Outside March has arrived
and I can hear my own manu tara singing for joy.
The local species is Sitta europea (European
Nuthatch):
"The Eurasian Nuthatch,
Sitta europaea, is a small passerine
found throughout temperate Europe and
Asia, although not in Ireland. It
belongs to the nuthatch family Sittidae.
This bird is the most common and most
widespread nuthatch, and is often
referred to just as the Nuthatch.
It is a resident bird of
deciduous woods and parkland, with some
old trees for nesting. It feeds on
insects, seeds and nuts. Its old name
“nut-hack” derives from its habit of
wedging a nut in a crevice in a tree,
and then hacking at it with its strong
bill. It has the ability, like other
nuthatches, to climb down trees, unlike
species such as woodpeckers which can
only go upwards. It will come to bird
feeding tables, and is then very
aggressive, driving other species away.
The Eurasian Nuthatch is
14cm long and has the typical nuthatch
big head, short tail and powerful bill
and feet. It is blue-grey above, with a
black eyestripe. Asian and north
European birds (S. e. asiatica
and S. e. europaea respectively)
are white below except for chestnut in
the vent area. The western European
S. e. caesia has generally reddish
underparts. Young birds are 'washed out'
versions of the adults.
Nests are in holes or
crevices, lined with bark or grass. The
size of the hole’s entrance may be
reduced by the building of a neat mud
wall. Five to eight eggs are laid, white
speckled with red. This is a noisy bird,
often located by its repeated
tui-tui-tui call." (Internet -
Wikipedia)
The old name 'nut-hack' -
just a descriptive label - has been
changed by the powers of myth into
'nuthatch', the hatcher of 'nuts'. I did
not think about that until today, but
already long before today I have felt
that this bird was mythological because
of its ability to climb up and down
the trees (like Ratatosk in
Nordic mythology).
"In Norse
mythology, Ratatoskr (drilling tooth, sometimes
anglicized Ratatosk) is a red squirrel who runs
up and down with messages in the world tree
Yggdrasill and spreads gossip. In particular he
ferried insults between the eagle at the top of
Yggdrasill, and the dragon Níðhöggr beneath
its roots.
This image
from a 17th century Icelandic manuscript shows
Ratatoskr with a horn." (Internet - Wikipedia)
Though I can
see that he has two horns, two tara. One at each
end.
There are no eggs (nuts) -
as far as I can see - in the four calendars of the day
we have investigated. That is understandable, because
the diurnal cycle is not exactly like the perennial one
- only the general outlines of light and darkness, dawn
and dusk, noon and midnight etc give comparable points
of association.
Although a.m.
sun may be growing from an egg (or nut) in e.g. Ha5-56:
and in the
early night Qa5-30 may show an egg:
and just
before midnight the sun itself (?) may be like a ripe fruit
(Ha5-42):
Shoots there
may be, as in Ha5-47--48
but that is
a different business. Birds fly, vegetables and trees do
not.
On the other hand, in the
presumed perennial calendars, e.g. in Small Santiago
Tablet (Ga2-27 -- Ga7-10) we have GD53 (maitaiki),
which I believe is a mark corresponding to the three
'eggs' of Motu Nui, Motu Iti and Motu
Kaukau.
I replaced
the name Kaokao with Kaukau as a yoke:
| Kaukau
1. Horizontal poles of a
frame (of a hare paega, or a paina
statue): he-hakatu'u te tama o te
paina, he-kaukau, they erect the
vertical poles of the paina then they
lay upon them the horizontal ones. 2. Group
of people: e-tahi tuitui reipá i Te Pei,
ekó rava'a e-varu kaukau; i-garo ai i
Hiva, i te kaiga, a necklace of
mother-of-pearl is on te Pei, few
will find it (lit: eight groups of people);
it has remained in Hiva, in our
homeland. 3. To go through, to pass through
in unison; he-hogi-mai te ûka i te e'eo o
te pua kaukau-á i roto ite hare, the
girl smelt the fragrance of the pua
wafting inside the house. 4. Newborn baby's
first hand and feet movements (kaukau
or kau). The five stages of a
baby's development are: kaukau, puepe,
tahuri, totoro, mahaga. Puepue =
said of a newborn baby when, a few weeks
old, it begins to distinguish people and
objects: ku-puepue-á te poki.
Tahuri = of a new-born baby, to move
from side to side: ku-tahuri-á te poki.
Totoro = to crawl; ki totoro te
poki, when the baby crawls. Mahaga
= baby when able to stand by itself. Vanaga. |
Just like
the three great pyramids are placed not exactly in a
straight line but their locations adjusted to the Belt
of Orion:
In Nilsson's book I found many strange
pieces of information, e.g.: 'Among the Nahyssan of S.
Carolina time was measured and a rude chronology
arranged by means of strings of leather with knots of
various colour, like the Peruvian quipos. The
Dakota use a circle as the symbol of time, a smaller one
for a year and a larger one for a longer period: the
circles are arranged in rows, thus: OOO or O-O-O. The
Pima of Arizona make use of a tally. The year-mark is a
deep notch across the stick...'
About the Ibo-speaking tribes' in Africa:
...they seem to be singularly incurious about heavenly
bodies and occurrences; however names were got for the
following constellations: - The Pleiades ('Hen and
Chicken'), the belt of Orion ('Three and Three')...
But
Tautoru
is the belt of Orion. 'Three and Three' is more like the
Pleiades, Tauono. I guess that first was the belt
of Orion named Tautoru and after that the
Pleiades were named Tauono. Even the three great
pyramids in Gizeh were connected with the belt of Orion,
as shown by their locations in relation to each other on
the ground.
The concept of two 'years', summer and
winter, could then result in the belt of Orion being
seen as a mark between those two 'years'. Moving then to
the idea of three double months in each such 'year',
they could identify the belt of Orion with a 'year'.
And as the last step in this logic the
Pleiades - about two thousand years later when
the equinoxes
had moved away from Orion
- would have taken over the role of mark between the two
half-years of three double-months. And we then have
Tauono.
so the three
islets outside Orongo may have influenced the
creator of Ga3-17 to reflect a somewhat assymetric
design.
(In the map
we find Rano Kao, not Lanu Kau.)
In Ga3-18 we find two
straight-billed birds united. These birds presumably are
of the manu tara kind. Already in Barthel we find
the distinction betwee the normal GD11 (manu rere)
with crooked beak (600 according to Barthel's
nomenclature) and the special case with a straight beak
(400, manu tara):
"Schließlich
sei noch auf die Darstellung der Seevögel hingewiesen.
Abgesehen von den ungeklärten Species, die duch die
Zeichen 650 ff und 660/670 ff vertreten werden7),
7)
Vielleicht eine Pelikan-Art oder gar ein Kormoran?
Knoche (1925, 143) beobachtete den Pelicanus fusais
auf hoher See in der Nähe der Osterinsel. - Das Zeichen
wird jedoch nicht ornithologisch, sondern mit einer
symbolhaften Qualität verwendet.
handelt es sich um
die Symbole des Fregata minor und Sterna
lunata.
Der Fregattvogel
kommit in den Tafeltexten wesentlich häufiger vor; seine
Zeichen8)
8)
Zeichen 600-648. - Jaussenliste 'taha' (Fregate);
gewöhnlich aber 'makohe' genannt (Métraux 1940,
18).
werden oft
qualifizierend benutzt. Anscheinend hat man in ihm den
heiligen Vogel (manu kura) und Götterboten
der Polynesier zu erblicken. Eine Verwendung mit der
Eigenschaft 'kura' ist in vielen Kombinationen
evident9).
9) Zu 'manu
kura' vgl.: Beleg in der Jaussenliste 'manu kura
rere' für Zeichen 600 (oiseau rouge qui vole).
- 'Manu ku'a'-Ornamente an den Priesterhäusern
auf den Marquesas (Handy 1923, 232); dort auch
Götterbote, der den Geist des gestorbenen Priesters zum
Himmel trägt (233). Handy 1927, 130-137: 'Manu kura'
(red or sacred bird) ... in both the Marquesas Islands
and New Zealand ... ceremonial and artistic figure ...
with long beak and three claws ... one of the figures
most frequently seen in Maori carving.' - Zu 'kura'
vgl. Hiroa 1938, 418 für Mangareva: 'the word kura
(red, precious) meant divine'; Emory 1947, 28 fûr
Tuamotus: 'sacred redfeather vehicle for the god', 'the
spirit of the god'. - Das bigramm 67-600, 'niu kura'
(Pr10 und Na2) erinnert an den gleichlautenden Ausdruck
von den Tuamotus, mit dem die heilige Plattform des
Marae bezeichnet wurde (Emory 1947, 52). Auf
Mangareva war 'Niukura' der alte Stammesname der
Ati-hoi (Hiroa 1938, 141). - Charakteristisch
sind ferner die Paare 3 und 600 (maro kura), 4
und 600 (ahu kura) sowie 7 und 600 (rei kura).
Interessant is die
Beobachtung, daß sein Zeichen allmählich durch das der
Seeschwalbe abgelöst worden zu sein scheint1).
1)
Der Übergang vom Fregattvogel zur Seeschwalbe ist
deutlich zu erkennen, wenn man die 'klassische' Version
auf dem Recto der Kleinen Santiagotafel mit der
'verderbten' Paraphrase der Londoner Tafel vergleicht.
Die
Rauch-Seeschwalbe, 'manu tara'2),
2)
Zeichen 400-415. - Jaussenliste 'kukurutou'
(Mouette).
mit denen
Ankunft der so wichtige Vogelkult von Orongo
verbunden war, nimmt einen vergleichsweise bescheidenen
Platz auf den Schrifttafeln ein.
Nur
gelegentlich verrät sich ihre besondere Bewertung, etwa
wenn sie als handelnde Person beim Regenmachen und bei
der Einsetzung des Königspaares genannt wird ..."
We recognize 'kukurutou'
as no. 6 in Barthel's table (kukuru toua) and 'makohe'
as no. 7 (makohe):
|
1 |
manu
tara |
9 |
tavake |
|
2 |
pi
riuriu |
10 |
ruru |
|
3 |
kava
eoeo |
11 |
taiko |
|
4 |
te
verovero |
12 |
kumara |
|
5 |
ka
araara |
13 |
kiakia |
|
6 |
kukuru
toua |
14 |
tuvi |
|
7 |
makohe |
15 |
tuao |
|
8 |
kena |
16 |
tavi |
I have painted the main
'persons' with red here. As to the kena I have
earlier suggested this bird to be involved with
Anakena:
'Another type
of bird looks like this:
where the
difference lies in the form of the beak, no bird of prey
this. Possibly it is a kena:
Kena = A sea
bird, with a white breast and black wings, considered a
symbol of good luck and noble attitudes.
The first month is
called
He Anakena.
And
Anakena is
the place where the legendary
Hotu Matu'a
is said to have come ashore.
Ana
means cave, i.e. a place for birth
...'
In Barthel 2 we can read:
"Kena, the name for the booby, is
also an eastern Polynesian name. Line 18 of the creation
chant lists as the mythical parents of kena 'Vie Moko'
and 'Vie Tea' (PH:520).
The 'lizard woman' (vie moko) and
her younger sister the 'booby woman' (vie kena)
were considered the originators of tattooing (ME:
367-368).
The 'white booby woman' (vie kena tea),
together with other deities, protected the eggs of sea
birds (RM:260). She might even be considered to be the
female counterpart of the supreme god Makemake.
In modern Hangaroa, vie kena
tea is a term of endearment for a beloved wife whose
well-rounded body and light skin is being praised."
"The Masked Booby,
Sula dactylatra, is a large seabird
of the gannet family, Sulidae.
This species breeds on islands in
tropical oceans, except in the eastern
Atlantic; in the eastern Pacific it is
replaced by the Nazca Booby, Sula
granti, which was formerly regarded
as a subspecies of Masked Booby (Pitman
& Jehl 1998, Friesen et al. 2002).
This is the largest
booby, at 81-91 cm length, 152 cm
wingspan and 1500 g weight. Adults are
white with pointed black wings, a
pointed black tail, and a dark grey
facemask. The sexes are similar, but the
male has a yellow bill, and the female's
is greenish yellow; during the breeding
season they have a patch of bare, bluish
skin at the base of the bill. Juveniles
are brownish on the head and upperparts,
with a whitish rump and neck collar. The
underparts are white. Adult plumage is
acquired over two years.
The Masked Booby is
silent at sea, but has a reedy whistling
greeting call at the nesting colonies.
While on the breeding grounds, these
birds display a wide range of hissing
and quacking notes. It nests in small
colonies, laying two chalky white eggs
on sandy beaches in shallow depressions,
which are incubated by both adults for
45 days. Normally only one chick
fledges.
Masked Boobies are
spectacular divers, plunging diagonally
into the ocean at high speed. They
mainly eat small fish, including flying
fish. This is a is fairly sedentary
bird, wintering at sea, but rarely seen
far away from the breeding colonies ..."
(Internet - Wikipedia)
45 days they need for the
two 'chalky white' eggs to hatch, i.e. 1/8 of 360 days.
One of the two chicks is sure to die. "If both eggs
hatch, the elder chick will push its sibling out of the
nest area, leaving it to die of thirst or cold ..."
The kena is white on her back (and black on the
lower part of the wings), while manu tara is
white on her chest (and grey or black on her back).
Which reminds me about moa tu'a ivi
raá, the hen with a bright yellow back.
Boobies are 'spectacular divers, plunging diagonally
into the ocean at high speed', a description which is
quite suitable if we consider them to be symbols for how
the sun dives down in the evening at the western
horizon.
They lay their eggs
'on sandy beaches in shallow depressions', e.g. such a
beach as is found at Anakena.
