TRANSLATIONS

 

 

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
9	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6
16		28				24
		52

This arithmetical juggling suggests that the first two periods of the total ten in some meaning are just preliminaries to the real day of light. It seems that what 'counts' are the last 8 periods and that they should be seen as divided in 4 + 4 (whereas 16 = 4 * 4).

The middle of a period with an even number of subdivisions cannot fall inside one of those subdivisions. It must be located between two of them. In the center there are two periods, here nos. 6 and 7 (together equaling 13, as do their sum of marks on tapa mea).

The cardinal point of the day of light, the point where some god must be supporting the sky, is - according to this scheme - outside (i.e. in between) the periods of time as defined by man.

Man can only measure periods, not points. We cannot even visualize a true point. Mathematically we will have big troubles trying to catch a point. Up to noon sun is increasing (we may assing the sign + for this phase), after noon sun is decreasing (we change the sign to - for this phase). What about noon? We must invent a special sign for that impossible to grasp idea: ±.

The middle of periods of time with an even number of subdivisions may be written in rongorongo as:

There are two measuring staffs here, the one at left arrives first in time, and before the next one appears there is an imperceptible gap in which change occur.

At that point in time all definitions are annihilated. It is a time for the gods.

"Do we ever understand what we think? We understand only such thinking as is a mere equation and from which nothing comes out but what we have put in. That is the manner of working of the intellect - in symbols that are older than historical man; which have been ingrained in him from earliest times, and, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is possible to live the fullest life only when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them. It is a question neither of belief nor knowledge, but of the agreement of our thinking with the primordial images of the unconscious. They are the source of all our conscious thoughts, and one of these primordial images is the idea of life after death." (Jung according to Campbell)

Growth occurs in the first 6 periods of the day of light (according to P). After that there follow 4 periods when sun is declining. This image is presumably first established after having pondered the phases of the moon, first waxing then waning. 28 (the number of nights when the moon is visible) probably alludes to this.

More precisely, though, growth can be subdivided into two periods: up until birth (16) and from birth onwards (28).

The glyph Pa5-55 is designed to allude to the two time periods which meet at noon. Period no. 6 should be seen as located before noon (sun is still growing by the hand of fire) and period no. 7 is belonging to after-noon. We can see two sun symbols located as ear plugs.

The fundamental type of glyph which forms the top of this glyph looks like this:

This picture presumably is a combination of three ideas: 1) three vertical lines illustrating sun-beams (i.e. healthy light streaming down on us from the sun), 2) the roof of the sky (the vertex), and 3) the eye of the sun (as a little circle at top right and seemingly outside the roof of the sky).

"Two men came to a hole in the sky. One asked the other to lift him up. If only he would do so, then he in turn would lend him a hand. His comrade lifted him up, but hardly was he up when he shouted for joy, forgot his comrade and ran into heaven.

The other could just manage to peep over the edge of the hole; 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." (Arctic Sky)

Possibly this fundamental rongorongo glyph type means the colour white.

"Among the natives of Malekula, for example, ... the soul at the entrance to the underworld is challenged by a spririt to complete the design of a labyrinth which the individual during his life was taught in the rites of his society, five age grades are recognized for the male. These are:  (1) the male child, (2) the young man, (3) the middle-aged man, (4) the old man (gray-headed), and (5) the very old man (white-headed).

These grades, furthermore, continue after death, the ghost remaining in the age grade attained during life. And only the old or the very old man is able to proceed to the end of the journey, the ultimate land of the dead, which, like the paradise of the Hawaiian chiefs, is on the summit of a great volcano.

There the dead dance every night among the flames; whereas men of the younger age grades, not having completed the course of their initiation into the mystery of death through life, remain in the entrance cave, in which, ... there is a tree that has to be climbed, much as in the casting-off places of Hawaii." (Campbell)

Old age implies physical deterioration. We may therefore assume that the partly missing flame at right in Pa5-55 not is a mistake but a sign to help us understand.

We might proceed further. To explain the two sun-symbols, the one at left presumably representing the past, i.e. the sun which was growing, and the one at right then the one we now can see, the structure with four cardinal points will help us.

We are used to look at space - in which cardinal points means east, south, west, and north. However, in ancient times it was time that preoccupied their minds. The cardinal points in time are e.g. spring equinox, summer solstice, autumn equinox, and winter solstice. That is where those four gods are standing who are supporting the sky.

One such god is, however, at noon. So much we can read. Where are the other three? The answer is immediately arrived at: sunset, midnight, and sunrise.

Considering the path of the sun around the earth (clearly visible to the arctic peoples during their summer) it is obvious that when we have noon, there must be other peoples living in our west that have sunrise. The four cardinal points for the day are moving across the earth following the sun.

We can therefore imagine that the noon sun now (in our 7th period) has proceeded towards west. From a point south of the equator that means at left if we look towards north. That should mean that the sun symbol at left in the glyph is the sun which has passed away from us. We may regard the sun at left as a picture of him at our western horizon.

This also means that when we see the sun symbol at right in the glyph, that one represents the sun of another cardinal point, the one in the east. East represents the future, west the past. Therefore the one in the east must be the sunrise of tomorrow, because we have now passed noon; the sunrise of today is in our past.

However, it is far from certain that the writer of this rongorongo text thought exactly like this. Possibly the fundamental glyph with sun symbol at right was an established norm for writing the colour white, without any further living meaning about cardinal points. Norms are like frozen life, no more evolution in them.