I was watching a documentary series today called “Rotten”. Episode 1 examines the global honey industry. What a cutthroat business. Anyways, I heard the term MĀNUKA honey, which today mainly comes from New Zealand (Maōri: Aotearoa). The term refers both to the colonies of bees that produce mānuka honey, and the Tea Tree shrub (mānuka / Leptospermum scoparium) from which the bees obtain the nectar precursor that becomes mānuka honey through their multistage process of passing nectar mouth-to-mouth/“honey gut” to “honey gut”, from collector to other bees and eventually to the storage cells in honeycombs.
It is also a word referring to a ritual rod/stick used in welcoming/challenge ceremonies (pōwhiri) such as the characteristic haka by a Kaiwero (“mighty”+”spear caster”) and laid before a guest (manuhiri whenua / ”birds of the world”) to show both the host’s strength and perhaps remind guests to observe hospitality protocols.
Mānuka also means “weapon” in Maōri.
This shrub is thought to have originated in Australia, where it predominantly grew and migrated to Aotearoa with limited success until the arrival of Polynesians who used slash burning to clear land allowing this rapidly recovering shrub to thrive and dominate. Now most mānuka-related production comes out of New Zealand.
Obviously, mānuka (Maōri) is linguistically linked to manu’a (Sāmoan) and manuka (Hawaiian). I wonder what the connection was in ancient times.
Manu’a is the land my paternal grandmother’s family hails from, the home of Tui Ofu, Fo’isia Warrior, Tui Manu’a, Pili-ka-ae-ae, and possibly Paao.
Manu’a is defined in Sāmoan variously as “wounded”, perhaps derived from /manu kaia/ meanining “injured bird”, and is connected to foundational Sāmoan chiefly titles and notable lineages with a special connection to Tagaloa Ui, Atalanga, Matua, And Tagaloa Lagi, all associated with The House of the Squid.
I suspect that the idea of “bird” is used metaphorically to refer to one who travels great distances, a voyager, even foreigner, visitor, guest.
This would make sense about Manu’a, particularly as the creation myth of Samoa speaks of Tagaloa (Sā Tagaloa / “family of Tagaloa”) as crossing/hovering above a great expanse and pulling up the islands from the sea in order to rest his feet. The first rock to be raised out of the deep was Manu’a, followed by the rest of the islands and their corresponding chiefly titles.
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Pictured below is a page from Dr. Augustin Kraemer's ethnological work on Samoa summarizing a pre-history of Samoa, the chiefs, and the gods.
The Sāmoan word AGAGA, for “spirit”, "soul", now catches my eye, where before it seemed innocuous prior to my exposure to Sumerian mythology, and attempts to learn the language and writing of the Sumerians, Hittites, and Akkadians.
Creepers into maggots. Maggots into men with AGAGA. That’s the Sāmoan origin myth of man’s creation. “Creepers” are vines, of course.
To me, “creeper” so sounds like DNA strands and chromosomes (“maggots”) being manipulated as viewed under a microscope.
Fue = noun. creeper, fly whisk used by orator chiefs to kill nuisances; the general name for all creeping plants.
verb. To beat persons. Plural: fufue; passive: fuea.
Pattern VCVCV (vowel/consonant/vowel/cons/vowel) using the consonant /G/, such that the pattern is:
vowel+G+vowel+G+vowel
The Sumerian word IGIGI, which means "The Watchers", another epithet of the ANAKIM, a race of subordinate beings to the ANNUNAKI, characterized in some accounts as a slave labor workforce that rose up in rebellion against the trinity of ANU, and his sons ENKI, and ENLIL, follows the same V/C pattern I + G + I + G + I.
IGI:
It means “eye”, “watch”, “look”. Part of the name of IGIGI, the “younger/lesser gods” who were annihilated by Anu, Enlil, Enki for rebelling. This Symbol is also turned on its side due to the way scribes held clay tablets. It made for quicker transcription. Rotate it 90 degrees and you can see the eye.
GI:
I wonder, being so close to the principal events and characters of the Sumerian creation myth, if the AGAGA and IGIGI are connected as AGAGA, too, is closely connected to the first three generations of the Sāmoan creation myth and are an intermediary phase of human development in the myths...
Sumerian:
IGI (eye, watch, look)
GI (reed stylus, write, record, turn around, rotate)
Hence, “Watchers”. Perhaps these are the equivalent of “angels” and “demons”, as in ‘aitu, the Sāmoan equivalencies for angelic and demonic beings that sometimes took hold of/possession of mortal chiefs. Some were good, some were bad. In the Sumerian Atrahasis and Bil-ga-mir/Epic of Gilgamesh accounts, their rebellion led by Alilu (Allah...hmmm) resulted in their near utter annihilation.
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