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TRANSLATIONS
Let us now change the subject to
rau hei:
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A few preliminary
remarks and imaginations:
1. In the
general shape of this glyph type we can imagine an
upside down fish
(ika).
It is a fat one, which can be explained from its origin. The
origin of growth is in the dark - waxing moon is like a fish rising
from the sea and she originates where we cannot see her. The origin
of waning is the opposite, the full moon is in plain view and offers
a maximum of visibility. Full moon is a fat moon.
The upside down (and fat) fish is a symbol of waning. In the
Mamari moon calendar the waning fishes are broad, the waxing
lean:
The cycle of the moon offers as a model: invisible new moon, growing
(lean and hungry) moon, full (satisfied) moon, and waning (turned
upside down like an hour-glass) moon.
This model can then be applied also to other celestial bodies and
to their calendrical symbols. Thus, for instance, can a period of
night be illustrated either as toa, which exhibits the same
general form as an upside down fish, or as rau hei:
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 |
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Aa1-44 |
Ha5-45 |
Pa5-27 |
Qa5-35 |
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toa |
mixture |
rau hei |
For
practical reasons I have defined toa as a glyph type without
'fins'. And if a 'hanging fish' has a 'head' it must be a rau hei
glyph. The 'Y-sign' (probably indicating a state of 'straw') is a
characteristic of toa glyphs, while rau hei glyphs
instead should be in a state of 'leaf'. Ha5-45 and Pa5-27 therefore
have signs both of toa and rau hei. |
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2. The
euphemism of saying ika instead of
sacrificed victim
(hanging from a tree) is not so far-fetched as it may seem, because
fishes (the great ones of course) and men were regarded as equal in
rank. In Churchill 2 there is a hilarious description of what ika
really
means, from which the following is only the beginning:
... I'a
is the general name for fishes,' Pratt notes in his Samoan
dictionary, 'except the bonito and shellfish (mollusca and
crustacea).' We may forgive the inaccuracy of the biology in our
gratitude for the former note. The bonito is not a fish, the bonito
is a gentleman, and not for worlds would Samoa offend against his
state. The Samoan in his 'upu fa'aaloalo has his own
Basakrama, the language of courtesy to be used to them of high
degree, to chiefs and bonitos ...
In Henry one can read more sinister information:
"Across the bows
connecting each double canoe was a floor, covering the chambers
containing idols, drums, trumpet shells, and other treasures for the
gods and people of Ra'itea; and upon the floor were placed in
a row sacrifices from abroad, which consisted of human victims
brought for that purpose and just slain, and great fishes newly
caught from fishing grounds of the neighboring islands. They were
placed upon the floor, parallel with the canoe, alternatively a man
and a cavalli fish, a man and a shark, a man and a turtle, and
finally a man closed in the line.
Behind this grim
spectacle stood two or three priests in sacerdotal attire, which
consisted of a plain loin girdle, a shoulder cape reaching down to
the waist and tipped with fringe, wide or narrow according to their
grades, and a circular cap fitting closely to the head - all made of
finely braided purau bark bleached white. Seated at the
paddles were the navigators and warrior chiefs in gay girdles and
capes of tapa and helmets of various shapes, and wise men in
plain girdles, capes, and turbans of brown or white tapa.
As this terribly
earnest procession arrived, the canoes were quietly drawn up along
the shore, and the guests were met at the receiving marae by
an imposing procession of the dignitaries and warriors of the land
grandly attired, and also unarmed, headed by the king, the two
primates, Paoa-uri and Paoa-tea, and the priests of
the realm, who greeted them in low, solemn tones.
Then everybody alike
set to work silently disposing of the sacrifices just arrived,
combined with others of the same mixed kind prepared by the
inhabitants of the land. They strung them through the heads with
sennit, and act called tu'i-aha, and then suspended them upon
the boughs of the trees of the seaside and inwards, the fish
diversifying the ghastly spectacle of the human bodies, a decoration
called ra'a nu'u a 'Oro-mata-'oa (sacredness of the host of
Warrior-of-long-face)."
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3. Another
euphemism, a more interesting one, is
rau hei
for a hanged victim.
Rau
hei.
1. Branch of mimosa. 2. Killed enemy. 3. Hanged 'fish'. 'Branche
du mimosa (signe de mort), ennemie túe (poisson suspendu)'
according to Jaussen. Barthel.
The mimosa plant is very special:
"The
Sensitive plant
(Mimosa pudica L.) is a creeping annual or perennial herb
often grown for its curiosity value: the compound leaves fold inward
and droop when touched, re-opening within minutes.
Mimosa pudica
is native to Brazil, but is now a pantropical weed. Other names
given to this curious plant are Humble plant, TickleMe plant, Shame
plant, Sleeping Grass, Prayer plant, Touch-me-not, Makahiya
(Philippines, meaning 'shy'), Mori Vivi (West Indies),
mate-loi (false death) (Tonga) ...
... In the evening the
leaflets will fold together and the whole leaf droops downward.
It then re-opens at sunrise
..." (Wikipedia)
We know (e.g. from the myth about Ulu and Mokuola)
that life and death are two sides of the same coin - unless somebody
dies life is doomed. The act of sacrificing good specimens will
generate strength in those who live on. The 'vital spirit' is so to say
transferred to a new body.
To sacrifice or to be willingly sacrificed is important in difficult
times. And difficult times can be avoided if people sacrifice as a
precaution. And a hanging 'fish' is like a mimosa plant, death is not
definite but only illusory, because life will recycle into a new
vessel.
Rau means 'leaves', 'to
multiply', etc, and hei is 'head-band', 'to entwine', etc.
Taken together rau hei can then be understood as
'proliferate from being entwined with a string of heads' (of hanging sacrifices,
with their heads like beads on a pearl necklace).
The concept of being
connected with invisible cords to the dead was a
prominent feature of the beliefs of the ancient Polynesians.
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Like kaikai strings between the fingers there are invisible
cords between the members of a family:
"4 March 1779. The British ships are again at
Kaua'i, their last days in the islands, some thirteen months
since their initial visit. A number of Hawaiian men come on board
and under the direction of their women, who remain alongside in the
canoes, the men deposit navel cords of newborn children in cracks of
the ships' decks (Beaglehole 1967:1225).
For an analogous behavior observed by the
missionary Fison on the Polynesian island of
Rotuma, see Frazer (1911, 1:184).
Hawaiians are connected to ancestors (auumakua), as well as
to living kinsmen and descendants, by several cords emanating from
various parts of the body but alike called piko, 'umbilical
cord'. In this connection, Mrs. Pukui discusses the incident
at Kaua'i:
I have seen many old people with small containers for
the umbilical cords... One grandmother took the cords of her four
grandchildren and dropped them into Alenuihaha channel. 'I
want my granddaughters to travel across the sea!' she told me.
Mrs. Pukui believes that the story of women
hiding their babies' pikos in Captain Cook's ship is probably
true.
Cook was first thought to be the god Lono, and
his ship his 'floating island'. What woman wouldn't want her baby's
piko there?" (Pukui et al. 1972, 1:184)"
(Islands of History)
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... Yet even more dramatic
conditions are imposed on the sovereignity at the time of the
ruler's accession. Hocart observes that the Fijian chief is ritually
reborn on this occasion; that is, as a domestic god. If so, someone
must have killed him as a dangerous outsider. He is indeed killed by
the indigenous people at the very moment of his consecration, by the
offering of kava that conveys the land to his authority (lewaa).
Grown from the leprous body of a sacrificed child of the native
people, the kava the chief drinks poisons him ...
Sacred product of the people's
agriculture, the installation kava is brought forth in Lau
by a representative of the native owners (mataqali
Taqalevu), who proceeds to separate the main root in no ordinary
way but by the violent thrusts of a sharp implement (probably, in
the old time, a spear). Thus killed, the root (child of the land) is
then passed to young men (warriors) of royal descent who, under the
direction of a priest of the land, prepare and serve the ruler's cup
...
...the tuu yaqona or
cupbearer on this occasion should be a vasu i taukei e loma ni
koro, 'sisterīs son of the native owners in the center of the
village'... Traditionally, remark, the kava root was chewed
to make the infusion: The sacrificed child of the people is
cannibalized by the young chiefs.
The water of the kava,
however, has a different symbolic provenance. The classic
Cakaudrove kava chant, performed at the Lau
installation rites, refers to it as sacred rain water from the
heavens... This male and chiefly water (semen) in the womb of a
kava bowl whose feet are called 'breasts' (sucu),
(pictures from Lindqvist showing very old Chinese
cooking vessels)
and from the front of which, tied
to the upper part of an inverted triangle, a sacred cord stretches
out toward the chief ...
The cord is decorated with small
white cowries, not only a sign of chieftainship but by name, buli
leka, a continuation of the metaphor of birth - buli, 'to
form', refers in Fijian procreation theory to the conceptual
acception of the male in the body of the woman. The sacrificed child
of the people will thus give birth to the chief.
But only after the chief,
ferocious outside cannibal who consumes the cannibalized victim, has
himself been sacrificed by it. For when the ruler drinks the sacred
offering, he is in the state of intoxication Fijians call 'dead
from' (mateni) or 'dead from kava' (mate ni yaqona),
to recover from which is explicitly 'to live' (bula). This
accounts for the second cup the chief is alone accorded, the cup of
fresh water. The god is immediately revived, brought again to life -
in a transformed state ...
(Islands
of History) |
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