AN ANCIENT NEW ZEALAND MYTH CONTAINS THE CODES FOR TRACKING THE LUNAR NUTATION CYCLE
From about 3000 BC an advanced maritime people roamed the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, ranging from Micronesia and Melanesia in the Western Pacific to Hawaii, French Polynesia, Tonga and Samoa in the Eastern Pacific. They seemed to be able to navigate at will and to set up inter-relating societies on many far-flung islands across the giant expanse of the Pacific.
In the earliest eras they made ornamental pots and followed particular burial rituals that remain identifiers of their former presence to this day.
They have been named the Lapita People, whose scattered societies began to shrink and disappear as the Polynesian epoch dawned in about 1000 BC. Beyond that time remnants of that people had to flee to other climes to seek safe havens. Burials and grave-goods at Wairau Bar, Marlborough, South Island, New Zealand attest to the fact that a branch of the Lapita people, cousin forebears or progeny, settled New Zealand in remote antiquity.
Although many oral-history references could be cited related to incoming Polynesian-Melanesian Maori encountering these people (The Greenstone Folk) upon arrival in New Zealand, the following gives a good overview:
‘The origin of greenstone, sayeth the Maori, lies far back in the night of time, close to the beginning of things. In tracing that origin we have to seek it under the name of Poutini, who is looked upon as the origin or personified form of greenstone. Now Poutini was one of the offspring of Tangaroa, who was, as we have seen, one of the very numerous sons of Rangi and Papa, or Sky and Earth. Here then we find the source of greenstone, and that source was of the progeny of Tangaroa, who represents all fish. It is interesting to note that, in olden folk tales, greenstone is alluded to as a fish (ika) …’
‘In one recital we meet with the peculiar statement that greenstone was originally a stone, but later became a fish … One quaint old folk lore repository of Matatua district told me that Poutini the origin of greenstone is one and the same as Poutini the star. His people are the greenstone folk, a people who descended from the heavens and dwelt at Hawaiki,* but in later times came to New Zealand. These greenstone folk were persons of importance and they had many chiefs. They were attacked here and lost a number of their people, who were slain, which was a benefit to the Maori people. These slain and captured greenstone folk represent blocks of greenstone acquired by the Maori and famous greenstone artifacts. Greenstone is often alluded to as the whatu o Poutini or "stone of Poutini", also as the ika a Ngahue, or "fish of Ngahue". One old tale speaks of greenstone as having been alive, and, when caught it was cooked in an oven* …’ (See: Maori Religion and Mythology Part 2, by Elsdon Best, pg. 449).
* Footnote 2. What is alluded to here is that the greenstone folk were cooked in the umu (oven), by their cannibal conquerors and their precious greenstone artefacts taken from them (‘which was a benefit to the Maori people’).
SO, WHERE IN NEW ZEALAND DID THE CHILDREN OF POUTINI LIVE?
This is the northern part of New Zealand’s South Island, called Te Tai Ihu o Te Waka a Maui (The prow of the canoe of Maui). It was a rich resource of hardstones (granite & argillite) needed for making durable adzes and pounders or highly prized greenstone for ornamental clubs, etc., and very sharp wood chisels. A sharpened greenstone chisel blade is harder than steel and retains its sharp edge accordingly without rusting. Other much sought after items were volcanic glass (obsidian) for knives (used in scaling & fileting fish, etc.) and red ochre clays for ceremonial adornment.
From this ancient region and its people a profound allegorical story was handed down, which later came into the possession of the incoming Maori warriors, who obviously weren’t able to decipher the hidden astronomical codes within:
The Killing of Te Kaiwhakaruaki
Here is another story about a ngarara (monster, merman… also called a taniwha). This one destroyed many men, devouring them in great numbers. Parties of travellers would take the road to Takaka and Motueka*—they would set out, and those who stayed behind would think that they had reached their destinations. But no, they had been eaten by this monster!
Men from Whakatu, Takaka and Motupipi who were traveling in the opposite direction, towards the west, would come to Te Parapara river. In this river was the den of this ngarara, Te Kaiwhakaruaki. The ngarara would see that there was food for him, and he would rush out to pursue them—not one would escape. If there were many men, still none would survive—if there were ten, they would all be eaten; if there were fifty, none would escape; even if there were a hundred men, all would be eaten.
After a while a party of travellers came from Arahura to visit Potoru and Te Koheta (Te Koheta belonged to the North Island, to the Puketapu sub-tribe at Taranaki). When the news reached Arahura the travellers set out, arrived at Matarua and rested there. Then Potoru told them all about this ngarara Te Kaiwhakaruaki.
One of the warriors of Ngai Tahu listened attentively to what Potoru said. This man was a famous seal hunter, whose only weapons were his bare hands. He said, ‘One blow of my fist, and this ngarara dies! Is he of more consequence than the seals that I kill with a single blow of my fist?’
Potoru said, ‘Never mind your method, let us follow mine; wait until we have tried Potoru's plan.’
Then they felled the pohutukawa tree to provide them with weapons, and they shaped the wood into fighting-staffs. There were three hundred and forty men in the party, and three hundred and forty weapons were made from the wood of that tree. They continued on their way, arrived at Aorere and rested there
Then Potoru stood up to address them: ‘To the fight, comrades, the fight! Be brave, be strong! Now listen to the plan. The main division of the army will consist of a hundred and forty men. As well as this there will be a hundred men on one side of the path and a hundred on the other side, but these divisions will be hidden and will let the main division attack first. Then the divisions at the sides will rush out to attack it. Watch carefully, and when its tail goes in one direction, you men on the other side must attack it. When the tail comes back to scoop you up, those on the far side must run forward and spear it—when the tail goes in one direction, the men on the other side must spear it.’
Everyone agreed to this. Then after Potoru had spoken, the famous seal hunter stood up: ‘Kinsmen, listen carefully to what I say! I am not afraid of the ngarara. Listen! I myself will enter the water, and he and I will do battle there!’
Then Potoru agreed to this: ‘Very well.’
Yet it was Potoru who had said, ‘Wait until we have tried Potoru's plan.’
They went on and arrived at Te Parapara river. Potoru called to his men to stop. Then he put a group of warriors on one side of the path and another group on the other side, and he placed the main group of warriors in position. At last everything was ready.
The seal hunter called, ‘Are you ready?’
Potoru said, ‘Watch him carefully, and if he seems very strong, leave him to the warriors.’
He answered, ‘I will be careful, but never yet has any fish escaped my arm.’
Potoru said to him, ‘Go! My ancestors speak through me, saying to you, go!’
Potoru also said to some of his people, ‘Go and entice the creature towards us. I do not understand the nature of this man; perhaps he does it to win a name for himself. But you must watch and see what he does. Who can know if his blow will be sure?’
The seal hunter went forward, and when he came to the river he waded in. When the water was up to his waist he threw a basket of red ochre into the stream. The red ochre sank down to the ngarara's den, and the ngarara came out from the den—they could see the waves that were carrying it along.
The seal hunter walked back again until the water came first to his hips, then to his knees. Then he turned round again. The waves had reached the shore, and the monster was coming towards him, its mouth gaping. As the ngarara approached he made his way towards it, and when he was very close, he struck it a blow on the nose. The blow turned its nose to one side and twisted its head. After a while the ngarara again faced the warrior, who dealt it another blow. But the ngarara's mouth was still gaping wide, and when the man tried a second time to strike it, he missed the nose—his fist went right into its mouth, and he disappeared into its belly.
The two men who were watching called, ‘That is your house! That is your house!’
The ngarara heard the two of them calling and turned to pursue them. When it did so the main group of warriors rose up to attack it. Then the men at the sides attacked it—the tail swung one way and they speared it, then it swung back the other way and the men on the opposite side speared it. Then they clubbed it to death.
Where the tail of the ngarara lashed about, there are now banks six feet high that were formed in its struggles. The ngarara's stomach was cut open, and inside there were found great quantities of human heads, taiaha, pouwhenua, clubs of greenstone and whalebone, dogskin cloaks, fine cloaks with taniko borders, flax cloaks, capes, piupiu, and every other kind of Maori garment—all heaped up there inside its stomach.
Friends, after this the inhabitants of the South Island lived once more in safety, and the men who had destroyed the ngarara returned to their homes. That is the end of the story.
The people who killed the ngarara belonged to Ngai Tara, Ngati Apa, Ngati Tumatakokiri, Rangitane, Ngai Tahu, and Te Ati Awa under Te Koheta: those were the tribes responsible for Te Kaiwhakaruaki's death*.
by Karepa Te Whetu
(See: Myths & Legends of Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka A Maui, pp. 27-28, by Hilary & John Mitchell, Huia Publishers 2004).
*Footnote 3: Strong evidence suggests that the forebears of the Ngahue and Poutini tribes carried this story from their ancient home in Tahiti, where a similar, but far more sparse story survived amongst the Polynesians.
The Tahitian myth describes a taniwha called Aifa’arua’I of Parapara, which terrorised travellers between Motue’a, Ta’a’a and Ara’uru, islands close to Rangiatea. In New Zealand, the name of the home of the monster at Parapara Inlet survived, as did Motueka (Motue’a) and Takata (Ta’a’a). The route the greenstone folk took to their resources of the stone was via Arahura on the west coast (Ara’ura). Also, lying to the east of Parapara Inlet is D’Urville Island, the Maori name of which was Rangitoto (Rangiatea in Tahiti).
It is very evident that there was once a fairly universal Eastern Pacific language, shared by many peoples from remote antiquity, migrated further afield by those seeking new homelands in Oceania. Over thousands of years the mother tongue was reduced to dialects that preserved many of the original cognate words, sufficient for scattered and isolated Pacific peoples to understand each other, more or less.
*Footnote 4: The late era Maori tribes attributed with the killing of the monster were bitter enemies, inter-bickering constantly amongst each other. One historical treatise states:
‘There are a number of questionable elements in this account, particularly the unlikely association of people and tribes in the final paragraph … there was certainly not a body of Atiawa living there at the time. Another problem is that many of the other tribes listed as having collaborated in despatching Kaiwhakaruaki were not contemporaneous residents in Te Tau Ihu. Of those tribes that did occupy the region simultaneously, some had such deep-seated and longstanding animosities with each other that such an alliance is inconceivable.’ (See: Te Tau Ihu O Te Waka, by Hilary and John Mitchell, pg. 28).
The statement that:
‘The ngarara's stomach was cut open, and inside there were found great quantities of human heads, taiaha (Maori wooden staff/spear), pouwhenua (territorial boundary marker), clubs of greenstone and whalebone (very valuable treasures), dogskin cloaks (reserved mainly for the chiefly class), fine cloaks with taniko borders (chiefly garment), flax cloaks, capes (general attire), piupiu (kilt-type skirt), and every other kind of Maori garment—all heaped up there inside its stomach.’
This seems to allude to the abundance that can be enjoyed, without tragic loss of life or goods, by understanding the daily movements of the moon and incorporating that knowledge into a lunisolar calendar for predictable weather results. This led on to such things as calendars for fishing by the moon, when the fish on particular tides could be predicted to rise and take the bait, etc.
Obviously a very old myth has been embellished to fit the Maori epoch of the late 18th – early 19th century.
Parapara Inlet, Tasman Province, New Zealand, where the dreaded Kaiwhakaruaki was lured from his cavern and killed by Potoru and his warriors.
THE HIDDEN LUNAR CODE WITHIN ‘THE KILLING OF KAIWHAKARUAKI’
As an allegory or parable, the story is in homage to the long enduring cycle of the moon, wherein it moves from lunar major standstill to lunar minor standstill, then returns once again to lunar major standstill. This is referred to as the lunar nutation cycle or eclipse cycle, in which the occurrence of eclipses (solar and lunar) can be predicted.
Whereas the sun is seen to move to its most extreme positions up and down the horizon within 365.25-days, the moon takes 18.613-years to accomplish the same thing (6798.36-days actual).
In this long cycle the moon oscillates back and forth (like a thrashing tail of Kaiwhakaruaki) across the solar equinox line (the central or meridian path where Potoru set his 140 warriors). It is significant that the Sabbatical Calendar runs for 7 solar years and that tracking the lunar nutation cycle works very well in increments of 7, 14, 28, 56, etc.
The moon ranges to its most extreme northern position, which is a bit beyond where the rising/setting solstice sun stops for 3-days (thus the 100 warriors hidden on that side of the track). It also runs to its most southerly position, again slightly beyond the sun’s rise & set positions. Again, the oscillating/thrashing of the moon to that side of the meridian line is monitored by the ever-watchful 100 hidden warriors on that opposite side of the track).
As with the several other number-bearing stories of old, all we have to do is follow the numbers divulged:
100 + 140 + 100 = 340.
But then the warriors cut down a lone Pohutukawa* tree in order to fashion weapons. The Pohutukawa is also known as New Zealand’s Christmas tree, as it comes into bloom with beautiful red flowers in mid December at the height of New Zealand’s summer.
From this tree 340 weapons are fashioned. We therefore now have:
340 + 340 = 680.
As the story continues 4 other individuals are mentioned:
The seal hunter, contrary to the advice or methodology proposed and settled upon by Potoru, wishes to go alone to lure the monster from its lair and is given permission to do so.
Potoru is, however, uncertain of the seal hunter’s motives, whether based on bravado or true ability, so assigns 2 individuals to accompany him to the water’s edge.
Beyond that we have Potoru himself, overseeing all, apart from the 340 secreted warriors lying in wait to deliver death blows, with their 340 weapons, to the thrashing monster.
The ancient “masters-of-the-craft” would have known that, to the 3 digits of 680, a 4th digit of 4 was tagged on, creating the number 6804.
The lunar nutation cycle endures for 6798.36-days, or only 1.64-days short of 6800-days. It is a horrendously complex cycle and very hard to understand mathematically. It would have taken years or generations of vigilant observation to finally conquer the problem of just how long the cycle endures and starts anew.
However, it was essential to subdue this monster, as the moon circles the earth 5-degrees offset from the angle the earth rotates around the sun and this can cause seasonal problems for those societies that don’t understand the gravitational tugging relationship and effect between the earth and the moon.
The moon affects the tides twice a day and at perigee (when closest to the earth in its elliptical loop) it produces king-tides that can result in flooding shorelines. Added to that, when the earth is at various points in its journey around the sun, coupled with the moon being at critical points in its journey around the earth, very adverse weather conditions can occur. Seas can be too dangerous to venture out onto; storms or frosts can ruin crops; droughts can occur, etc. Taming this monster and understanding its oscillations to each side of the meridian (equinox line) became the basis of lunisolar, Sabbatical calendar systems that tracked the daily journey of both the sun and moon on parapegma plaques, like the ancient bronze “Calendar of Coligny” of Druidic France.
*Footnote 5: Maori and greater Polynesian death myths are, in many respects, identical to ancient Celtic/Greek death myths, incorporating the same kinds of characters overseeing the underworld or the same kinds of pathways and barriers leading to the afterlife.
In the New Zealand setting all spirits of the newly dead travel to the most extreme north-western tip of the North Island at Cape Reinga. At the last they climb down the roots of a lone Pohutukawa tree to the water’s edge before plunging into the opening and closing portals of the swirling kelp to enter the underworld. The coastal Pohutukawa tree is less naturally prevalent in the South Island due to the colder climate, but can be planted and grown successfully, especially in the sunny district of Te Tai Ihu o Te Waka a Maui. Reference to it within this story might relate in some way to the journey to the afterlife. See: http://www.celticnz.co.nz/CelticMaoriDeathMyths/CelticMaoriDeathMyths.html
*Footnote 6: The Seal hunter uses red ochre to initially lure the monster from its lair. Parapara Inlet has the largest pure resource of this much sought after red-clay material in New Zealand. The Maori chiefly class would mix it with shark-oil and paint their faces and hair with it to give them a reddish skin and hair hue. In so doing they were trying to emulate the appearance of the earlier peoples or former ruling class of high-rank, who were considered as gods or magical. In one respect the story is indicating that Parapara Inlet contains a rich resource of red ochre.
SO WHY DO COUNTS OF 6804-DAYS RATHER THAN 6800-DAYS?
It’s all to do with having easy-to-use number strings that can be built up to large denominations or broken down into small fractions. The value 6800 doesn’t have these mathematical attributes, whereas the number 6804 does and, with only minuscule error, was able to describe a lunar month (29.53125-days … 29 & 17/32nds to a tolerance of less than 1-minute in time per month). By this reckoning there would be 230.4 lunar months in 6804-days or 19.2 lunar years.
Ancient mathematician/astronomers used a special parcel of numbers in progressions to describe or encode their profound navigational, cyclic-astronomical or lunisolar calendar sciences. The value 6800, in and of itself, did not really feature in the string, whereas 6804 featured very prominently. The special parcel of numbers was incorporated into the Weights, Measures & Volume systems of all the great civilisations of Continental Europe, the British Isles and the Mediterranean Basin, as well as further afield to the Indus Valley, etc., etc.
Sir William Flinders Petrie established that the “pyramid inch” of Egypt was so close in tolerance to the British standard inch that they were, essentially, one and the same.
Sir William Flinders Petrie deduced that the "inch" used on the Great Pyramid was within 1/100th of an inch (visually undetectable) to the British Imperial Inch. Other researchers had come to similar conclusions, one of which put the Pyramid Inch to within 1/1000th of the Imperial Inch.
The matter related to the precise length of either the true inch or intended, final length of the Great Pyramid can be calculated mathematically by using the Egyptian Royal cubit, one of which is in the Turin Museum and has a length of 20.618 British Imperial inches (refined to the 3rd decimal point). The obvious intention of the architects-mathematicians-builders was to make the base length of the pyramid comply to 440 Egyptian Royal cubits or 756-feet (9072-inches). This was based upon a royal cubit of 20.61818182-inches ( 20 & 11/68ths).
All of the known cubits of the great civilisations are based upon the self-same inch.
So, if we were to used the formerly pristine, Great Pyramid as a giant kind of Platonic solid upon which to measure and monitor, on a daily basis, lunar progress through its 6804-day eclipse cycle, how would we go about it?
Note: the Greeks, like the Romans and other late-comer civilisations, got their Weights Measures and Volume systems from earlier civilisations and primarily from the Egyptians.
We could also apply the same methodology to the Khafre Pyramid of Egypt, using the cubits or feet of all the ancient cousin civilisations, including the ages-old standards of Continental Europe and Great Britain:
At 708.75-feet per side, the Khafre Pyramid is 15/16th the length of the Great Pyramid. Therefore, 1 complete circumnavigation (4-sides) is 2835-feet or 34020-inches (half of 68040-inches). The 6804-inch mark position, down the base side of the Khafre Pyramid, would be at .8 (or 4/5ths) of the overall length.
The 302.4 number is encoded, in feet, into the diameters of both Avebury Henge’s southern circle of Wiltshire, England and the Ring of Brodgar, Orkney Islands, Scotland.
The Celtic Druids or their forebears imparted profound knowledge to their initiates in story form, poems or songs and these contained symbols, metaphors and parables that only the initiated could understand the underlying meaning of. This was an efficient transmission device for keeping specialised knowledge alive through ensuing generations.
Likewise, certain passages of the bible are dual coded in this way, like the otherwise boring-to-read and agonisingly repetitive, Book of Numbers 7: 1-89 providing significant number combinations for strings that can be used for calculating cyclic astronomical durations, the equatorial circumference of the Earth and navigation or the lunisor Sabbatical calendar system, etc.
Genesis chpt. 6 provides the mathematical formula for calculating the equatorial circumference of the Earth under three navigational systems, using Egyptian royal cubits of 20.61818182-inches, 20.625-inches or the largest one @ 20.736-inches). Reading the "cubit" value for the length of Noah's Ark as miles of 5280-feet gives a 1/48th division of the equatorial circumference of the Earth (or 7.5-degrees of arc).
Genesis chpt. 49, coupled with Deuteronomy chpt. 33 and other biblical passages provide us with clues about the 12 positions of the zodiac. The given radius of the circle (2000 cubits) around which the 12 tribes were required to camp in designated, set positions contains “cubit-codes”. Inasmuch as ancient cubits and feet, spanning individual cousin nations, were in direct ratio relationships with each other, very significant values are generated across this circle, regardless of the cubit used.
Whether or not hundreds of thousands of people wandered around in a barren desert for 40-years and were fed by manna falling from heaven can remain a point of endless conjecture or devout faith. However, the overall account certainly lends itself to deeper, hidden meanings, extractible by those trained to recognise the encoded information.
Likewise, Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey are more than just epics, but are also navigational star maps for those who can read between the lines and interpret the semi-hidden zodiacal clues within the passages. (See: Where Troy Once Stood, by Iman Wilkins, Gopher Publishers, 2009).
Another ancient New Zealand oral tradition traces the various places of habitation for the Ngahue & Poutini tribes in the North & South Islands. They’d been chased from Tahanga Hill in the Coromandel Peninsula (a major resource for hard basalt used in the fashioning of high quality adzes) then to Mayor Island, East Coast (major resource of obsidian), then Whangamata at Taupo (again providing obsidian for knives) to Rangitoto /D’Urville Island (providing argillite & greenstone) to Whangamoa (large resources of argillite), to Onetahua (with high quality granite en-route and floater greenstone), to Aharua (major resources of the highest quality greenstone). The ancient myth tells a story of the vanquished and his pursuer on one level, but is really a map of geological resources, identifying the locations where one can find a range of the highest quality hardstones, flint, volcanic-glass or red ochre in New Zealand.
(See: Legend of Ngahue & Poutini, pursued by Hinehoanga & Whatipu, pp 21-23 of Te Tau Ihu o Waka A Maui, by Hilary & John Mitchell, Huia Publishers 2004).
Perhaps the most murderous and despotic Maori chief in New Zealand history was Te Rauparaha, who predated ceaslessly on the last remnants of the Ngahue & Poutini tribes and killed them in their tens of thousands. He referred to the habitation of the pre-Maori people as 'The plentious home of the greenstone, which enobles the rank of man'. Te Rauparaha had an insatiable appetite for the acquisition of finely fashioned and famous greenstone artefacts, many of which bore names. For him they were the "crown jewels", so to speak, of New Zealand and the more one had, the higher their "mana" (status). In certain instances he held conquered tribes to ransom, wherein their lives would be spared only if they would surrender famous greenstone artefacts.
Te Rauparaha's rampage of death and cannibalism, being visited upon the last remnants of the original pre-Maori tribes (the Greenstone Folk) of the northern section of New Zealand's South Island, endured from circa 1819 AD until 1848 AD.
(See: Life & Times of Te Rauparaha By His Son, Tamihana Te Rauparaha, pg. 8, translated by G. Graham, Hocken Library Collections Archives & Manuscripts, New Zealand).
THE CARBON DATING FIGURES FROM THE POUKAWA ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS OF THE 1960s – 70s.
Whereas the Polynesian-Melanesian Maori people of New Zealand arrived in circa 1250 – 1300 AD, the country had already been occupied by other inhabitants for thousands of years.
In the course of extensive investigations of the Poukawa, Hawkes Bay, archaeological dig about 20,000 artefacts were submitted for expert scrutiny and testing. Of these there were a substantial number of Moa bones (a huge flightless bird, comparable to an Ostrich or Emu … only much larger). The Moa birds had been cooked, the meat cut from the bones with sharp obsidian knives (leaving cut and scrape marks on the bones). Following that, the bones were broken open in order to extract the rich marrow within. Clearly and positively, this activity was done by humans.
Although the C14 results achieved from subjecting Poukawa artefacts to carbon-dating analysis have long-since been withheld from the public, they have recently become available and prove occupation of the Poukawa region from as early as 7170-years ago. There seems to have been considerable human activity there between 2000 – 3200 years ago.
To see these undisputable results of very ancient human occupation of New Zealand, go to the 3 links below and magnify the C14 sample figures for clear reading.
http://celticnz.co.nz/Kaiwhakaruaki/Letter1.jpg
http://celticnz.co.nz/Kaiwhakaruaki/Carbondating2.jpg
http://celticnz.co.nz/Kaiwhakaruaki/Carbondating3.jpg
Martin Doutré
June 26th 2019 ©
