TRANSLATIONS

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There are no ariga erua glyphs in G, but in Q there are good examples, without many extra signs:

Qa2-113 Qb3-11 Qb3-13 Qb5-112 Qb5-123 Qb7-115

The text of Q is damaged, but by comparing with the parallel H and P texts we can 'upgrade' the table above into:

        ..
Qa2-113 Qb3-11 Qb3-13 Qb5-112 Qb5-123 Qb7-115

There may once have been 1 + 6 ariga erua glyphs in the text. They come in pairs, except at the beginning and end of the text.

 

I made a mistake earlier when I thought there were once 8 ariga erua glyphs in Q. From the drawings of glyph line Qb6 in Barthel it is obvious that a 15-glyph long sequence in H (16-glyph long in P) has no corresponding parallel in Q. Therefore there cannot be any parallel manu rere + ariga erua in Q, where we have Hb4-3 and Pb6-1:

Hb4-3 Pb6-1

The link 'comparing with the parallel H and P texts' leads to:

 

Qa2-113 Qb3-11 Qb3-13 Qb5-112 Qb5-123 Qb7-115

In H and P there are more ariga erua glyphs than in Q (the texts are longer), but they are not so 'well behaved' - there are lots of additional signs on them.

Side a of Q has only a single ariga erua, but in the parallel texts of H and P there are two, and other glyph types interfere:

 
Ha2-33 Ha2-40 Ha9-42
Pa2-27 Pa2-34 Pa8-55
Qa2-106 Qa2-113 Qa9-27

At the beginning of side b, Q has four but the other text fewer ariga erua:

 
Qb3-11 Qb3-13 Qb5-112 Qb5-123
- -
Hb2-30 Hb2-41
-
Pb2-24 Pb4-41 Pb4-52

Further on in the text the damaged glyph line Qb9 presumably had an ariga erua glyph, but there is no parallel in Q to Hb4-3 and Pb6-1 - that part of the text (15 glyphs long in H) was never written down on Q:

 
Hb4-3 Hb4-25 Hb6-5
Pb6-1 Pb6-24 Pb7-45
- ...
Qb7-115

The manu rere combined with ariga erua 'person' in P has no eye-hole, which is remarkable - otherwise manu rere in P always tend to have eye-holes.

The absence of an eye-hole is obviously a sign (in P). Also the beak in Pa6-1 is strange. Both these signs ought to be studied systematically. Sometime.

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The structure of the text in Q seems to demand of ariga erua glyphs to have 'eyes', excepting at the end of the text:

        ..
Qa2-113 Qb3-11 Qb3-13 Qb5-112 Qb5-123 Qb7-115

Perhaps side a and the major part of side b describes 'the front part' of the year, when sun is shining and everything is growing nicely. That could explain the distribution of the eyes - such are useless in the dark.

The change from the 'front' ('face', ariga) to the 'back' (tu'a) side, evidently occurs between Qb5-112 and Qb5-123:

Qb5-112 Qb5-113 Qb5-114 Qb5-115 Qb5-116
Qb5-117 Qb5-118 Qb5-119 Qb5-120
Qb5-121 Qb5-122 Qb5-123

The pattern of the glyphs suggests the number of glyphs in each 'sentence' is diminishing (5, 4, 3), as if time was ebbing out. The pair of 'recycling stations' (henua ora in Qb5-114 and Qb5-123) and vae (Qb5-121) also say so. Honu without legs at right in Qb5-117 is of the type which in G is used to mark the location of winter solstice:

Qb5-117 Gb6-26

 

The slender form of honu vae kore in Gb5-117 maybe can be explained by an allusion to Qb5-113, where the head of a rising fish is spreading out flames as if it was the sun:

Qb5-113 Qb5-117 Qb5-118

Beyond honu the fish has amalgamated with the sun, and the sun disc is very little.

The 'fish' in Qb5-113 maybe has been inverted to become honu in Qb5-117, that would explain why his body is slender. Of course, at winter solstice food is scarce and that could also be of importance.

Studying the differences between the two 'suns' we can see that the 'front' (right) flames have grown in Qb5-118, while the two flames at left are the same. The short horizontal line in Qb5-113, which separated the two flames in front have disappeared in Qb5-118.

Maybe Qb5-113 is a development from Qb5-105, but the tail in Qb5-105 is of the 'white-fat-moon' type:

Qb5-104 Qb5-105 Qb5-106 Qb5-107
Qb5-108 Qb5-109 Qb5-110 Qb5-111

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Beyond ariga erua 'without eyes' (Qb5-123) the text continues with niu glyphs, and a little later a very clear illustration is given of what probably is a 'crack in time' (where one season vanishes and another is entering):

Qb5-124 Qb5-125 Qb5-126 Qb5-127 Qb5-128
Qb5-129 Qb5-130 Qb5-131 Qb5-132 Qb5-133 Qb5-134
Qb5-135 Qb5-201 Qb5-202 Qb5-203 Qb5-204

The mago (Qb5-124) has an empty hand - he is finished with his dark part of the year. We can see a pau sign at bottom right in Gb5-131. In Qb5-135 the legs are fat and the 2 'limbs' at right are vanishing, while in Qb5-201 the new 'beast' arriving has a single 'limb' at left. Yet he evidently is the same. Several such signs indicate a finish of the dark back side of the year.

 

The mago has a fat body, and the same goes for mago in Qb5-122, yet they are different:

Qb5-122 Qb5-123 Qb5-124

The tail is very big in Qb5-122, but very small in Gb5-124. Such signs we must notice. We can guess that after 'the tail of the mago season' (the last part of it) there will no longer be any eyes on ariga erua.

The sun has once again aquired a little horizontal line at right, and the fish part has gone, maybe it was the moon:

Qb5-113 Qb5-118 Qb5-129

The flames are now great and the sun disc is growing.