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TRANSLATIONS
The height of the day is here reached, as visualized in Qa5-52 by the image of a standing man. In Qa5-53 we see two henua in close contact: at noon a.m. and p.m. are in touch with each other. The English language has in store for us a similar idea (which our subconscious mind knows): the word 'noon' is a palindrome. And the word 'noon' also illustrates graphically (by OO) the two 'suns' (a.m. and p.m). Noon is a turning point, the point of maximum height (similar to Poike). Sun behaves like an arrow shot up into the sky, at some point it must turn around and come back to earth. Qa5-51 has another appearance than in the two preceding periods:
The central 'person' is more powerful (expressed by signs of thicker 'body' and 'flames'). The sun is brighter and hotter in the middle of the day than in the morning. The 'fingertips' in Qa5-51 are vertically arranged, presumably a way of showing how the light rays from the sun behaves when sun reaches the meridian. The 'head', remember the possibility of alternatively (or also) to read the sign as a hand at the end of a stylized arm pushing up the sky, is drawn as if this gaping sun-person is looking more upwards than in the two preceding periods. The most obvious sign of difference, however, is the 'feeding arm' which here is written as a separate part of the glyph. It is as if during the morning sun has fed himself and now at noon instead will be fed by somebody else. It is as if there was a meal arranged for him, maybe even forced upon him. At noon there should indeed be a meal: "noon ... ninth hour of the day reckoned from sunrise, 3 p.m. ... [ = ] midday meal ... [from] L. nōna ... fem. sg. of nōnus ninth ... " (English Etymology) Has there been a 'contamination' of ideas from the English / Latin customs to Rapa Nui? Suspicions arrive. There are just a few rongorongo tablets (Mamari among them) which with certainty can be dated to premissionary times according to Fischer. The 9th hour is similar to the 9th month. Number 9 signals the end of 'pregnancy' and the arrival of a new 'baby' e.g. e.m. sun. The 'mother' could be 'te Nuahine ká umu a ragi kotekote', the old lady tending the oven at the time of 'broken sky' (ragi koti koti). "The dream soul went on. She was careless (?) and broke the kohe plant with her feet. She named the place 'Hatinga Te Koe A Hau Maka O Hiva' [11 Hatinga Te Kohe]." "The name 'Breaking of the kohe plant', which is used in the same or nearly the same form in all of the tradition, must refer to a special event. *Kofe is the name for bamboo on most Polynesian islands, but today on Easter Island kohe is the name of a fern that grows near the beach." Obviously we have at Hatinga Te Kohe what Metoro usually called 'koti koti' and what I believe is meant to signify the end of a period (and the beginning of a new one). That fits in very well with pieces of bamboo as symbols for 'seasons' of time (henua). There should be some kind of feast at 'noon' (i.e. not only at noon but also at midsummer and other 'cardinal points'). To 'change gears' necessitates first dislodging the previous one, then for a moment to be in transition (to 'leap', jump into thin air), and then to 'land' securely in the new order. "When a Central Australian Aranda youngster is between ten and twelve years old ... he and the other members of this age group are taken by the men of the village and tossed several times into the air, while the women, dancing around the company, wave their arms and shout. Each boy then is painted on his chest and back with simple designs by a man related to the social group from which his wife must come, and as they paint the patterns the men sing: 'May he reach to the stomach of the sky, may he grow up to the stomach of the sky, may he go right into the stomach of the sky.' The boy is told that he now has upon him the mark of the particular mythological ancestor of whom he is the living counterpart; for it is thought that the children born to women are the reappearances of beings who lived in the mythological age, in the so-called 'dream time', or altjeringa. The boys are told that from now on they will not play or camp with the women and girls, but with the men; they will not go with women to grub for roots and to hunt such small game as rats and lizards, but will join the men and hunt the kangaroo. In this simple rite it is apparent that the image of birth has been transferred from the mother to the sky and that the concept of the ego has been expanded, simultaneously, beyond the biography of the physical individual. A woman gave birth to the boy's temporal body, but the men will now bring him to spiritual birth." (Campbell)
A change from one henua to another is a 'break' with what has 'ruled' up until now. There is a change of 'direction', of 'government', where one 'limb' is ending and another takes over, a 'joint' (like a knee or an elbow) is needed. Notice the marked elbow in Qa5-51:
This 'break' is a matter for the whole community and what better way to ensure that all are taking part in the changes than to have a feast? In the glyph for full moon in the Mamari month calendar (Ca7-24)
there seems to be a figure sitting eating in the upper part of the oval. Possibly we should think kai = feast. Though there is also a meaning of negation in kai and by a salto mortale we then arrive at the opposite of eating and feast. Eating somebody is indeed the total annihilation of him, a time for feast. Breaking his bones to get at the marrow too. "If the moral attitudes of primitive man are hard for the Western mind to grasp and translate into familiar terms, there can hardly be one more so than the Maori notion of cooked food as the lowest thing, the furthest opposite to the sacred, in fact filthy. For us to divest our minds of Christian notions of good and evil and substitute the concept of simple payment, harm for harm (or 'revenge', as we commonly call it with a misleading moral overtone), is simple enough - perhaps because every schoolchild has at some time known the latter in his horrid heart. Even the Maori custom of weeping over friends when they arrive instead of when they depart has a certain logic that is not beyond our comprehension. But to enter, against all conditioning, into the minds of a people for whom cooked food and the act of eating could carry the overtones of meaning that we in our greater wisdom attach to their physical opposites and to sex, is a good deal harder. One has somehow to throw the mind into a state of being that is radically unlike ours. Yet if the trick can be done, a light comes on." (Maori Myths) The Mamari Tablet was there in pre-missionary times (according to Fischer) and we therefore do not have to introduce influence from Western habits (as regards the rule to have a meal at noon time). Presumably a feast at full moon implies (for reason of harmony) a feast at noon too. "At the risk of invoking the criticism, 'Astronomers rush in where philologists fear to tread', I should like to suggest that Taku-rua corresponds with the two-headed Roman god Janus who, on the first of January, looks back upon the old year with one head and forward to the new year with the other, and who is god of the threshold of the home as well as of the year... There is probably a play on words in takurua - it has been said that Polynesian phrases usually invoke a double meaning, a common and an esoteric one. Taku means 'slow', the 'back' of anything, 'rim' and 'command'. Rua is a 'pit', 'two' or 'double'. Hence takurua has been translated 'double command', 'double rim', and 'rim of the pit', by different authorities. Taku-pae is the Maori word for 'threshold'... Several Tuamotuan and Society Islands planet names begin with the word Takurua or Ta'urua which Henry translated Great Festivity and which is the name for the bright star Sirius in both New Zealand and Hawaii. The planet names, therefore, represent the final stage in the evolution of takurua which was probably first applied to the winter solstice, then to Sirius which is the most conspicious object in the evening sky of December and January, and was then finally employed for the brilliant and conspicious planets which outshone even the brightest star Sirius. From its association with the ceremonies of the new year and the winter solstice, takurua also aquired the meaning 'holiday' or 'festivity'." (Makemson) The 'double command' is a proper concept also for noon. And the 'rim of the pit' may well be identified with the rim of an umu, in which the old henua will be cooked and then eaten by the whole community. The word 'umu' does not have to mean the 'hot spot' of the day. But it just so happens that noon meals take place at the hottest time of the day. I can find no evidence in Churchill 2 that the Polynesian word umu has some meaning connected with 'lion' (Babylonian umu). "Samoa, Maori, Nukuoro, Niue, Tahiti, Hawaii, Mangaia, Marquesas, Mangareva, Paumoto: umu, oven. Tonga: ngotoumu, id. Uvea: ngutuùmu, id. Futuna: ùmu-kai, id. Fotuna: amu, cooking place. Rapanui: umu, oven; humu hare, cook house ... The Polynesian radical is consistently umu. Tonga and Uvea compound with it a word which in Uvea is distinctly ngutu mouth and in Tongan we may feel that ngutu has been specifically differentiated in this composite. In the Futuna composite the latter element is merely kai food ..." "Particular interest attaches to the discovery of the amu type in Mabulag and Miriam, western and eastern islands of the [Torres'] straits and remote from the New Guinea coast ... The existence of amu in Fotuna affords us reason to regard the type as ancient Proto-Samoan, and that Mabulag and Miriam received it directly and not on secondary loan from Motu." Conversely - investigating what Jensen has to say about umu - I find no tendency to indicate 'oven': "Der Ausdruck Dāpinu = Ud-al-kud (?) ... für den Jupiter ist schwer zu erklären ...
...
Wir übersetzen demnach 'Dāpinu' durch 'der schreckliche Helle'. Dieses Prädikat passt vorzüglich auf den Jupiter, ist aber vielleicht ursprünglich gar nich eine Bezeichnung dieses Planeten, sondern der Sonne und zwar der Frühsonne, die zum Jupiter in Beziehung gesetzt wurde. Völlig analog ist die Benennung Marduk's (der Frühsonne und des Planeten Jupiter) als der ūmu namru, d.i. des hellen Tages ..." "Für den Assyro-Babylonier war mit dem Begriff des Glanzes und des Lichtes fast notwendig der des Schreckens, der Wut verbunden. Ich erinnere nur an die mannigfachen Ausdrücke im Assyrischen, die nicht mit 'Glanz', auch nicht mit 'Schrecken' allein, sondern mit 'schrecklicher Glanz' zu übersetzen sind. Das bekannteste Beispiel is mílammu. Es ist wohl auch nicht zufällig, dass gir = mir 'funkeln' bedeutet, ebenso wie 'wütend' (allerdings mit einem anderen Ideogramm). Der Tag selbst oder das Tageslicht konnte als schrecklich bezeichnet werden ... Wie so viele Naturerscheinungen personificiert wurden, so wurden die Tage zu schrecklichen, wütenden Wesen gemacht und, da unter den Tieren die Löwen und Leoparden als reissende Tiere die 'Wut' mehr als andere zu veranschaulichen vermochten, kam man dazu, die Tage als Löwen oder Leoparden oder irgend welche reissende Tiere zu bezeichen, ja schliesslich die Löwen als Tage. Diese Entwicklung ist eine so naturgemässe, dass man gar nicht gezwungen ist, unter ūmu = 'Löwe' ein von ūmu = 'Tag' verschiedenes Wort zu sehen ..." Here, at noon, the 'feeding arm' sign should not be understood as symbolizing 'growing'. Instead we should read 'feast', because the elbow (= 'cardinal point') is prominently drawn in Qa5-51 and the arm is a separate part. A comparison with the other texts does not reveal this information - otherwise than by implication (as e.g. in the glyph in the '5th' period of H, where a 'spike' at bottom right presumably means 'cardinal point'):
In A, clearly, the upper (left) part in the first two glyphs are representing 'arm and hand' pushing up the sky to let in more light (we even can discern that the 'mouth' is the gap between thumb and the rest of the fingers - the 'chin' tells us that). The third glyph, contrarywise, (primarily) shows the head of the standing person (a head on a standing person is the highest possible position). But, secondarily, the first two glyphs also alludes to this head (which presumably may be interpreted as a.m. sun), and the head in the third glyph also reminds us about the hand with thumb pointing out towards right. The elbow is connected with what probably represents p.m. sun. Neither of the other texts (H, P, Q) has any clear sign of 'arm and hand' pushing up the sky. But secondarily this meaning might be there anyhow. The growing sun is represented in all four texts and may be 'read' in all the glyphs above. All four texts also indicate change over the a.m.-period (by small changes even in those cases when the glyphs are of the same type). I have with red marked three glyphs which, I think, have a sign in the form of an egg-shaped 'head'. Perhaps this means that an 'egg' is hatched, a dramatic 'breakthrough into light'. Certainly that would explain the 'egg' in H (which we may understand as signifying the newly hatched sun at dawn), but also the signs of 'break' at noon in A and Q may be similarly understood - this time it is the p.m.-sun who will be born. Is there anything more to say about Qa5-52?
As we have interpreted this type of glyph earlier a standing person shown en face presumably is a sign of middle and maturity. The ears might be interpreted as sun symbols and the pointed head as 'noon'. We may, however, then proceed and understand the neck as an 'arm' pusing up the sky. The arms are assymmetric, also the legs. Together they may give the impression of an oval shape. If the top of the head represents 'noon', then we may understand the arms as the two light periods (a.m. and p.m.). From this it appears reasonable to interpret the legs as two dark periods (= before and after midnight?). The left (from us seen) arm is longer than the right and the right thigh bone longer than the left. I think that 'longer' means 'stronger'. The magic morning sun could therefore be the left arm and, if so, then - reasonably - the time after sundown until midnight would be the right leg. But it could very well be the opposite: Not until noon is the sun fully grown and powerful, not until after midnight is everybody asleep. We should also notice the fact that the arms are drawn without elbows, whereas the legs are shown with knees. There should be no 'elbows' between the cardinal points dawn, noon and sundown. But what then are the knees? Possibly the answer is that the knees are there to indicate the sign Y. And Y would possibly mean 'two' (i.e. woman, night etc): “Freeman describres the dualistic cosmology of the Pythagorean school (-5th century), embodied in a table of ten pairs of opposites. On one side there was the limited, the odd, the one, the right, the male, the good, motion, light, square and straight. On the other side there was the unlimited, the even, the many, the left, the female, the bad, rest, darkness, oblong and curved.” (Needham 2) All four texts show the right leg with longer thigh bone than the left. Perhaps this is to show that sun is walking towards us, his right leg forward and his left leg behind. Right means male. At midsummer sun is changing very slowly, which differs from the situation at noon (the 'midsummer' of sun's daily cycle) where his speed is more normal. Therefore the interpretation of a walking person is more probable here in the day calendar than to 'read' a person standing still:
Also the left arm tends to be longer than the right. The point of reversal - from longer at right to longer at left - is at the waist. "... one thing is clear, that the Scorpion-Men are to be imagined at the boundary between land and sea, upper and lower world, and in such a way that the upper or human portion belongs to the upper region, and the lower, the Scorpion body, to the lower ..." In Babylonia the lower part of the body was not human, but humanity dwells in light, and possibly this type of glyph therefore illustrates that the lower part of the body is in the watery region:
But the hands are signalling Y which may well mean that the whole body is down below (i.e. in the 'dark' of night or winter). Furthermore, at noon, there is no boundary between land and sea; the sea is as far away as is possible. Therefore the glyph type which has a person with both hands raised in Y and legs forming what looks like watery motion may represent the midnight position. In Qa5-53
we once again must think about the two main possibilities: 1) either these 'staffs' are vertical to support the sky roof or 2) these 'staffs' are the periods a.m. and p.m. In the middle of the night there is a single henua, e.g. (Qa5-34):
Presumably this henua is marking the horizontal 'back-bone' of hare paega. If we see two similar 'bony staffs' upholding the sky roof in the middle of the day, it therefore seems reasonable to also believe that they depict horizontal 'bones'. The path of the sun also indeed goes horizontally across the sky. Why only one 'staff' at midnight and two at noon? An easy answer is that there is only one 'back-bone' in a hare paega but clearly two main paths of the sun: 'up' (a.m.) and 'down' (p.m.) In a world desiccated by Occam's razor the answer stops here. But in the ancient richer world, where leaders not yet had simplified everything, there should be more answers. E.g.: If 'one' stands for male and 'two' for female, then one in the (female) night is there to counterbalance. And in the male sun-dominated day a counterbalance is established by having a division into two. The two paths of the sun during the day (up and down) are the equivalents of the two dark walls in a hare paega. In the middle of the night stability (male) is established by ivi-tika. In the middle of the day there is a female umu. By this reasoning we arrive at the conclusion that henua is depicted vertically not only because that is a more economic and æesthetic way of drawing (than to have it oriented horizontally), but also because it is the sun with its strong rays that pushes the sky up. If the 'limbs' of the sun are to push up the roof of the sky a horizontal positioning would be ridiculous, they must be (more or less) vertical. The rays of the sun are vertical in hau tea (but presumably this does not mean that the rays really are vertical - it is enogh to assume them not to be too slanting):
In henua we see the horizontal path of the sun:
Question is how to understand the glyphs which are 'compounds' of these two (or more) glyph types. Above we have arrived at the conclusion that if we see two henua side by side, then this means two horizontal (or rather: across the sky) 'paths of the sun'. On the other hand, if we see a variant of hau tea this means 'rays of the sun'. Compounded glyphs should include both 'readings'. "It is a very striking fact that even as far back as the oracle-bone numerals of the -13th century, the symbols for 1 and for 10 were both straight lines, the former horizontal, the latter vertical ... " (Needham 3) "For the title of the Chou Pei Suan Ching we adopt the translation 'The Arithmetical Classic of the Gnomon and the Circular Path of Heaven', though there are several alternatives. The first word has often been taken to refer to the Chou dynasty, at which period the dialogues of the book are supposed to have taken place, but since the word also means 'circumference' and since the book contains much on the declination of the sun at different times of the year, together with a diagram of the concentric declination-circles through which its movements takes it, we may accept the view ... that chou refers to these 'circular paths of the heavens'. The word pei originally meant a femur, and some have therefore seen a reference in it to counting-rods made of bone, but the text itself definitely says that here it means a piao or gnomon. While largely concerned with primitive astronomical calculations, the book opens with a discourse on the properties of right-angled triangles as used for the measurement by proportions of heights and distances, both terrestial and celestial." (Needham 3) The vertical and the horizontal are closely connected. An upright (in the air standing) gnomon casts a shadow (on the ground) which is horizontal. Shadow means 'female' and upright 'male'. Once again we find an argument for drawing henua vertical even though the path of the sun is horizontal (or across the sky). But why are the two henua drawn side by side?
Shouldn't they be drawn one after the other? (Because p.m. follows a.m. - they do not go in parallel.) In Qa5-41 they seem to follow each other:
I guess that two henua following each other (with an empty space in between) would not look as good as having them in contact. Moreover the allusion to hau tea would vanish. I cannot remember having seen two henua following each other (with a space between them) anywhere in the rongorongo texts. Which implies that they should not be drawn like that, but instead as two 'staffs' in contact with each other. Two henua in contact would look like this (Pa5-37):
Why then add signs (in Qa5-53) in the form of 1) a shorter middle vertical line 2) the left side of the glyph not a mirror-image of the right side? The last sign may be understood by pointing to the fact that a.m. and p.m. are different (in temperature, humidity etc). A shorter middle vertical line may be explained by pointing to the possibly that the vertical lines may represent the (horizontal) shadows (at morning, at noon and at sundown). Remember that we have 'read' lines across henua (in Pa5-41) as marking darkness:
Lines across a glyph - I believe - means 'darkness'. However, there are no lines across henua above (except in Pa5-41). Because the lines are contours of two henua, not lines across. But anyhow these contour lines of henua may mark darkness. Because they may be 'read' as daybreak, 'noonbreak' and 'nightbreak', the three times when drastic changes appear. The two henua are in contact with each other in order to allude to hau tea. At noon a gnomon may be needed to be secure of 'when', but daybreak and 'nightbreak' at first were observed and defined without instrumental help. Later star watching came in. Another explanation for why there is one henua 'staff' at midnight and two at noon may be that not only the day but also the 'day' (the total cycle) is divided at noon into two halves (and that this cycle starts at midnight). A new year begins at the darkest time and consequently the 'day' cycle should also start at the darkest time. The sign of 'terrible light' in Babylonia:
may be the origin of the double henua at noon. Though I cannot see that Jensen has defined this 'terrible light' as located at noon - or that it in any way is different from e.g. the 'growth light' of sun druing a.m. But Jensen has mentioned the terrible heat at midsummer. In ancient Egypt the sun took on different 'personalities' at different times of the day and it would not surprise me is also the Babylonians (and the Easter Islanders) defined different roles for the sun during a.m., noon, and p.m. But we may have a denial (of the idea of one henua 'staff' marking the first period and two marking the 2nd half) in this sequence of glyphs (which I guess has the changes of the sun as its subject):
Given that Hb3-30 marks noon, then one henua staff (in Hb3-32) arrives later, and yet later a bent crooked 'staff' (in Hb3-33) appears. Hb3-33 together with Hb3-34 maybe tells us that sun (left part of Hb3-33) is growing old and arrives at the border of the sea (Hb3-34), his legs undulating and his hand waving goodbye. To 'wave' presumably signifyes 'water'. But how could Hb3-30 mark the noon? Sun is 'eating' (growing) in Hb3-29 and Hb3-31. That means noon will not be reached until Hb3-32, which glyph though is showing just a single 'staff'. But the sun appears en face. We should also remind ourselves of the double henua 'staffs' in P during a.m.:
Pa5-37 and Pa5-45 together may rather suggest e.g. that there are 4 'staffs' upholding the roof of the sky, or that the (square) earth is delimited by 4 sides. There might also be an allusion to the moon: 2 + 2 'staffs' combined with 7 marks on 2 tapa mea = 4 * 7 = 28 nights. Barthel has something to say about double henua: "Höchst bedeutsam sind zwei Vorkommen des Zeichens 8 mit dem Mondsymbol. Ein Textstück der 'tablette échancrée' zeigt vor den beiden Himmelskörpern ein graphisches Element, das aus zwei Stäben aufgebaut ist.
'Tokorua', zwei Stäbe, steht nun aber einem metaphorischen Ausdruck für 'Zwillinge' dar; und tatsächlich spielen die männliche Sonne und der weibliche Mond als Zwillingsgeschwister eine wohlbekannte Rolle in der polynesischen Mythologie. Die specifische Namensgebung 'Zwei Stäbe' für die Zwillinge Sonne und Mond hat sich in Sprichwörtern der Maori erhalten.11) 11) Tregear 1891, 529: Nga tokorua a Taingahue, the twins of Taingahue, i.e. Sun and Moon; 383: Nga tokorua a Tongotongo." Unfortunately, according to Fischer there is only one 'staff' there (a slightly forward leaning one):
Let us call the double 'staffs' tokorua. Initially - I believe - a 'staff' was needed at new year because one ruler (year) ended and another must begin. In between there was a kind of vacuum for 5 days and a support was badly needed. Perhaps the old ruler needed a staff to lean on, and then - after he had left the stage - only the staff remained. That staff may be the one depicted above, just before the conjunction of sun and moon. On Hawaii new year was a time of conjunction between the Pleiades, winter solstice and full moon: "The correspondence between the winter solstice and the kali'i rite of the Makahiki is arrived at as follows: ideally, the second ceremony of 'breaking the coconut', when the priests assemble at the temple to spot the rising of the Pleiades, coincides with the full moon (Hua tapu) of the twelfth lunar month (Welehu)." (Makemson) Makemson tells us about takurua (great festivity, border of the pit, double rule, Janus, etc) as a concept associated with the time of new year. A play of words, takurua / tokorua, I think. Back to back they sit, the two rulers. One is holding up the roof until 'midnight' and the other from then on. There is an old Egyptian picture (ref. Wilkinson) of these double rulers at the time of changeover:
We can see two pharaohs (though in reality only one): at right the pharaoh of Upper Egypt and at left the pharaoh of Lower Egypt. The head gear for Upper Egypt is high and white, the head gear for Lower Egypt is low and red. The great festivity of sed, inaugurating a new period of ruling, had this glyph:
I am not convinced that the two small figures inside the jubilee pavilions in the hieroglyph depict the two pharaohs, but I have not yet been able to ascertain what they are. Wilkinson thinks they are thrones. I do not agree, rather they could be frogs, kerer, with the meaning of fruitfulness, birth, regeneration etc.
We remember the older variant of pharaoh at sed where he is only one on the throne:
His head gear is a combination of that for Upper and Lower Egypt. Later (at right) when he is striding ahead his head gear has changed. "The king, wearing now a short, stiff archaic mantle, walks in a grave and stately manner to the sanctuary of the wolf-god Upwaut, the 'Opener of the Way', where he anoints the sacred standard and, preceded by this, marches to the palace chapel, into which he disappears. A period of time elapses during which the pharaoh is no longer manifest. When he reappears he is clothed as in the Narmer palette, wearing the kilt with Hathor belt and bull's tail attatched. In his right hand he holds the flail scepter and in his left, instead of the usual crook of the Good Shepherd, an object resembling a small scroll, called the Will, the House Document, or Secret of the Two Partners, which he exhibits in triumph, proclaiming to all in attendance that it was given him by his dead father Osiris, in the presence of the earth-god Geb. 'I have run', he cries, 'holding the Secret of the Two Partners, the Will that my father has given me before Geb. I have passed through the land and touched the four sides of it. I traverse it as I desire.' ... " (Campbell 2) In a way it resembles the kuhane of Hau Maka, covering the whole territory during the night. "Both Osiris and the pharaoh wear the double crown of the two lands, which is a compound of the tall tiara-like white crown of Upper Egypt and the low red crown, with symbolic coil, of the North."(Campbell 2) What is that symbolic coil? It seems to have grown into a big black ball in the pharaoh's appearance at right. Is it a symbol for those 5 absent days? The 'bow' at right is renpet = many years (of successful reign):
According to Wilkinson renpet is a picture of a branch from the date-palm: Phoenix dactylifera. That latin name I 'translate' as 'magic fire-bird which reappears again and again and who makes fingers'. Which is interesting e.g. because I think that the rongorongo signs have fingers as symbols for light - remember also the story about Maui and Mahuika (whose finger-nails created fire). Furthermore, they removed the leaves and then for each year they made a notch. The ancient Egyptian word genut (-t means female I believe), which was derived from genu = branch, was used with the meaning 'deed', 'annals'. Our word 'genus' certainly must have some relationship with the Egyptian genu. 'Genuflexion' means to bend the knees. There is a field of common meaning beteween 'branches', 'limbs', and the unfolding of reality in terms of 'seasons'. Was genu = the Y part of the branch? Wilkinson does not comment upon the half-circular shape at the middle of renpet staff. Possibly, I guess, it might mean half-year (though its shape is not exactly that of a half-circle). Upper (white and tall) contrasting with lower (red and short) in the world of ancient Egypt was a polarity which easily may have spread over the world. I believe that at some point the meaning must have been misunderstood and the two persons became old and new year. (Maybe that evolution happened already in Egypt.) In Mamari's moon calendar we seem to find old and new moon (periods) illustrated as these two 'seating' (remember the Mayan concept) figures (Ca8-28--29):
Possibly they are shown 'eating' to indicate takurua (great festivity). Two 'persons' could be called tokorua. Churchill has written (regarding the language of Mangareva): tokorua, a companion, a mate. Sa.: toalua, wife, husband. From this we get the idea that tokorua also would be a proper symbol for noon-time. Because noon may be compared with the time of initiation, becoming a grown-up, taking a wife, a life companion. There remains one major problem, though, why is Qa5-53
written as if the glyph was a fusion of two arrow-feathers (front to front)? Even if we can accept that at bottom light is partly hidden behind a mountain - cfr Qa5-45:
we cannot say that there is also a mountain top protruding down from the sky. I have an (not the) answer (I believe). Posnansky has this picture and comments:
"The maximum degree of stylization of the Third Period can be observed in the idols which we have called, owing to their special form, 'anticephalic'... The only way to explain this new conception of the 'Goddess of the Moon' would be as follows: they saw the moon come up in the east or behind the eastern mountains, and almost in the same spot as the sun comes up in the morning. They saw that it passed in great splendor during the night through the firmament to set afterwards on the opposite side in the west. Since the new conception was ... that of a true goddess with humanized features whose face and aureola stood for the lunar rays and light, and as this goddess could not go down or set on the other side of the firmament with the head, they then had the new idea of the 'double goddess' or the 'goddess with two bodies' of which the upper also went down on the side of the feet." In other words: The tokorua glyph type with wedges means that light is partly hidden close to the horizons. The path of the sun starts in the east where there usually is some mountain top interfering and the same goes for the descent in the west. This explanation also makes clear why this type of glyph occurs as 'standard' in the day calendar of H. During a.m. sun is rising and has his 'feet' on the ground; his 'hands' are used for pushing up the sky. His 'head' is located at noon. Reachling that point his 'feet' are relocated from east to west, i.e. sun is 'turned around', a major change. In Egypt maybe the date-palm had some similar function. Both 'date' and 'palm' are words which could be read otherwise: A 'date' is also a calendrical entity. And a 'palm' is the 'origin' of the fingers. "Palm1 pām tree of the (chiefly tropical) family Palmæ or Palmaceæ; leaf or 'branch' of a palm tree OE.: branch or sprig of a tree substituted for the palm in Palm Sunday processions xiv. OE. palm, palma, palme = OS., OHG. palma (Du. palm. G. palme), ON. pálmr; CGerm. (exc. Gothic) - L. palma PALM2 (the palm-leaf was likened to the hand with the fingers extended). In ME. the descendant of the OE. words coincided with the repr. of AN. (modF.) palme, OF. paume. Palm Sunday Sunday next before Easter, on which processions are held in which palms are carried. OE. palm-sunnandæġ, tr. ecclL. Dominica Palmarum. Hence palmY1 pā·mi abounding in palms xvii (Milton); flourishing xvii (Sh.). Palm2 pām part of the hand between the fingers and the wrist; flat part of a deer's horn xiv; measurement of length xv. ME paume - (O)F. paume = Pr. pauma, Sp., It. palma :- L. palma palm of the hand, part of the trunk of a tree from which branches spring, palm-leaf, palm-tree (see prec.), rel. obscurely to Gr. paláme palm of the hand, Ir, lám hand, OE. folm, OS. falmōs pl., OHG. folma (cf. FEEL). ME. paume, through paulme (also OF.), was finally assim. to the L. Hence palm vb. xvii." (English Etymology) But there is danger in leaning back and enjoying the solution - no more work is needed. We should avoid falling into that trap. Up again and search for new explanations! Via Internet I happened to note this picture from the 'First Maori War 1845-47':
Cyprian Bridge: The pah at Ruapekapeka in flames, from the 32 Pr. Stockade. Jany. 12th, 1846. The white tent at right made me think about hare paega as a symbol for the night sky. Could this type of white tent be the origin of tokorua with wedges? Used during the day to get some shadow from the hot sun this tent type might from above look like tokorua with wedges. But this was New Zealand, not Rapa Nui, and the 'house' of the foreigners, was not of Polynesian design. However, the Maori seem to have had similarly shaped types of hare:
"John Williams: Ruapekapeka Pa 11 Jan 1846. The pa in the distance on a hillside, with the smoke of gunfire around it. In the foreground on a plain are British redcoats, some standing in line, some moving amongst the raupo whares of the lower pa. On the right a cauldron is boiling on a fire and the palisades of the pa are visible. On the left, bullocks are hauling supplies (of timber?) into the flat area and the artillery is firing upon the pa in the background with much gunsmoke... " And other types of straw buildings than hare paega were indeed used on Rapa Nui too:
This picture is from Van Tilburg, a photo from 1886. Given that hare paega equals night, what type of house will be a suitable symbol for day? I think we may now advance to Qa5-54:
Possibly we here see the crust of the earth, the receiver of the sun's rays. Once again let us look at the Babylonian view:
The sky has the shape of an overturned boat, and a similar shape has the earth. In between their is light and air (Atea according to the Polynesians). Maybe this light and air space is symbolized with hau tea:
We also see the mountains at the ends of this space between sky and earth. There the sun has 'doors' through which he enters and leaves. In his absence (during our night) he is up in the sky, above the 'roof', presumably travelling by boat on the waters on the other side of the sky. Sun has 'turned his back' (tu'a) on us, that's why we cannot see him. During the night we can only see the image of his backbone (ivi tika) along the inside of our hare paega. Curiously the spine of a human consists of 7 neck bones, 12 dorsal bones and 5 tail bones, 24 vertebra in all. Certainly this was noticed very early and thereafter incorporated into the myths, wherever suitable. 5 tail bones must correspond to the 5 extra days at the end of the year. The Eskimo have similar ideas. To get the sun higher up in the air they use a piece of backbone and throw it up into the air:
"When the sun was just returning they used to play a lof of ajagaq ... by throwing the ajagaq bone up into the air they would appear to trying to get the sun higher." I think that initally (at least) the idea was similar to that initiation rite in Australia; to throw a person high into the air was to show that he had lost his footing, that he now must be reborn and enter a new 'season' (henua). If sun at 'noon' makes such a salto mortale, then he should do it once again at 'midnight'. I.e. not: 'when the sun was just returning' but earlier, to make him return from his no longer growing, from his standstill. The word 'vertebra' is derived from the Latin verb vertere = turn. The Egyptians also had ideas regarding the backbone. I cite myself: The Polynesian ivi means both 'bone' (ivi tika = backbone, fishbone) and 'parent, family, ancestry'. On Easter Island and up in the Arctic bones are more easy to obtain than wood. Wood is associated with fire and fire with the sun and the stars. Bones are associated with skeletons and dead people, and from there the thoughts go up to the sky where the 'fishes' are. If bones and pieces of wood are associated with periods of time (which seems obvious from all we have seen so far), then bones may be seen as substitutes for pieces of wood. However, already in ancient Egypt the backbone (djed) was a very important sign for stability, dominion, protection, life and health (according to Wilkinson), i.e. not associated with the dead. The four divisions of djed presumably mark the four quarters:
From this I draw the conclusion that bones and pieces of wood are hard, dry and stable ('male'). 'Woman' is the opposite: soft, unstable and watery, the 'joints' between the 'bones'. Now, if we look at the sky during the day instead, what do we see? We must certainly see the front side of the sun, his blinding eye hurling down rays down on us. "The eye is the symbolic site of subjection. Valeri observes that: 'The two sentiments that permit the transcendence of the self are, according to Hawaiians, desire and respect. One and the other are called kau ka maka, literally, 'to set one's eyes on'... 'To see' (ike) in Hawaiian (as in French or English) is 'to understand', but it is also 'to know sexually'. Witness to the order, the world of forms generated by the chief, the eye, is the sacrifice of those who violate that order. The left eye of the slain tabu-transgressors is swallowed by Kahoali'i, ceremonial double of the king and living god of his sacrificial rites. Like the sun, chiefs of the highest tabus - those who are called 'gods', 'fire', 'heat', and 'raging blazes' - cannot be gazed directly upon without injury. The lowly commoner prostrates before them face to the ground, the position assumed by victims on the platforms of human sacrifice. Such a one is called makawela, 'burnt eyes'." (Islands of History)
At least in the middle of the day the harsh rays of the sun should be depicted vertical rather than horizontal, i.e. we should not turn hau tea around from its correct vertical position to a horizontal one. At noon sun is very vital and must be standing high.
In Qa5-53 the left side is broader, which agrees with 'reading' these tokorua as being vertical (meaning that during the morning sun is more powerful than during p.m.). If we turn these tokorua counterclockwise 90o the south side (down) would be more illuminated - an impossibility south of the equator. Above the sky there is water. The sky itself is (according to the Babylonians) a firm shell across which the sun, moon, planets and stars move in their paths: “Wie schon oben bemerkt … steht der Himmel für die Babylonier still und infolge dessen bewegen sich Sonne, Mond und Sterne in Bahnen and demselben umher.” (Jensen) This firm shell must be what once was called the 'firmanent', a permanent stable dome inside which we humans could dwell securely. In the water on the outside of the sky dome the starry fishes are moving, as if in an aquarium. We are inside the glassy dome looking out, while the stars are outside looking in on us, as if we were in a bowl. The Polynesians had similar beliefs as the Babylonians: "The heavens varying in number from three to twelve according to the locality were imagined as formed by widely spaced concentric hemispheres of solid material which rested upon the plane of the earth.
In a vertical direction upward the celestial realms would accordingly lie one above the other; but in the horizontal direction they formed circular zones on the earth's surface. Thus a group of islands which considered itself te pito, the navel of the universe, was conceived of as situated at the center of a series of concentric spaces of great but indefinite extent, separated from one another by the walls of the various sky domes which rested on the earth." (Makemson) And the holes for the sun to enter and leave? "Their mothers have told them that the sky is a big bowl whose edge is fitted together with the horizon except on those places where the sun goes up and down. Through these two holes ships from another world can enter into our world." (Nordhoff & Hall) "They [the Easter Islanders which Captain Cook saw] have enormous holes in their Ears, but what their Chief ear ornaments are I cannot say. I have seen some with a ring fixed in the hole of the Ear, but not hanging to it, also some with rings made of some elastick substance roled up like the Spring of a Watch, the design of this must be to extend or increase the hole." (Beaglehole) "Both Men and Women have very large holes or rather slits in their Ears, extended to near three Inches in length, they some times turn this slit over the upper part and then the Ear looks as if the flap was cut off. The chief Ear Ornament is the white down of feathers and Rings which they wear in the inside of the hole made of some elastick substance, roll'd up like the spring of a Watch, I judged this was to keep the hole at is utmost extension." (Beaglehole) I have a suspicion that if the face side (mata) is equivalent to the day and the night side is equivalent to the back side (tu'a), then the ears (tariga) should represent the two holes for the sun to enter and leave.
|
der
Schreckensglanz trägt, der ... Tag, welcher Schrecken
entsendet'. Hier wird also ud-al-kud mit ūmu
dāpinu übersetzt ... Also dürfte in dāpinu ein
Begriff latent liegen, der auch in 'Tag' liegt. Da diesem
Tage hier ein Entsenden von Schrecken zugeschrieben wird und
derselbe Gott, der mit diesem Tage verglichen wird, voher
als einer bezeichnet wird, der Schreckensglanz trägt, so
werden wir kaum irre gehen, wenn wir in dāpinu sowohl
den Begriff der Helligkeit, als auch den des Schreckens
ausgedrückt finden wollen, Begriffe, die, wie schon oft
bemerkt, sich in manchen baylonisch-assyrischen Wörtern
vereinigt finden. 
