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TRANSLATIONS
These three glyphs describe the 1st period of daylight in the text of Large Santiago Tablet (H). Having already spent much time and effort on the parallel texts in Large St Petersburg (P) and Tahua (A), we should now expect the translation of these three glyphs to be easy. However, that is not the case. In Ha5-49 there is perhaps a sun at bottom, but without a sun disc this may be doubted. In Ha5-50 we see sun rays, but with no horizontal line at bottom. In Ha5-51 tapa mea has 6 marks, not the expected 9 (as in P) nor - alternatively - turned towards left (as in A). The writer of H has evidently used other signs and/or tried to convey other meanings. But we may assume - at least provisionally - that the periods of the day are about the same as in P and A. Maps can be slightly different and anyhow describe the same terrain. In Ha5-49 we notice a new type of sign - the space between the 'arms' describe a shape like a square. We can compare with the parallel glyphs in A and P:
The undulating 'snaky' arms in A give us no obvious similar shape and the arms in P seem to create a hexagon (reasonable as 6 is the number of the sun). Number 4 (in H) indicates earth, quite in order as the sun still is 'inside' the earth. The old Babylonians had also the idea that there was a sky dome with two holes in it, one at the eastern horizon and one at the western horizon, to enable the sun to enter and leave. However, this sun did not spend the night down under the earth, but instead went above the sky dome, where it spread its light during the night. (Ref. Jensen) This is not far from the Inuit story of the man who peeked into the sky: "... it was full of feathers inside. But so beautiful was it in heaven that the man who looked over the edge forgot everything, forgot his comrade whom he had promised to help up and simply ran off into all the splendour of heaven..." That number 4 describes the earth is clear from the fact that there are 4 cardinal points (east, north, west, south / spring equinox, summer solstice, autumn equinox, winter solstice / dawn, noon, sundown, midnight etc). However, 4 may also refer the the moon, because there are 4 * 7 = 28 nights when the moon is illuminating the earth. Moon and Earth are close together. "Shanchü Li asked Tsêng Tzu saying, 'It is said that Heaven is round and Earth square, is it really so?' He replied, 'What have you yourself heard about it? Shanchü Li said, 'Your disciple does not understand these things; that is why I dare to ask you about them.' Tsêng Tzu said, 'That to which Heaven gives birth has its head on the upper side; that to which Earth gives birth has its head on the under side. The former is called round, the latter is called square. If heaven were really round and the earth really square the four corners of the earth would not be properly covered. Come nearer and I will tell you what I learnt from the Master. He said that the Tao of heaven was round and that of the earth square. The square is dark and the round bright. The bright radiates (thu) chhi, therefore there is light outside it. The dark imbibes (han) chhi, therefore there is light within it. Thus it is that fire and the sun have an external brightness, while metal and water have an internal brightness. That which irradiates is active (shih), that which imbibes radiation is reactive (hua). Thus the Yang is active and the Yin reactive." (Ta Tai Li Chi according to Needham II) As water is covering the dome of the sky (clearly so as at the horizon we can see that sea and sky have the same colour) there is a measure of Yin there. On the surface of the earth there is no water, there is a measure of Yang there. Water goes inside the earth and light goes inside the sky. The cardinal points are outside what has been regulated, outside the sacred calendar. At the cardinal points there are staffs and between these staffs there are stretched cords to measure the earth. Therefore the surface of the earth is square. That is what I think. All three parallel glyphs have a mark in the form of 'left'. The left 'arm' in A is higher (though thinner) than the right one, and a close look reveals that in the left 'arm' in P the left 'limb' of Y is higher than the other, and that is also true for H. In addition the 'elbow' of the left 'arm' in H is raised higher and the left 'flame' at bottom is larger. Left is a symbol for the 'back' (tu'a) side, which presumably means that the female night still rules on, in spite of lightrays beginning to show at the eastern horizon. This is therefore a time of double rule, 'twilight'. The birth of sun is close at hand. Mother Earth is pregnant and she is really two persons already. The little space between her 'legs' (top of the 'square') indicates that she has started top open up. It looks as she has began to lift her right 'leg' (also in A and P). Maybe the bottom part of the glyph is the pregnant earth? Possibly this is indicated by this bottom being bulbous and because the left part looks as the left half of a square (standing on its corner - a cardinal point) whereas the right part is more rounded in appearance. On the other hand: "That to which Heaven gives birth has its head on the upper side; that to which Earth gives birth has its head on the under side. The former is called round, the latter is called square." But then the square form in Ha5-49 must be a description of mother earth delivering the new day, i.e. the light onto the surface of the earth where we live. The two 'arms' (or better: 'legs' or 'limbs') are designed so that the associations of the reader should reach one of the fundamental glyph types of rongorongo which I for convenience sake will call kava:
This is perhaps not something that the parallel glyphs in A and P attempts. The 'overarms' are thicker than the rest of the arms both in A and P, which would not be so if it was important to understand this relation to kava. Some examples of kava follow here (with of course different meanings specified by the details):
The fundamental idea with kava is to illustrate how the path of the sun is twisting and turning like a hurt snake. The meaning is to focus on change. At dawn changes really occur, life awakens again. Some years ago I explained to my superior that this character
once meant killing the snake. We were using the Japanese idea of 'kaizen' for a campaign in our offices in order to improve our routines and procedures among the employees. As a reminder of the new order they were given T-shirts with Japanese characters printed on them, the first of which was the sign above. The character shows a snake (left) and a hand holding a cane or stick (right). You must kill the snake (old rules and habits) as a first step towards making reforms. I did not realize at that time that the snake also can be regarded as the last phase of the moon. The Dying Snake it was called by various peoples all over the world (according to Zehren). Supposedly the last visible phase of the moon, looking like a snake, was going to meet death on the hot coals from the fire of the sun. We must remember that kava is a 'snake' of wood. The path of the sun is not the same as the sun. Wood may give birth to fire if properly treated, but that does not mean that wood is fire. "W [wood] produces F[fire] (by being consumed as fuel), F produces E [earth] (by giving rise to ashes),c c Or ... by burning off trees and undergrowth so that cultivation of the earth can be carried on... E produces M [metal] (by fostering the growth of metallic ores within its rocks), M produces w [water] (by attracting or secreting sacred dew when metal mirrors were exposed at night, or else by its property of liquefying), and w produces W (by entering into the substance of plants), thus completing the cycle." (Needham II) All this makes us arrive at the following conclusion: Ha5-49 is a picture of the sun (upside down head with flames at bottom, i.e. the underside) soon to be born (illuminating the square earth). The Y-shapes at left and right are the times of double rule, i.e. dawn and dusk. Perhaps we should turn the glyph upside down to see this more clearly:
The 'feet' of the sun are like roots and Tane (the Polynesian sun god) was (and still is) pressing his feet against the sky to push it up and let in the light. We can see that his knees are bent with the effort. "... he set his sturdy feet upon his father's chest, and braced his upper back and shoulders against the bosom of his mother. He pushed; and they parted... " Turning Ha5-49 upside down like this is wrong, however, because then the left half of the square of the earth in the 'head' suddenly will be located at right and the rounded part to the left. As regards Ha5-50 we should consider the fact that the three vertical 'rays' are very powerfully drawn. This probably is a way of illustrating the great power needed to raise the sky in the morning. The middle line is somewhat longer than the other two, just as we have seen earlier in the parallel glyph Pa5-33 (A has no such glyph):
That the middle line is marginally longer is a hint that we should imagine the wedge-shaped roof of the sky at the top. The absence of a bottom horizontal line in Ha5-50 seems reasonable, because if it had been there the sky must also be shown; you cannot push with your feet if you have nothing to push against. If both the earth (bottom horizontal line) and the roof of the sky (wedge at top) were delineated we would arrive at a rare type of glyph, somewhat like (Pa1-36 and Pa1-40):
As the power (of Tane or whatever other god the Easter Islanders regarded as creator of this miracle) to lift the roof of the sky comes from the bottom it would be wrong to write the wedge of the sky at the top of the glyph. Because in the ordinary glyphs showing three vertical straight lines the sky is seen on top because it is from there the sunrays originate. In Pa5-33 the bottom horizontal line illustrates that the sunrays arrive from - seemingly - the horizon. In Ha5-50 the origin of power are the legs of Tane, i.e. the rays themselves - no horizontal line is needed. In Ha5-51 we count to 6 marks towards right, because the message of the text presumably is how our world of daylight is created, not that light arrives above the horizon already before the sun has shown itself. The latter message needs some sign of underworld (below horizon) and in P we therefore count to 9 and in A tapa mea is reversed. According to Jaussen (and Barthel) Metoro said ka ero at:
I suggest that what he really said was not ero but hiero: "To shine, to appear (of the rays of the sun just before sunrise). He hiero te raá, dawn breaks." (Vanaga) |
