Pa5-64	Pa5-65	Pa5-66

The sun has gone down, but still we see him, why? Answer: Now we have lit our own fires. If you remember:

"A native Hawaiian [Malo] writes: - 'When the stars fade away and disappear, it is ao, daylight; when the sun rises, day has come, la; when the sun becomes warm, morning is past; when the sun is directly overhead it is awahea, noon; when the sun inclines to the west in the afternoon, the expression is wa ani ka la. After that come evening, ahi-ahi (ahi, fire), and then sunset, napoo ka la, and then comes po, the night, and the stars shine out..."

"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)

In Hawaii they seem to light their fires before sundown, but that presumably is for their kitchen fires. In the Marquesas they have fires both on mountain tops (simulating volcanoes?) and for their supper.

When in the Tuamotus a royal child has been born, it seems that his 'shadow' (ata) was like

"... a very delicate 'aura' that could be easily injured or destroyed..."

"Open fire, lighting up the night, was considered damaging to this royal aura. According to an old custom, each earth-oven had to be extinguished before sundown; this seems to refer to the contrast between profane fire and the tabooed 'radiance' of the royal son."

(Barthel 2)

In Pa5-64 we see two heads appearing at the top of the sun. Presumably this means 'fires of the people', and if we read this together with Pa5-65 we get the message: 'light from the fires of the people'.

The glyph Pa5-64 possibly should be read as Ahiahi in the Rapanui language, because this word is understood there too:

But this glyph should be understood also if a quite different language from the same general geographical area (= the other side of the earth seen from us) was spoken by the author or the reader; just as Chinese characters are understood by the Japanese (which speak a quite different language).

Possibly, too, we should read the top of the sun in this glyph as the top of the Y-sign, a way of communicating to the reader that night has already arrived.

This possibility diminishes the possibility to 'translate' the glyph 'literally' into Rapanui as Ahiahi. The double ahi does not necessarily force the glyph to have double heads, because there might be other reasons for the double heads.

On the other hand, if we regard rongorongo as an old writing system once used by all the Polynesians (and possibly by other peoples in or around the Pacific too), then cause and effect might have worked the other way, the sign Y resulting in the word with double ahi.

The glyph Pa5-65 should be closely examined. That we have learnt. Are there any signs in this glyph (more than the obvious light rays)? Let us compare with the other glyphs of the same type:

Pa5-49, Pa5-53 and Pa5-56 are not as broad and strong as Pa5-65. In Pa5-65 the space between the left and the middle 'sun rays' is wider than the space between the middle and the right 'rays'. The other three glyphs share the opposite quality. Pa5-65 is thereby doubly set apart.

En passent, we also note that Pa5-49 has a taller vertical line at right, Pa5-53 has both the middle and the right vertical lines taller than the left, whereas Pa5-56 seems to have all three lines more or less with the same height (presumably tall).

Whatever the exact meaning of this, we can see that order (daylight) rules.

The great difference which Pa5-65 marks, must surely be the fact that it has become night, no longer day. Let us review the statements at the beginning of this calendar of light:

"That there are 10 periods of light described in A and P does not mean that this time of 'red light count' has a duration of 10 hours. Instead we should regard only 6 of these periods as belonging to the 'hours of the day' and then we should count each of these 6 central periods as 2 hours. By this method we reach 2 * 6 = 12 hours for 'the plain, full day'."

Possibly this is true, but we need evidence. What now can be added is that in P we have this structure:

Evidently there is primarily a tripartition, defined by dawn, noon and sundown (marked with red colour in the table above). That created 5 periods of time: dawn, pm, noon, em, and sundown.

Presumably the next step in defining structure then was to divide pm and em in their middles, thereby creating four more periods. But that would mean nine periods, which must be wrong: nine means the dark underworld, not the world of light (which is what should be defined).

Another period was therefore added at the end, reaching 10 periods, the sum of the fingers of two hands. The myth about Maui and Mahuika connects these 10 periods with the 10 fingers of Mahuika:

'I am come to beg some fire of you. All the fires in our village have gone out.'

'Welcome! Welcome, then!' cried the old woman, 'Here is fire for you.' And she pulled out the nail of koiti, her little finger, and gave it to him. As she drew it out, fire flowed from it.

Maui marvelled at this, and took the nail, and left her. But he had only gone a short distance when he mischievously put it out. He went back to her and said: 'The light you gave me has gone out. Would you give me another?' So she pulled out the nail of manawa, her third finger, and it became a flame, and she gave it to him. 

Maui left her, and this nail also he put out when he had gone a little distance. He wetted his hand, to show Mahuika he had fallen into a stream. Then she gave him the nail of mapere, her middle finger, and he did the same again, and Mahuika believed him each time. 

In this way she gave him the nail of koroa, her forefinger, and then of koro matua, her thumb. And each one of them Maui put out, and returned for more. He wanted to see what would happen if he took from Mahuika the last of her fire, and he now had not a thought for the fire they needed in the village. 

This went on until Mahuika had pulled out all the nails of her other hand, and then she began on her toes, until Maui had been given all the nails of her hands and all those of her feet except for one big toe. 

Then at last the old woman decided that Maui must be playing some trick on her. She drew out the one nail that remained, the nail of her big toe, and fire flowed from it. But instead of handing it to Maui, she dashed it to the ground, and the whole place caught fire. 'There, you have it all now!' she cried. And Maui was already running for his life, with the fire at his heels pursuing him.

(Maori Myths)