16 relates - it seems - to the waxing moon and 36 to the number of days in a regular calendar. 26, in between, should for harmony's sake relate to a measure for a 'season' longer than half a month but shorter than a whole year. Reading the text of K we get the impression it is referring to 'summer'.

When reading the text of G in lines a8-b1 a quite another content can be imagined, viz. how beyond Nga Kope Ririva (at 177 = 6 * 29.5) creation (in the 'sea') is developing. There is a 'whirlpool' into which sun goes down (like into a dark doorway) the sign of which can be seen as the Devil's thumbprint on the haddock:

'God-of-angry-look by lying with Roundness made the poporo berry'. Adding a lunar month to 177 we reach 206.5 and glyph number 206 should give us some clue:

Ga7-32 Ga7-33 Ga7-34 Ga8-1
Ga8-2 Ga8-3 Ga8-4
Ga8-5 (206) Ga8-6 Ga8-7 Ga8-8 Ga8-9
Ga8-10 Ga8-11 Ga8-12
Ga8-13 Ga8-14 Ga8-15

Certainly there are lots of hua poporo and Rei signs in these 18 glyphs. The generative forces (Rei) are producing poporo berries through thumb signs (the Devil's thumbs). The comes signs of exhaustion:

... Up to the present time, fertility spells for fowls have played an important role. Especially effective were the so-called 'chicken skulls' (puoko moa) - that is, the skulls of dead chiefs, often marked by incisions, that were considered a source of mana. Their task is explained as follows: 'The skulls of the chiefs are for the chicken, so that thousands may be born' (te puoko ariki mo te moa, mo topa o te piere) ... As long as the source of mana is kept in the house, the hens are impregnated (he rei te moa i te uha), they lay eggs (he ne'ine'i te uha i te mamari), and the chicks are hatched (he topa te maanga). After a period of time, the beneficial skull has to be removed, because otherwise the hens become exhausted from laying eggs ...

Ga8-16 (220) Ga8-17 Ga8-18 Ga8-19 Ga8-20
Ga8-21 Ga8-22 Ga8-23 Ga8-24 Ga8-25
Ga8-26 (230) Gb1-1 Gb1-2 Gb1-3 Gb1-4
Gb1-5 Gb1-6 Gb1-7 (237) Gb1-8 Gb1-9

In K the parallel text does not reach this far. At the very first sign of poporo berries the sun is already dead:

Ga7-15 (185) Ga7-16 Ga7-17
...
Kb4-19
*Kb5-2 *Kb5-3

The ordinal numbers for the glyphs in G should be revised, and 185 is in the new system (redmarked below) equal to 185 + 30 = 215:

'side a' Gb7-31 - Gb8-5 6 442 - 447 1 - 6
Gb8-6 - Gb8-30 25 448 - 472 7 - 31
Ga1-1 - Ga2-28 58 2 - 59 32 - 89
Ga2-29 - Gb1-6 177 60 - 236 90 - 266
'side b' Gb1-7 - Gb7-2 177 237 - 413 267 - 443
Gb7-3 - Gb7-31 29 414 - 442 444 - 472

While 185 = 5 * 37 does not say very much, 215 = 5 * 43 is significant, because 43 indicates that the full measure 42 just has been passed (is in the past). Side b in G has 242 glyphs, which alludes to 42 as a full measure (and which possibly also alludes to 2 * 42 = 84).

The K text does not follow the G text onto its side b. The K text on its side b describes events which come on side a of G.

Using the new structure (map) of the G text we can count: 472 - (177 + 29) = 472 - 206 = 266 (the ordinal number of Te Pou according to the old map). We understand that the 'pillar' is alluded to because it is necessary for the creation:

... I've suggested there is a theme running through Japanese myth of a love affair, a journey to a mysterious parallel realm, and a return to the world. The first example, the story of Izanami and Izanagi [picture above], is set in the distant epoch that the Kojiki and the Nihongi call the Age of Gods. But the second example that I will cite, superficially very different, is set in the Age of the Earthly Sovereigns. Here we read of a fisherman later revered as a deity named Urashima:

He was hadsome of feature ... He went out alone in a boat to fish with hook and line. During three days and nights he caught nothing, but at length he caught a turtle of five colours. Wondering, he put it in the boat ... While he slept the turtle suddenly became transformed into a woman, in form beautiful beyond description ...

He said to her, 'This place is far from the homes of people, of whom there are few on the sea. How did you so suddenly come here?' Smiling she replied, 'I deemed you a man of parts alone on the sea, lacking anyone with whom to converse, so I came here by wind and cloud.'

She is, of course, a Kami, as he quickly understands, from a magical land that 'lasts as long as sky and earth and ends with sun and moon'. And she tempts him: 'You can come to that region by a turn of your oar. Obey me and shut your eyes.' So presently they came to a broad island in the wide sea, which was covered with jewels. (On it was a great mansion.) Its high gate and towers shone with a brilliance which his eyes had never beheld and his ears had never heard tell.

They enter the mansion and are received and greeted in a loving fashion by her parents: 'Seated they conversed of the difference between mankind and the Land-of-Spirits, and the joy of man and Kami meeting. Eventually the fisherman Urashima and the beautiful sea Kami are married. Thereafter: 'For three years, far from his aged parents, he lived his life in the Spirit capital, when he began to yearn for his home and for them.' Observing the change in him, his wife asks: 'Do you desire to return home?' He replies: 'To come to this far Spirit Land, I parted from my near and kin. My yearning I cannot help... I wish to return to my native place to see my parents for a while'. Then we read:

Hand in hand they walked conversing ... till they came to where their ways diverged and where her parents and relatives, sorrowing to part with him, made their farewells. The princess informed him that she was indeed the turtle which he had taken in his boat, and she took a jewel-casket and gave it to him saying: 'If you do not forget me and desire to seek me, keep this casket carefully, but do not open it.' Thus he parted from her and entered his boat, shutting his eyes as she bade him.

In a trice Urashima finds himself back in his home village again but a terrible surprise awaits him. During the three years that he has spent enchanted on the Spirit island 300 mortal years have passed and everything has changed beyond recognition. Stumbling around dazed and disconsolate, discovering from a passer-by that his own disappearance three centuries previously is itself now the subject of a village legend, he forgets the warning about the jewel box and opens it to remind himself of his Kami wife: 'But before he could look into it, something in the form of a blue-orchid soared up to the blue sky with the wind and clouds. Then he knew that, having broken his oath, he could not go back and see her again ...