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TRANSLATIONS
Let us now leave P and have a closer look at Q instead:
"venter, ... A. any of two or more wives who have borne children to the same man ... B. belly, abdomen ... " (English Etymology) Although the 3 rather similar a.m. glyphs may be interpreted as the 3 wives of the sun feeding him, we have at the opposite side (at midnight) a suggestion of 2 * 2 = 4; two glyphs each with one appendage. Two half-years (summer-year and winter-year) can be divided in half, thereby defining the quarters of the year. The maro appendage (at midnight) means the old year, whereas the hua appendage means the new year about to be born. Both appendages tell us 5 (as the phase of extinguishing the old fire and lighting the new one). The years are male, but the half-years should be female (if oriented 90o away from the vertical male direction by way of the equinoxes). That is the solar perspective. In the lunar perspective number 3 defines. Maybe this number once was created as 'wife' (2) + 'child' (1). In the (female) game of myth, however, the origin is of no interest. What matters is how the relations are. Dividning 360 by 3 we get 120 nights, the lot for each 'wife' of the sun. But that number quickly develops into 2 - because in 120 nights there is room for two lunar double-months (with a final zero-night in each double-month). Thereby a harmonious relationship is established with the solar two half-years. The sun behaves in his yearly circuit as if he had two wives (while in the lunar perspective he has three wives): "Hamiora Pio once spoke as follows to the writer: 'Friend! Let me tell of the offspring of Tangaroa-akiukiu, whose two daughters were Hine-raumati (the Summer Maid - personified form of summer) and Hine-takurua (the Winter Maid - personification of winter), both of whom where taken to wife by the sun."
"From the fragments we can reconstruct but little of the native mythology. Atea and Papa, the primary parents, have not been recorded. Tangaroa came to Easter Island in the form of a seal with a human face and voice. The seal was killed but, though baked for the necessary time in an earth oven, the seal refused to cook. Hence the people inferred that Tangaroa must have been a chief of power ..." (Buck)
"Now, these women had different homes. Hine-takurua lived with her elder Tangaroa (a sea being - origin and personified form of fish). Her labours were connected with Tangaroa - that is, with fish. Hine-raumati dwelt on land, where she cultivated food products, and attended to the taking of game and forest products, all such things connected with Tane." (Best) "The Sun spends part of the year with the Winter Maid in the south, afar out on the ocean. In the month of June occurs the changing of the Sun and he slowly returns to his other wife, to the Summer Maid who dwells on land and whose other name is Aroaro-a-manu. This period we call summer. And so acts the Sun in all the years.
"For the Marquesas are given: - daybreak, twilight, dawn, ('the day or the red sky, the fleeing night'), broad day - bright day from full morning to about ten o'clock -, noon ('belly of the sun'), afternoon ('back part of the sun'), evening ('fire-fire', the same expression as in Hawaii, i.e. the time to light the fires on the mountains or the kitchen fire for supper)." (Nilsson)
The conclusion lies near to identify manu in Aroaro-a-mau with some aspect of the sun. For a long time now I have had a suspicion about the glyph type which Metoro called manu rere (quickly moving 'bird'):
The appearance of this fundamental rongorongo glyph type (indeed the first one - GD11 - in my grid of glyph types) has suggested for me a 'bird at the top' (of a hierarchy), a great 'bird', a splendid looking 'bird'. Used as a symbol for the sun (or other shining presence) we should therefore think about a position high up. If used for the sun, it would probably be the sun at noon / midsummer. Given that, then the shape of the head and wings suggest that the bulbous head is the high-in-the-sky sun and that the wings delineate the sky. But the wings belong to the 'bird' and therefore a better interpretation probably is that the wings show us the path of the sun (at right the a.m. path and at left the p.m. path). The form of the beak could possibly, though, imply that noon already has passed, because the beak slopes upwards (presumably towards east and noon). It is only after noon that the sun has passed his initiation phase and reached true maturity. The child of the Summer Maid was Hikohiko. The old folk have told me [Hamiora Pio, a learned Maori] that at the time of the winter solstice the wise men of yore would say 'The Sun is returning to land to dwell with the Summer Maid.' The word south in the first sentence should read north in order to make the statement consistent with the actual situation in the latitude of New Zealand. The myth had apparently been brought intact from an ancient habitat in the northern hemisphere." (Makemson) If the Maori refused to change their old story, although the Winter Maid now was in the north, 'afar out on the ocean', then we shouldn't be surprised to find the month Tangaroa Uri located in summer (October) on Easter Island.
The creator of Q seems to have used a solar perspective (2 'wives') when deciding to use 2 glyphs and 2 appendices (resulting in 4 quarters) for the darkest time of the night. But then he (or she?) compensated this in using a lunar perspective with 3 juvenile sun glyphs for a.m. (still growing and being dependent upon their mothers). The yipwon was created with a lunar perspective - the ribcage of the moon higher (closer to the head) than that of the sun. Also it had a single bent leg. The standing yipwon would have the lunar center 'peg' (in the full moon symbol) vertical and the solar center 'peg' horizontal. This indicates that standing (vertical) and lying down (horizontal) is deeply connected with who is the ruler. The contrast between straight and bent, on the other hand, is deeply connected with male and female. Standing and lying down - connected with rulership - certainly has to do with a high level being connected with the head, the center of judgment. All above are reflections in my imagination, we have no proof. The way to search for proof must lie in repeated investigations and repeated reflections. Only by piling up evidence will proof come nearer. If we moved closer to proof, that would imply that proof was an objective stable entity, which I doubt. The eastern view of cosmos is not one-eyed, it does not regard hierarchy as the only possible perspective. It instead acknowledges also the horizontal perspective:
This is a picture of a whakapapa staff (from Starzecka), a memory aid for recounting the ancestors, (here 18 levels). "Genealogy, or whakapapa, was crucial to the institutions of leadership and aristocracy. Whakapapa was the recitation of the (literal) making of layers of descent: the naming of original voyagers from Eastern Polynesia, and beyond to the gods and goddesses themselves. Each Maori person familiar with her or his whakapapa could claim this exalted ancestry, despite the mean realities of possible enslavement in war or conquest of land. No conqueror or coloniser had the power to deny Maori their whakapapa, though they could, and ofted did, deny them descendants. Whakapapa recitation was often aided by a specially designed mnemonic staff, through which successive personalities and their various adventures could be narrated." (Starzecka) Ancestors always in front of their inner eyes, that means having access to the horizontal layers of history. The whakapapa staff penetrates down into these layers. I think that when illustrating the staff in a horizontal position (as I have done above) the slightly convex 'back' (tu'a) of the whakapapa staff should be up, and the concave side with 'pegs' should be down. Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother, means the horizontal (papa) back (tua) of that mother nature we live on (nuku). Digging down we find history. Each layer in the whakapapa staff has a certain resemblance to the 'ventral fin' in e.g. Qa5-39:
If we regard this rectangular 'fin' as a henua part of the 'fish', then the 'fish' presumably will be the (female?) sun which soon will rise in the east. This henua 'fin' is not being 'swallowed' like that in Pa5-22:
where 'night' 'swallowed' the period of light. 'Night' and 'light' are two different entities, therefore written as two separate parts in the glyph. In Qa5-39, on the other hand, the henua 'fin' is not a separate entity (according to how the glyph is drawn). Consequently - given that henua means a period of light - the 'fish' must also be a period of light. The perspective is opposite to that in the parallel 'fish' in Pa5-31
where the 'dorsal fin' seems to have a non-henua shape, rather a shape like that of a sharkfin, (as if it was the end part of a moon sickle). "... 'You are a very strong child (poki hiohio), oh last-born, I wish you luck! Swift (?) is the great shark of Motu Toremo Hiva, of the homeland! ..." "... The child of the Summer Maid was Hikohiko ..." There seems to be a wordplay here (hikohiko / hiohio):
"Here, in a very condensed form, is a typical Fijian myth of the origin of the current ruling clan (mataqali): A handsome, fair-skinned stranger, victim of an accident at sea, is befriended by a shark who carries him ashore on the south coast of Viti Levu. The stranger wanders into the interior where he is taken in by a local chieftain, whose daughter he eventually marries. From this union springs the line of Noikoro ruling chiefs, the narrator of the story being the tenth descendant on that line. He and his clansmen are called 'The Sharks' (Na Qio)... It is all as in the Hawaiian proverb: 'A chief is a shark that travels on land'... " (Islands of History) Maybe qio is the same word as hio, though in a different dialect? The shark is a shadowy character, we find him in Monday according to the calendar of the week in P (Pb10-33 and Pb10-35). The shark is a symbol of darkness, and if he should walk on land (i.e. appear in the daylight), then it must be early in the morning or late at dusk. During midday there are no shadows to be seen. The 'fish' in Qa5-39 (and all the other glyphs of this nightly type in Q) therefore may represent that aspect of the sun (the 'chief') which is a 'shark that travels on land'.
All signs point to a change of perspective in Q compared to that in the parallel texts of A/H/P, maybe dependent upon sex, maybe dependent on some other factor(s). In the Q calendar there is no p.m. sun to be seen, in other words only three 'quarters' of the 'day' is described. Translating 'day' into 'year' this is equivalent to saying that only 9 out of 12 months are visible. Possibly those 9 visible 'months' represent the time of pregnancy. That could be one explanation why afternoon is not described in Q and it would also explain why the perspective in Q differs from that in A / H / P; the perspective in Q is female while that in the other parallel texts is male. The first glyph in the night (not though in A) is different in Q compared to P:
In Qa5-27 there are (at left) 2 'fins' of henua type and (at right) 2 of marama (moon sickle) type. On the other hand all 4 'fins' in Pa5-19 are of the marama type. Metoro nearly always said 'marama' when he saw this type of glyph (GD44):
Possibly - I imagine - what I have called 'shark fins' are the ends of this type of moon sickle, thereby affirming the connection between the moon and the shark who walks on land. You can see the moon during the day, but never the sun during the night. I suddenly realize that I was probably wrong when hinting that the yipwon was a transformed image of Tohil. I now think these two images are 'identical'. To show this new idea of mine, I had better start by discussing the meaning of the word marama. I have earlier written (about GD44) "Metoro nearly always said marama, which in the Rapanui language means 'month' or 'light'. But as neither of these explanations give the correct reading for this type of glyph, Metoro presumably instead used the Tahitian marama = 'moon'." something I now have to revise. Because this is how marama should be translated:
Notably: "... this word seems derivative from lama, in which the illuminating sense appears in its signification of a torch ... " Tohil had a torch mounted in his forehead: 'His one-legged pose and the fire identify him with the Classic Maya personage known to iconographers as God K or GII, whose fire is usually shown as a burning torch sticking out of his forehead but sometimes comes out of the mouth of the snake that serves as the longer of his legs or (sometimes) his only leg (Taube 1992:69-79). Tohil is also a manifestation of the god called Hurricane or Thunderbolt Hurricane elsewhere...' Torches are needed in the night. Therefore Tohil is a nightly creature. I imagine that the moon was called marama because it lit up the night like a torch. Therefore yipwon (with a single leg as Tohil) also ought to be a creature of the night. Therefore yipwon should have the moon 'rib cage' higher than the sun 'rib cage' (at night the moon rules). Therefore my earlier explanation that the reason '...the yipwon has moon high and sun low' possibly was 'a sign of female strength (it takes effort to stand up compared to lie down)' and 'many New Guinea cultures consider women to be spiritually dangerous' is no longer relevant. Once again let us consider these glyphs:
We can now realize the possibility that in Qa5-27 we see at left the 'day' side and at right the 'night' side, whereas in Pa5-19 both sides are in the dark. The two glyphs tell two slightly different stories. We should remember to turn these glyphs 90o clockwise - they introduce the night, and the 'fishes' are 'swimming' towards left. The 'shark' fins in Qa5-27 are on the ventral side, the 'henua' fins on the dorsal side, quite in order. It is the time when sun is going under, his dorsal fins are still in the light, but his ventral fins are in the water. In Pa5-19 all of him - like a submarine - is already below water. Here I must document some further relevant material about the mago (shark) and the type of glyph appearing in Qa5-27 and Pa5-19. At Ab3-15 Metoro said atua mago (the shark god) and we have a parallel glyph in Ab5-23 which then presumably also is some aspect of atua mago:
I recalled this type of glyph (GD61) when I ransacked my memory to find glyphs similar to those in Qa5-27 and Pa5-19. After having remembered that the shape of GD61 was similar, I also remembered that Metoro had associated GD61 with (the) shark god. Checking in Q for GD61 I quickly located this sequence (which is parallel to the two sequences in A where Ab3-15 and Ab5-23 are located):
Without going into detail it seems probable that these two examples of GD61 are located before the eating (growing) sun symbols (meaning - presumably - a.m.) because they are that kind of 'shark' which appears in the early morning shadows. I think we can be sure that Qa5-27 and Pa5-19 are variants of GD61 (or at least alluding to GD61). Both GD61 and the eating sun are rare types of glyphs, which makes a coincidence very improbable. We may now also be rather sure of the reason why in A there is no glyph parallel to those in Qa5-27 and Pa5-19. There are no lingering shadows at the beginning of the day calendar of Tahua because the calendar starts at dawn (as if night did not exist before that). The story then runs smoothly through the day and not until the end of the day, after dusk, does night appear. At that point there is no need to 'introduce' night, because we know beforehand that night must arrive.
The 'tail' of the 'fish' (tôa) type of glyph in Q is closed, not open as is the case in A, H and P:
Perhaps the idea the designer of Q tried to convey is not so much 'closed' as a further attempt to make clear that the 'fish' is the submerged sun. When searching in my memory for glyphs similar to the 'introduction to the night' glyphs in H, P and Q, I saw a certain similarity (though admittedly slight) with GD16 (vai ora):
Maybe this similarity will be of use later when trying to understand texts with glyphs of the GD16 type which show assymmetries in the 'fins'? The 'living water of Tane' (vai ora a Tane), meaning in some way the life- and healthgiving force of the sun rays, seems to be a strange concept. That sun is necessary for life is no problem to accept as a useful idea, but why confuse things by mixing this concept with water? Water (at least sweet water) is also needed for life and health. And such water is delivered from above, presumably by the sun. The sun may obtain his water from somewhere below the earth, where there surely is water enough. Water always moves downwards. To my mind comes the constellation Amphora, ruling during the winter months in old Babylonia, probably the origin of our Aquarius, the water-carrier. The sign of Aquarius is frozen in time and has not moved together with the constellation, which nowadays is to be found a quarter of a circle away from the winter months (north of the equator). Had there been people on Easter Island at the time when the constellation Aquarius ruled the winter months north of the equator, then Aquarius would have occupied their summer months. For the creators of the rongorongo day calendars the memory of Aquarius ruling the watery regions of the dark winter must have survived (not only the timetravel since old Babylonia but also the movement across the equator). Maybe the ultimate origin of the tôa glyph type is a picture of an amphora? Let us return to the glyphs of Q for the night up to midnight:
Having discussed Qa5-27 at length, we proceed with Qa5-28. Why is there a 'baby canoe' in the glyph? In Qa5-30 this little 'canoe' looks as if it has developed into an egg-like form. There are no equivalent phenomenon in P and A (see above), but in H we find Ha5-40, which is parallel to Qa5-30:
The strange little 'appendix' at bottom right is somewhat similar to the small 'appendices' in Ha5-47--48:
There we can define them as haga (GD36), a sign not very troublesome for us because that could mean the immanent turnover at dawn. In Ha5-40, however, the little 'appendix' does not look like haga. Its form is instead more like the bottom part of the immediately preceding normally sized 'appendix'. I think we should 'read' this little 'appendix' as a 'baby appendix', thereby finding a certain parallel with the little 'canoe' and 'egg' in Q. From this parallel it seems reasonable to understand the little 'canoe' and 'egg' in Q as signs connecting the time before midnight with the time after midnight, where surely enough we find two canoes; not only the canoe of the sun but also perhaps that of his wife:
Probably we can see, below these two canoes, a sign of GD16:
The wife of Hotu Matu'a who gives birth to a little son (sun) is Vakai, a word reminding us about vaka = canoe.
Maybe the signs of haga (in Ha5-47--48) mean not only the coming dawn but also the 'female' part of the coming day? There will be shadows at least at dawn and dusk. Maybe the little 'canoe' (in Qa5-28) is the bride of the sun (as tôa), soon becoming pregnant (the little 'egg' in Qa5-30), travelling together with the sun over the wintry waters (Qa5-37) and giving birth when reaching land (at Easter Island), illustrated by the new hand in Qa5-39:
Notably with only two fingers plus thumb, a feature which Q does not share with the parallel texts. Or is it just a 'misprint', a bad reproduction? |
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