In our cosmologies, “land” is always “created” and man is often “created” directly from or for the “land”, which sounds like linguistics proxies in oratorical/literary form for agricultural technology.
If I’m not mistaken Vanu’a relates to deep gullies and ravines as for instance in vanuvanu “striated, full of ravines / ruts”, vanu “gully”.
What do we often find at the bottom of gullies and ravines? Freshwater from rivers and streams, which are the creative agents of these types of land formations. The Austronesian word WANG “space, gully” equivalent to our WĀ / VĀ for “space, interval, distance between ridges in a valley or between mountains” coupled with AYER “fresh water”, that is WANG-AYER, is our “freshwater” WAI / VAI, perhaps a corrupted form of WA(ng)AI(r), or “gully water”.
(Say “WAngAIr” really fast a dozen times and it becomes nearly indistinguishable from “WAI”.)
Decomposed in this way, freshwater vs. gully water—same thing—which I believe is a proxy for agricultural technology / agrarian settlement of some kind, possibly even at a delta.
So, it stands to reason that this morpheme “vanu” arises with a delta / agrarian people.
Several come to mind immediately.
Hazarding a guess, I think it’s related to Proto-Semitic / Akkadian banû “to create”.
Different ways Akkadian “banû” is written in cuneiform, the system inherited from the Kiengi / Sumerians:
DU₃ (𒆕) “to build, create, to make” DIM₂ (𒁶) “to create, to replace” MUD (𒄷𒄭) “to beget, to create”
And "CREATOR" is called NU (𒀕).
The creator of the first man was called NU-DIM-MUD (𒀭𒀕𒁶𒄷𒄭 “divine creator who begat our replacements”) and one Sumerian word for “man” is LU (𒇽). “Nudimmud” is the epithet, Enki (𒀭𒂗𒆠) was the name, of the god of waters who conquered the primeval ocean (Tiamat, the primeval creatrix of the elder gods) and freshwater Apsu (Abyss, progenitor of the elder gods).
The replacements that were made were the IGIGI spirits. In Sāmoan AGAGA means “spirit”. Obviously a reduplication of AGA and related to Tongan ANGA “quality, nature, character”. So ANGAANGA / AGĀGA probably better represents the word for “spirit” or “those who were made in the spirit of”. I-GI₄-GI₄ (𒄿𒄄𒄄)
Interestingly, the progenitor of the Manu’a group from oral tradition , the first to receive kingship from heaven, is called LU, as in LU-Fasi-‘Aitu. And NU, NU’U or NUKU can mean “island, country, district, village, tribe, people”. And perhaps in the right context “person”.
In multiple Pasefika Island groups the indigenous flood-hero is called by some variant of NŪ / NU’U / LUA-NU’U (LU-A-NU'U?), etc.
In Middle Egyptian in the Heliopolitan tradition the first land to (re-)emerge from the primeval waters (called NU) at the time of creation was called bennu and was symbolized by the capstone of pyramids called the Ben-Ben stone.
Written in hieroglyphs the word “benben” 𓃀𓈖𓃀𓈖 uses two feet standing on water suggestive of a man standing in a place surrounded by water and is followed by the determiner hieroglyph for “pyramid” 𓉴 mer, which must be where and what he stood upon to avoid drowning.
𓃀𓈖 [bn] “not”
𓉴 [mr] "pyramid"
𓃀𓈖𓃀𓈖𓉴 [bnbn] “Benben stone (the sacred stone of ON"
So, literally the “not-not, pyramid”… with watery connotations and specific linkages to the apex of a man-made mountain… hmmmmmm. And we shall see in a moment connections with a bird of fire… and the sun.
Heliopolis is the greek for what in Middle Egyptian is called ANNU.
ANU (𒀭𒀭) is the name of the Mesopotamian Sky father.
The Phoenix was called “Bennu” by the Egyptians at Heliopolis in commemoration of the emergence of the mound of Benben from Nu and probably referred to a now extinct heron - which stand quite majestically still and alone on one leg in calm lagoon or riverine waters.
So, a bird of fire at Heliopolis (“City of the Sun God (Ra)”)…
We also had a sun god named Rā / Lā throughout the whole Pacific.
And a “bird” on an island directly connected to the sun god--the Moa.
Delightful complex metaphors there.
Interesting how the language of creation of land and of man revolves around a small set of morphemes that utilize the same phonological structure.
It suggests they are all connected somehow—likely by water.
For further comparison, consider:
Malay - BENua Cebuano - BANwá Waropen (Indonesia) - Nu
In Pacific linguistics all the following consonants reside on the same continuum for regularity of phonetic drift:
b < p < v < f < h < wh < ⟨ʔ⟩
Vowels: e < a < o
This word for “land” seems to be extremely potent and has changed very little since the time when all these vastly spaced language groups originally branched off from one another. Either that or there was once some kind of colonial or missionary effort to spread a certain idea about the origin of man and life in connection to water and land.
**** OH, and lest I forget... very nearly the same root, with the insertion of an extra vowel, however I believe a different etymological trajectory possibly related to "arrow, bow, archery" as a metaphor for propagation:
FANAU : "to give birth" FĀNAU: "child"
That's the same thing as "to create", and "creation"
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