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The Maori Traces of the Rongorongo Script

by Sergei V. Rjabchikov

The Treaty of Waitangi ceding New Zealand to Britain in 1840 contains signatures of Maori chiefs (Brown 1996: 86, figure); some of them with the corresponding key words in Roman letters colour-coded in blue are presented in figure 1. Here there are the parallels of the rongorongo glyphs with their readings colour-coded in green, too.

Figure 1.

The word kiwikiwi of the Treaty corresponds to Hawaiian 'iwi 'reddish; twitching of eye', Samoan 'ivi 'to be blind in one eye', fa'a'ivi 'to wink' and Tahitian 'ivi 'to look askance, glance aside; to turn aside'. On the other hand, the term kivi is inserted in the Rapanui place name Ahu a kivi (Barthel 1962: 102). It is known (Mulloy and Figueroa 1978) that the ceremonial platform Ahu a Kivi is oriented with the rising equinox; the ceremonial platform Vai Teka (1) is not far from this platform, it is situated west approximately. I suppose that the place name Ahu a Kivi means 'The ceremonial platform of the reddish colour/blind eye', so this platform was connected with the observations of solar eclipses occurred near equinoxes. Really, carbon dates of the platform A Kivi were A.D. 1390, A.D. 1440 and A.D. 1490 (Love 1993: 103); the partial solar eclipses occurred near equinoxes on September 28, A.D. 1391, on September 18, A.D. 1400, on September 28, A.D. 1410, on September 19, A.D. 1419, on March 25, A.D. 1438 and on March 26, A.D. 1484 (2) (I have used the RedShift 2 computer program). A cruciform sign of the Treaty with the reading kiwikiwi may be compared in this context with a figure seen in the Easter Island string figure Mea te Renga also depicting a cruciform sign and describing a solar eclipse (Rjabchikov 1998: 67). I think that glyph 41 ere, are (3) denotes a birth of the sun after a solar eclipse in this case.

The word tinirau of the Treaty corresponds to the name of the Maori god Tinirau incarnated in the whale (Luomala 1955). Glyph 91 taoraha means 'whale'.

The word pito of the Treaty corresponds to Maori pito 'navel' and pito o rangi 'ecliptic'. Glyph 64 Mea denotes the sun god (Rjabchikov 1999: 14).

The word tawai of the Treaty corresponds to Maori tawai 'canoe'. Glyph 8 reads matua 'canoe; parent, father' (4) and depicts the Rapanui pendant rei-miro; the letter represents indeed a canoe or a ship (Heyerdahl 1976). Interestingly, a London rei-miro pendant (the text L) containing a row of rongorongo glyphs was collected from a Maori chief in New Zealand in 1851. This pendant was called Te Matumotu-o-te-ahi-o-te-okoro (Heyerdahl 1976), or Te matu(a) motu o te Ahi, o te Okoro, 'The inscribed (figure of the) canoe (i.e. rei-miro) of the Fire, of the Father (the sun deity)' (5), cf. the Rapanui term kohau motu mo rongorongo (Englert 1974: 249; Barthel 1958) 'inscribed tablet for rongorongo' which is equal to the standard term kohau rongorongo 'rongorongo tablet'.

The word mate of the Treaty corresponds to Maori mate 'dead; death'. Glyph 166 hiva is associated with Maori hiwa 'dark'.

NOTES

1. Cf. Rapanui vai 'water', teka 'to spin, to turn', Samoan te'a 'to be parted, separated', fa'ate'a 'to expel'.

2. One can suppose that each of the seven statues of this platform represents the sun "born" after a certain solar eclipse.

3. Cf. Maori rere 'to be born', reretahi 'one child born at a birth', Rapanui are 'flower', Old Rapanui (h)ere 'child', Mangarevan akaere 'to recite genealogies; to show descent'.

4. Cf. Maori matua 'hull of a canoe', Rapanui matua 'parent, father'.

5. Cf. Rapanui motu 'to cut with a knife', Old Rapanui koro 'father'. The terms vakevake and vake rei of the Rapanui folklore text "Apai", an oral version of a rongorongo inscription (Rjabchikov 1993: 132-4), correspond to Maori waka whakarei, whakarei 'canoe with elaborately carved figure-head, bust and arms', Rapanui vaka 'canoe'. I believe that the heads of the rei-miro represent the god Makemake or the twins, Tangaroa (Makemake) and Rongo. The epithets of the sun god-creator Makemake -- Taha and Mea -- are mentioned in the text L (Rjabchikov 1995: 46-7).

REFERENCES

Barthel, T.S., 1958. Grundlagen zur Entzifferung der Osterinselschrift. Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter.

Barthel, T.S., 1962. Easter Island Place-Names. Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 18: 100-7.

Brown, J.M., 1996. The Riddle of the Pacific. Kempton: Adventures Unlimited Press.

Englert, S., 1974. La Tierra de Hotu Matu'a. Historia y etnologia de la Isla de Pascua. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones de la Universidad de Chile.

Heyerdahl, T., 1976. The Art of Easter Island. London: George Allen & Unwin.

Love, C.M., 1993. Easter Island Ahu Revisited. In: S.R. Fischer (ed.) Easter Island Studies. Contributions to the History of Rapanui in Memory of William T. Mulloy. Oxbow Monograph 32. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 103-11.

Luomala, K., 1955. Voices on the Wind. Polynesian Myths and Chants. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press.

Mulloy, W. and G. Figueroa, 1978. The A Kivi - Vai Teka Complex and Its Relationship to Easter Island Architectural Prehistory. Asian and Pacific Archaeology Series 8. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Rjabchikov, S.V., 1993. Rapanuyskie texty (k probleme rasshifrovki). Etnograficheskoe obozrenie, 4: 124-41.

Rjabchikov, S.V., 1995. Tayny ostrova Paskhi. Vol. 4. Krasnodar: Ecoinvest.

Rjabchikov, S.V., 1998. Polynesian String Figures and Rongorongo: Additional Remarks. Bulletin of the International String Figure Association, 5: 63-76.

Rjabchikov, S.V., 1999. Tangaroa in the Inscription of the Chicago Fish Tablet. Rapa Nui Journal, 13: 14-5.

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