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TRANSLATIONS
It is necessary to
integrate the text about niu in the glyph
dictionary. The first part is presented here:
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A few preliminary remarks and
imaginations:
1. This type of glyph
appears during
the dark nights between
the end of one year and the
beginning of next year, the time
when gods are born.
"...the great high priest and
monarch of the Golden Age in the
Toltec city of Tula, the City
of the Sun, in ancient Mexico, whose
name, Quetzalcoatl,
has been read to mean both 'the
Feathered Serpent' and 'the
Admirable Twin', and who was fair of
face and white of beard, was the
teacher of the arts to the people of
pre-Columbian America, originator of
the calendar, and their giver of
maize.
His virgin mother,
Chimalman -
the legend tells - had been one of
the three sisters to whom God, the
All-Father, had appeared one day
under his form of
Citlallatonac,
'the morning'. The other two had
been struck by fright, but upon
Chimalman
God breathed and she conceived. She
died, however, giving birth, and is
now in heaven, where she is revered
under the honourable name of 'the
Precious Stone of Sacrifice',
Chalchihuitzli.
Quetzalcoatl,
her child, who is known both as the
Son of the Lord of the High Heavens
and as the Son of the Lord of the
Seven Caves, was endowed at birth
with speech, all knowledge, and all
wisdom, and in later life, as
priest-king, was of such purity of
character that his realm flourished
gloriously throughout the period of
his reign.
His temple-palace was composed of
four radiant apartments: one toward
the east, yellow with gold; one
towards the west, blue with
turquoise and jade; one toward the
south, white with pearls and shells;
one towards the north, red with
bloodstones - symbolizing the
cardinal quarters of the world over
which the light of the sun holds
sway." (Campbell)
Quetzalcoatl
as depicted in the Codex
Telleriano-Remensis. (Ref.
Wikipedia) |
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2. In Polynesia the
coconut palm could be regarded as a
tree of life due to its
usefulness. Furthermore, it had a
mystic aura because the nut has
spots like openings for eyes and
mouth:
"... When viewed on
end, the endocarp and germination
pores give the fruit the appearance
of a coco (also Côca), a
Portuguese word for a scary witch
from Portuguese folklore, that used
to be represented as a carved
vegetable lantern, hence the name of
the fruit. The specific name
nucifera is Latin for
nut-bearing ... (Wikipedia)
In the Garden of Eden there is a
devious snake involved and I cite
from Legends of the South Seas:
"Though this is possibly the most
ancient and most remote in origin of
all Polynesian myths, referring as
it does to that one who in
our
Genesis was 'more subtle than any
other wild creature that the Lord
God had made', its meaning has
usually been disguised in printed
versions on grounds of delicacy -
Tuna being said to have 'struck
Hina with his tail', or
'bitten her', or something of that
kind.
Since snakes are unknown in the
Pacific Islands, our very old friend
the phallic serpent must needs
assume the form of a monster eel (tuna)
in stories that require his ritual
killing to originate the principal
food-plant of the region..."
"Tuna's
origins are much more remote than
anything that can be described as
Polynesian. He is Joseph Campbell's
'great Serpent of the Eastern
Planters' ... Campbell has shown us
... that the myth must be related to
that critical point in the
palaeolithic at which 'the idea
occured to some of the women
grubbing for edible plants to
concentrate their food plants in
gardens'. It is certain, he says,
'that the functions of planting and
of this myth are related and that
the myth flourishes among
gardeners... We may guess the date
[of its origins] to have been
somewhere in the neighbourhood of
7500 BC ..."
Maui cut the great eel
into pieces according to Maori
Myths:
"... Soon afterwards Maui
took a wife, and this led to the
first of the exploits that he
performed with the help of the
jawbone of his ancestress. His wife
went one day to wash herself in a
still stream, and while she was in
the water Tuna roa, the
ancestor of eels, came slithering
around her and made himself
objectionable. That is, he touched
her most improperly. When she went
home she said to Maui: 'There
is a man in that pool with very
smooth skin.'
Maui
at once felt jealous and decided to
kill Tuna. He dug a trench
beside the pool, and laid down nine
logs as skids, so that Tuna
might slide over them as when a
canoe is launched. Then he told his
wife to sit near the trench while he
put up a screen to hide himself.
Soon Tuna was seen swimming towards
her, and as he slithered over the
skids Maui ran out and slew
him with the enchanted weapon. One
end of Tuna went into the sea
and became the ngoiro, or
conger eel. The other end of Tuna
became the fresh-water eel and is
still called tuna. A part of
him became the kareaou, or
supple-jack, whose smooth black
canes, like eels among the
river-weed, entangle the forest
undergrowth today. And the blood of
Tuna was absorbed by the
rimu, the totara, and
other trees, giving their wood its
reddish colour.
After this exploit
Maui lived quietly with his
wife, and children were born to them
..."
Another myth relates how
Hina first belonged to Tuna,
but grew tired of him and of the
cold down in his watery kingdom. She
walked away and searched for a new
man. Huahega, the mother of
Maui, told him to marry
Hina.
To cut the 'monster eel' into
more manageable parts is a
well-known concept in ancient
mythology. |
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"Maui and Tuna
Here in the Tuamotu we tell of the
rivalry of Maui and the
eel-god known as Tuna. These
two compared their force for
Hina's sake, and Maui
won. Afterwards, seeing grey hairs
on his mother's head, Maui
wished to conquer death; but men
cannot do this.
Hina
was living with Tuna in his
land beneath the sea; but she became
tired of her eel-husband, also of
the coldness there. One day she said
to eel Tuna that she was
going out to fetch food for them.
Then she travelled far away, to find
a new man for herself. She came to
the land of the Tane tribe.
When she saw those husband-people
Hina sang her chant about what
she wanted:
Inland eel here - manly thing! / Eel
of the sea there - watery thing! / I
here am a woman for the eel-shaped
one, / I have come to find him at
Raronuku, / I have come to find
him at Raro vaio. / Your
fame, O Tane tribe, is known
to me!
But the men of the
Ngati Tane,
Husband-tribe, all shouted to that
woman who invited them, 'There is
the road! Keep going on! We will
never take Tuna's woman - he
would kill us in a day!' Therefore
Hina went on to the land of
the Ngati Peka, and she sang
her chant to them. But the men of
that tribe answered in the same
words as the Tane men.
Therefore Hina went on until
she reached the Tu tribe's
land. They would not have her there;
no man-erect of Tu would take
her, Tuna's woman.
Then Hina
passed the house of Huahega,
sang her chant. And Huahega
said to her last-born son, to
Maui tikitiki a Ataraga: 'Take
that woman for your wife.' Therefore
Maui did so, and they all
lived quietly together there. After
a time the people of Tuna's
land told Tuna: 'Your woman
has been carried off by Maui.'
Tuna replied. 'Oh! - let him
have that woman to lie on!' But they
kept on going to him, always telling
him, 'Your woman is taken by Maui.'
Therefore Tuna grew angry,
and he said, 'What sort of man is
this Maui tikitiki?'
'He is a small man,
and the end of his ure is
bent.' Said Tuna, 'Then just
let him see this dirty cloth between
my legs, and he'll be showing us his
heels.' Then Tuna said, 'Go
and tell this Maui that I am
coming to have it out with him.'
Then Tuna sang his song of
lamenting for Hina:
First voice: Kua riro! Stolen
from me! Second voice: Grieving for
the wife is the heart. Chorus:
Kua riro! Stolen from him! / The
winds have brought the word / That
she is taken. Now we go - First
voice: We leave for Vavau,
land of speeding wave / To see the
loved one - Second voice: - Kua
riro! / The wailing winds lament
it! / Grieving love!
Then the people told
Maui that Tuna was
coming to have it out with him.
'Just let him come!' said Maui.
But they continually told him of
Tuna's threats; therefore he
asked them, 'What sort of ure
is this Tuna?'
'Aue!
He is huge! He's as big as a
whale's!' 'Like a standing
palm-tree?'
They lying answered,
'Like a leaning one!' 'He is
weak and bending?' 'Always
drooping.' 'Then just let him see
the crooked end of mine and he'll go
flying for his life!' said Maui.
Maui
waited with his family, he dwelt
there quietly in that place. One day
the sky grew dark and thunder
rolled, the lightning flashed. All
the people, knowing this was Tuna,
were afraid, their skin was
trembling, and they cried out
blaming Maui: 'This is the
first time that one man has stolen
the woman of another man! We will
all die!' But Maui said to
them, 'Just keep together. We will
not be killed.'
On came the monsters,
came Pupa vae noa, and
Poroporo tu a huanga, Toke a
kura, and Tuna nui
himself - they all came rushing on
the land. And Tuna stripped
off his loincloth, and he held it
up; at once a mighty wave reared up
and swept toward that land. Then
Huahega shouted to her son, to
Maui tikitiki, 'Quick now!
Show them yours! Pull it out!'
Did Maui then
as Huahega told him, did as
his mother said. That wave fell
back, the great wave of the monsters
soaked away. The bottom of the sea
was bare, and all the monsters
floundered on the reef, they flapped
in pools. And Maui went out,
he went with his weapon and he beat
them dead, each one. He killed them
all, excepting Tuna. Then
Tuna went to Maui's house
with him and they two lived together
quietly. One day Tuna said:
'We two are to fight this out. When
one of us is dead, the other can
have the woman.'
Said Maui,
'What kind of combat do you wish?'
Said Tuna, 'One of us enters
into the body of the other, goes
completely in. When it is over I
will kill you, and take the woman
back to my land.' So Maui
agreed, and Tuna said, 'I
will try it first.' He began his
chanting:
Hiki tautau orea,
/ Tautau orea, / He
tangata nui i whano mai /
I tena motu ra
... It is
I, Tuna, / That now enters
your body, O Maui!
With this word
Tuna went completely into
Maui's body, he went through the
place for entering and disappeared.
After a while he came out again.
Said Maui,
'Now it is my turn,' and he spoke a
chant like that which Tuna
said:
Ko
vau, ko Maui, e tomo ki roto / I ia
a u, e Te Tuna!
With this word Maui entered
into Tuna's body, and all of
Tuna's sinews came apart, he
died.
Maui
came out again; he cut off Tuna's
head to take it to his ancestor. But
Huahega his mother took it
from him and she said: 'You must
bury this head of Tuna beside
the post in the corner of our
house.'
Maui
did so, and that head grew up, it
sprouted, it became a coconut tree.
On the nut which is its fruit we see
the face of Tuna, eyes and
mouth. All coconuts have this ..."
(Legends of the South
Seas) |
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Saturn (= Chronos, Time) is
effectively telling the time by
cutting it to pieces with his
scythe, and the Babylonian spring
sun god Marduk divided the
night Tiamat (the ocean god
in form of a great water monster) in
half by a slash:
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"... Marduk, die
Frühsonne des Tages und
des Jahres, wurde eben
wegen dieses seines
Charakters der
Lichtbringer am
Weltmorgen.
Marduk,
der die leblose,
chaotische Nacht, die
keine Gestaltungen
erkennen lässt, besiegt,
der den Winter mit
seinem Wasserfluten, den
Feind des Naturlebens,
überwindet, wurde der
Schöpfer des Lebens und
der Bewegung, der Ordner
des Regellosen, der
Gestalter des
Unförmlichen am
Weltmorgen ...
Die Sonne, die des
Morgens das Weltmeer
durchschreitet und
besiegt und das Licht
bringt, lässt aus dem
Chaos der Nacht zuerst
den Himmel, dann erst
die Erde hervortreten,
spaltet das gestaltlose
Reich der Nacht in die
zwei Hälften, den Himmel
und die Erde ..."
(Jensen) |
The Apophis snake is
similarly ‘finished’ by ‘knives’:
Wilkinson comments that magic knives
were involved in destroying the
enemies of the sun at each dawn and
the two sycomore trees between which
the sun rises each morning were
called the 'two knives'.
In South America the rainbow is
compared to a kind of snake,
responsible for lifting the sky up
from earth to let light in (not an
altogether beneficient action):
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"... The Katawihi
distinguish two
rainbows: Mawali in the
west, and Tini in the
east. Tini and Mawali
were twin brothers who
brought about the flood
that inundated the whole
world and killed all
living people, except
two young girls whom
they saved to be their
companions. It is not
advisable to look either
of them straight in the
eye: to look at Mawali
is to become flabby,
lazy, and unlucky at
hunting and fishing; to
look at Tini makes a man
so clumsy that he cannot
go any distance without
stumbling and lacerating
his feet against all
obstacles in his path,
or pick up a sharp
instrument without
cutting himself ...
... The Mura also
believed that there were
two rainbows, an 'upper'
and a 'lower' ...
Similarly, the Tucuna
differentiated between
the eastern and the
western rainbows and
believed them both to be
subaquatic demons, the
masters of fish and
potter's clay
respectively ...
... In South America the
rainbow has a double
meaning. On the one
hand, as elsewhere, it
announces the end of
rain; on the other hand,
it is considered to be
responsible for diseases
and various natural
disasters [dis-aster].
In its first capacity
the rainbow effects a
disjunction between the
sky and the earth which
previously were joined
through the medium of
rain. In the second
capacity it replaces the
normal beneficient
conjunction by an
abnormal, maleficient
one - the one it brings
about itself between sky
and earth by taking the
place of water ..."
(The Raw and the Cooked) |
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The serpent (rainbow) is
responsible for the
dis-junction. The
paradisical normal state
of watery darkness
uniting sky and earth is
disrupted by light,
letting in all sorts of
'maleficient' creatures.
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We can now better understand the
role of Rigi, the great
worm who lifts up the sky roof
during the 2nd quarter, then
dies and becomes the salty sea:
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3. The word of Metoro,
niu, alludes to a
spinning top.
"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).
In the latter
eighteenth century, the Pleiades
appear at sunset on 18 November. Ten
days later (28 November), the
Lono effigy sets off on its
circuit, which lasts twenty-three
days, thus bringing the god back for
the climactic battle with the king
on 21 December, the solstice (=
Hawaiian 16 Makali'i). The
correspondence is 'ideal' and only
rarely achieved, since it depends on
the coincidence of the full moon and
the crepuscular rising of the
Pleiades
Whereas, over the
next two days, Lono plays the
part of the sacrifice. The
Makahiki effigy is dismantled
and hidden away in a rite watched
over by the king's 'living god',
Kahoali'i or
'The-Companion-of-the-King', the one
who is also known as 'Death-is-Near'
(Koke-na-make). Close kinsman
of the king as his ceremonial
double, Kahoali'i swallows
the eye of the victim in ceremonies
of human sacrifice (condensed
symbolic trace of the cannibalistic
'stranger-king')." (Islands of
History)
In old Babylonia the fate of the
new year was determined in a
'congregation hall' (Versammlungsraum)
in which a special room (Schicksalskammer,
Ubšugina) was assigned
for the future.
The hall (i
in the picture below accompanying
the text of Jensen) is located in
the east, in the water below the
earth (apsu),
from which sun (Marduk)
rises in the morning.
Marduk brings the fate (Geschicke)
with him, from his father (Ía)
who is the primary water (Urwasser):
"Als solch ein Ort (resp. ein
Gemach) im Osten des apsū
[water below the earth] und im Osten
der Erde an der Grenze zwischen dem
sichtbaren und unsichtbaren
Reiche
hat der Duazag eine ganz
besondere Bedeutung im Glauben der
Babylonier.
Er ist
... 'der Ort der Geschicke', der
ki nam-tar-tar-ini = ašar
šimātum. Ein Solcher konnte
nur
im Osten liegen. Denn die Sonne geht
im Osten auf. Die Ostsonne ist
Marduk. Darum bringt auch
Marduk die Geschicke aus der
Behausung seines Vaters Ía,
dem Urwasser, hervor."
"... der erste Monat des Jahres nach
dem Schicksalsgemach (= Ubšugina)
bezeichnet wird ... , der
siebente
aber d.i. der erste der zweiten
Jahreshälfte nach dem im Ubšugina
befindlichen Duazaga ..."
The stick of a spinning top
(made from the shell of a sandalwood
nut), with which children make the
top spin, is in the
Rapanui language called
ora (= life).
In the
Maori language
niu = 'a means of
divination by sticks':
"The sense of top
lies in the fact that the bud end of
a coconut shell is used for
spinning, both in the sport of
children and as a means of applying
to island life the practical side of
the doctrine of chances. Thus it may
be that in New Zealand, in latitudes
higher than are grateful to the
coconut, the divination sense has
persisted even to different
implements whereby the arbitrament
of fate may be declared." (Churchill
2) |
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4. The spinning top is
like
the sky dome near the celestial
pole, where the
'turtle' has business to do. When
sun reaches winter solstice he is as
close to the pole as he can come. A
new fire is to be lit at the pole,
presumably using the friction from
the spinning 'roof'.
The expression i ni(k)a
(above) is close to nikau =
the ni tree:
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Nikau
Mgv.:
The coco palm. Ta.:
niau,
coconut leaf. Ha.:
niau, stem
of the coconut leaf.
Ma.:
nikau, an
areca palm. Churchill.
Mgv.:
niu,
the coconut palm when
young, ripening into
nikau.
... the ni of New
Caledonia leads us to
infer that niu
was anciently a
composite in which ni
carried at least some
sort of generic sense,
it being understood that
this
refers to those
characteristics which
might strike the
islanders as indicating
a genus. In composition
with kau tree we
should then see nikau,
the ni-tree,
serving in Mangareva for
the
coconut
palm, in New Zealand for
the characteristic palm
(Areca sapida) of
that land, in Tahiti as
niau for coconut
leaf, and as niau
in Hawaii for the leaf
stalk of the coconut.
The ni-form is
found in Micronesia, and
in the Marshall Islands
ni is the
coconut. Churchill 2. |
The tree stands in the middle of
the 'sea', because winter solstice
is located in the middle of the
'watery' part of the year.
At the celestial pole not only
the 'turtle' but also the 'snake' is
at work (maybe it is Rigi?).
In the Mayan picture of the
activities we can at middle left see
how a long winding snake is adorned
with a sun sign (kin):
Furthermore, at right bottom it
seems as if the snake is cut in two
by what looks like a turtle head. It
is as if hônu is liquidating
the celestial snake at the proper
time. |
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(Ref. Lockyer) |
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"... Instead of that old, dark,
terrible drama of the king's death,
which had formerly been played to
the hilt, the audience now watched a
solemn symbolic mime, the Sed
festival, in which the king
renewed his pharaonic warrant
without submitting to the personal
inconvenience of a literal death.
The rite was
celebrated, some authorities
believe, according to a cycle of
thirty years, regardless of the
dating of the reigns; others have
it, however, that the only
scheduling factor was the king's own
desire and command. Either way, the
real hero of the great occasion was
no longer the timeless Pharaoh
(capital P), who puts on pharaohs,
like clothes, and puts them off, but
the living garment of flesh and
bone, this particular pharaoh
So-and-so, who, instead of giving
himself to the part, now had found a
way to keep the part to himself. And
this he did simply by stepping the
mythological image down one degree.
Instead of Pharaoh changing
pharaohs, it was the pharaoh who
changed costumes.
The season of year
for this royal ballet was the same
as that proper to a coronation; the
first five days of the first month
of the 'Season of Coming Forth',
when the hillocks and fields,
following the inundation of the
Nile, were again emerging from the
waters. For the seasonal cycle,
throughout the ancient world, was
the foremost sign of rebirth
following death, and in Egypt the
chronometer of this cycle was the
annual flooding of the Nile.
Numerous festival edifices were
constructed, incensed, and
consecrated; a throne hall wherein
the king should sit while approached
in obeisance by the gods and their
priesthoods (who in a crueler time
would have been the registrars of
his death); a large court for the
presentation of mimes, processions,
and other such visual events; and
finally a palace-chapel into which
the god-king would retire for his
changes of costume.
Five days of
illumination, called the 'Lighting
of the Flame' (which in the earlier
reading of this miracle play would
have followed the quenching of the
fires on the dark night of the moon
when the king was ritually slain),
preceded the five days of the
festival itself; and then the solemn
occasion (ad majorem dei gloriam)
commenced. The opening rites were
under the patronage of Hathor. The
king, wearing the belt with her four
faces and the tail of her mighty
bull, moved in numerious
processions, preceded by his four
standards, from one temple to the
next, presenting favors (not
offerings) to the gods.
Whereafter the
priesthoods arrived in homage before
his throne, bearing the symbols of
their gods. More processions
followed, during which, the king
moved about - as Professor Frankfort
states in his account - 'like the
shuttle in a great loom' to
re-create the fabric of his domain,
into which the cosmic powers
represented by the gods, no less
than the people of the land, were to
be woven ..."
"... 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) |
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