TRANSLATIONS

Saturn

Mercury

Jupiter

TRANSLATIONS

The 'here' pages:

Mars, the red planet, ruler of the 7th day and also the 2nd pillar holding the sky roof up in the east (with Moon as the 1st such pillar), is a pair of concepts which agrees well with the arrangement of the 18 first henua periods in G into 7 times 10 glyphs:

period no.	number of glyphs from Gb6-17
end of side b	73	73		130	260
beginning of side a	50	50
0	7	7
1, 2, 3	8 + 4 + 7 = 19	35	19	130
4, 5, 6	3 + 2 + 3 = 8		27
7, 8, 9	4 + 2 + 2 = 8		35
10, 11, 12	2 + 3 + 2 = 7	35	42
13, 14, 15	4 + 3 + 5 = 12		54
16, 17, 18	3 + 6 + 7 = 16		70
19, 20, 21	5 + 8 + 5 = 18	30	18
22, 23, 24	4 + 3 + 5 = 12	30	30
25, 26, 27	2 + 2 + 3 = 7	30	37
28, 29, 30	3 + 3 + 4 = 10		47
31	6		53
32, 33	4 + 3 = 7		60
34	3	3

Together Moon and Mars will support 130 + 130 = 260 days. Once, perhaps, the rest of the year was of less importance, not counted.

In the Mamari moon calendar the structure can be interpreted as 26 + 20 + 26 (waxing, full, respectively waning light). The 260 glyphs on the 'front side' of G could be another way of expressing waxing (though here evidently referring not to the month but to the year).

Mars has (accoring to my chart) days number 7, 14, 21, and 28 in the month. In G there are only 60 glyphs counted from henua period number 19. Are there not 10 glyphs missing? Should we not have 140 instead of 130? If we insist, we must rework the table above from period 33:

33
33	Ga7-15	Ga7-16	Ga7-17	Ga7-18	Ga7-19	Ga7-20
34
34	Ga7-21	Ga7-22	Ga7-23	Ga7-24
35
35	Ga7-25	Ga7-26	Ga7-27 (140)	Ga7-28	Ga7-29
1
1	Ga7-30 (200)	Ga7-31	Ga7-32	Ga7-33

My new arrangement is based on what the glyphs seem to say. The earlier two periods 33 and 34 will be a single period with 6 glyphs. Then symmetry forces 2 additional periods before the arrival of the 200th glyph (counted from Gb8-30).

Day 140 - counted from Rei as the first glyph in the henua calendar - will be at ika hiku in Ga7-27. But this ika hiku (we have earlier found out) should probably be counted from Rogo at winter solstice:

	258
Gb6-26 (1)	258	Ga7-26 (260)	Ga7-27

There may be a play with numbers here. Perhaps we should count both to 260 and to 140, because together it becomes 400.

The 4 'legs' at left may refer to Moon and the 3 at right to Mars. Their part of the support ends here. Maybe we should count to 7 pillars instead of to 2.

The numbers of ika hiku can be counted as 7 * 27 = 189 = 3 * 63, which we easily can imagine as 36 'arm in arm' with 63 - a reflection of day 363:


Gb5-6	Gb5-7	Gb5-8	Gb5-9 (363)	Gb5-10

Arm-in-arm is what we indeed can see in the two preceding glyphs. Maybe we should count them from Ga1-1, in order to have Gb5-7 at 360, with a new twin pair moving on from day 1.

Gb5-9 at 362 could then be the last remaining twin of the preceding year, ready to disappear through the hole next day.

27 (as in Ga7-27) could allude to the latitude (27° S) of Easter Island. Sun never goes so far south, but when he goes to his limit it is midsummmer.

Next, I will argue that the sum of Moon (6) and Mars (7) in my chart is another expression of 260 sacred days of growing:

6 + 7 = 13 and 13 * 20 = 260. Time is measured by Moon, she has day number 20 (and the other key numbers of the calendar). But Mars is important because there seems to be a quarter of growth (7 * 13 = 91 days) depending on him.

Mercury is a liquid and represents the opposite pole, the sudden collapse of the fertile 'tree' which has grown during the reign of Mars, while old Jupiter comes at the end of the season of light. He must be responsible enough to end in order to realease his vital spirit (manu rere) needed for next generation.

Sun as a little newborn child has number 5 (rima, fire, fingers). Before that there is darkness - the kind of complete darkness in which a new fire must be alighted, a new life created. That is Saturn's day. Number 4 is the smallest square number, and from this fact, I guess, originates the idea of Saturn as a cube (where the sides are 6 squares):

(Hamlet's Mill)

We should notice that the square of 'fire', 25, belongs to Saturn in my chart.

If I can imagine all this, why not those who created the rongorongo texts? As a further evidence for my view, we should consider the beginning of the last glyph line:


Gb8-1	Gb8-2	Gb8-3	Gb8-4 (216)	Gb8-5
396	397	398	399	400

The last of the 4 pillars upholding the sky (Jupiter) is at Gb8-2, and we can see that his pillar is crumbling. Then follows Friday, the day of Venus, where the 5 + 5 = 10 hua 'feathers' ought to refer to the number of months for the sun. 400 is the whole cycle, I suggest, and sun is present during 10 * 20 = 200 of these. (The Polynesians on Gilbert Islands never counted the nights of the Moon beyond the 20th, we should remember.)

The 'tree' (henua at right in Gb8-2) is no longer 'living'. In Gb8-3 it has been turned upside down and a 'fruit' emerges in front - the father will live on in his son. Both day 3 and day 24 (= 8 * 3) are Venus days, and the miraculous transformation from one generation to the next takes place with Venus.

At Gb8-5 there is an exceptional reversed manu rere glyph which must mean the return of the 'vital spirit', who escaped from the old body earlier in the week. A new year has been born, and it is Sunday.

216 (at Saturn) is counted from Gb1-1, and this number (which we recognize from H) is equal to the sum of 125 (the cube of 5) and 91 (= 7 * 13). This cube of 5 is beginning with Gb1-1 and ending with the reversed hau tea at Gb5-1:


Gb4-28	Gb4-29	Gb4-30 (Jupiter)	Gb4-31	Gb4-32

Gb4-33	Gb5-1 (Mercury)	Gb5-2	Gb5-3	Gb5-4

I have arranged it so that the returning manu rere in Gb8-5 will be day number 400, the day when the cycle will begin again. I only had to decide that the front side of the year must be 183 days long (half 366, the day number for Rogo according to my reading of Q). 183 + 217 = 400.

Why should we be forced to always count glyphs from the beginning of the front side (Gb8-30 or else). The two sides of the G text can alternatively be regarded as two separate calendars. The reversed manu rere is a strong sign which should not be ignored.

Its ordinal number from Gb1-1 is 217 which can be interpreted as 21 weeks, one more than 20. A new cycle has begun and the old cycle ended when its waning phase reached 20 * 7 = 140 days, a number we recognize from the end of waxing at ika hiku (Ga7-27).

In short, my chart for the days of the month and the planets illustrates the concept of time as developing like a human being. First a child (5), but before that a conception (4), and before that a mother:

When the child has been born, his mother (Moon) must take care of him. Then follows the unruly 'spring of youth' (7).

What happens at 8 is the harnessing of his raw power. Sun becomes integrated by way of a ritual of initiation. He will die a fake death to make him realize he is a mortal.

Further on, at the end, the old man must leave (9), make place for the next generation. The relay race must go on.

From this simple beginning - which I imagine once could have been the universal picture among ancient peoples - numbers grew in different directions according to what was observed in the sky. Keeping it all in order must have been a major challenge.

Both Venus and Moon were easily observed, and together they measured out time. Maybe Venus took care of the beginnings and Moon the ends.