The god of the Tongan underworld was Hikule’o.
The god of the Samoan underworld was Si’ule’o.
HIKU (also IKU) / SI’U means “tail, end; to terminate”; “tail (especially of fish and reptiles)”
LE’O means “voice” as well as “to watch; to guard”.
Readings: The name suggests that this god was the guardian of the back door of the underworld, the voice at the end of life calling out from the shoreline reeds of brackish shoreline waters, the protector of the tail of a gigantic dragon or fish.
Also, I can’t help but wonder if LE’O is related to LEO the root of “lion”, since the word REONA pops up in Madagascar in Malagasy, which is Africa. And yet Malagasy is Austronesian and therefore shares its nascence with Polynesian languages.
Also in Africa, in Egypt, one word for “lion” was [rw] (RŌ) written 𓃭𓏤.
If [rw] 𓃭𓏤 and REO are distantly related, then it could be that Hikule’o was once the “lion’s tail”.
And there is a thematic analog here with Pacific legends regarding RU (LU) who was a cthonic power slumbering under the earth in his mother’s womb, tossing and turning fitfully. This fitful sleep was reasoned out as causing earthquakes that shook the land and caused islands to rise from the depths or plummet back down, for the islands were the ridges in the vertebrae of his back (Kuamo’o) pressing through the skin of mother earth’s belly. These cthonic traits may very well indicate that [rw] 𓃭𓏤 , Ru, and Lu (the progenitor of the Tuimanu’a) are derived from one and the same entity and religious tradition.
RU (LU) means “to shake” and LUELUE / LŪLŪ / RURU “shake vigorously” / “violent shaking” / “earthquake”. No doubt the sound of an African lion or Asian tiger roaring must have evoked connections to an earthquake in the ears of the listener as in Malagasy REONA means “to listen”.
Farther north in Africa, in Egyptian cosmology, the Lion was directly connected with the sun symbolically, in particular the nocturnal path the sun took through the underworld. Consider the twin lion god Aker who was first described as one of the earth gods, written [Akrw] Akerō, guarding the "gate to the yonder side".
The name was written: 𓄿𓎡𓂋𓅆𓈓 [Akrw] 𓄿𓎡𓂋𓆙𓏥 [Akrw] 𓄿𓎡𓂋𓀭𓏪 [Akrw]
Aker protected deceased sovereigns against the three demonic snakes Hemtet, Iqeru and Jagw.
Interestingly, in Mycenaean Linear B we find: AKERO (𐀀-𐀐-𐀫, a-ke-ro) “messenger”
From AKE (𐀀-𐀐, a-ke) “to guide, to lead”, possibly “to take up”, “to give a lift”
AKERO (𐀀-𐀐-𐀫) is a cognate of Greek ANGELOS (ἄγγελος) “messenger”
- and, yes, you may have noticed already, this is where we obtained the word “Angel”, used by Christians to refer to the messengers of God.
Compare Acheron (Ἀχέρων) a river of the Greek underworld. Rivers were and still are modes of rapid overland conveyance. And those who convey are guides, ferrymen. The ferrymen of the underworld also had their hands firmly on the rudders controlling the ways of returning from the underworld.
Compare AKERE (𐀀-𐀐-𐀩, a-ke-re) “he collects goats”, note that the RE (𐀩) is a trident or ****pitchfork**** this will come up below… in words for “crook, fork”, this is clearly a word for “shepherd”
Now, here’s the fun bit:
Te Reo Māori— (HAERE) AKE ROU “(go) ahead”, “(go) onwards”, “(go) upwards”
AKE in Reo Māori means “to go up, ascend, climb” and ROKU “to be weighed down, to SINK” and ROU “to gather”. ROTU are also karakia / ritual observances and protocols meant for inducing sleep or drowsiness in others, possibly a euphemism for death as death and sleep are often paired. In Greek mythology Death (Θάνατος / Thanatos) and Sleep (Ὕπνος / Hypnos) were twin siblings.
Complex metaphors at play here— So, when we gather or pick up people into a boat , the boat is weighted down, and sinks deeper into the sea.
We also gather up (AKE ROU) fruit (HUA) or eggs (HUAMOA) and the basket is weighed down.
When the boat is full of the dead , our hearts are heavy, weighed down (ROKU), or our heads bow down in grief and there are traditionally complex ritual funerary ceremonies and prayers (ROTU).
Let’s briefly glance at PUROTU (PULOTU) branching off the root word RO.
ROKU, ROTU, and ROU are all declensions of RO “in, into, inherent”
RO “in” with KU “to be silent; fatigued” RO+KU “inherently fatigued” = “weighed down”
RO “in” with TU “the manner; the way of performing or executing anything; the sort” RO+TU “in a proper manner”
RO “in” with U “to reach land, to arrive by water” RO+U “invested to reach land, to arrive by water”
So, in this case let’s look at PUROTU as PU+RO+TU: PU “a tribe; a bunch, a bundle; a heap; a skilled person, a wise man; a ruler, a king, the highest chief; a sacred name, under which the Deity is alluded to as the chief; a root, origin, or foundation; worn out, done for”
PU + ROKU “the weary masses”, “a bunch of exhausted people” (the dead)
PU + ROTU “in the manner of a paramount high king / a shepherd”
PU + ROU “a tribe that has reached the distant shore”; “a sea shepherd”; “a navigator chief”
Moving on, now, with apparent cognates of AKERO (𐀀-𐀐-𐀫)
A’E-LOU A’E In Sāmoan “to go up, to ascend, as from fishing; to return from banishment; to rise, as waves” and LOU means “to turn around; to steer, as a canoe” as well as “a long pole with a crook at the end, used in gathering breadfruit” (ULU “breadfruit” = also “head”); related LOTU “prayer”
Again, when we gather people into a boat , counting many heads the boat is weighted down, and sinks deeper into the . When the boat is full of the dead , our hearts are heavy, weighed down, or our heads bow down in grief or prayer .
AKE-LOHU AKE and HAKE in Tongan “to return to land, to go or come ashore” and LOKU means “to gather together, gather up, hold up”; related LOTU “to worship, to pray”
I am now 100% certain our RA / LĀ sun god was the same as the Egyptians’. And our underworld Pulotu / Purotu / Bulotu was the same as the Egyptians’.
So, back to REO / LEO as a relative of the Afro-Asiatic word for "lion" and potential connection with Polynesian REO / LEO... Here's my reasoning:
LEO / REO decomposes into two potential morphemes, or smallest units of sound with meaning. RE / LE and O or 'O.
There are few examples of RE / LE as a monosyllable so it might be tempting to dismiss the prospect of there being a morpheme, but let's not be too hasty. Polynesian language is rife with examples of reduplication, meaningful repetitions of root words that amplify basal meanings. In this case we have LELE and RERE in every dialect, which means variously "to run as water; to fly; to escape, to flee; to leap; to move to and fro in making a speech; to rise or set, as the heavenly bodies (...ahem...); to die; to be born; to be rejected; to hang; to go swiftly; abruptly, suddenly; a waterfall; a shoal, a swarm; an exclamation demanding attention"
We can work backwards from this and reconstruct a less intense, diminished base meaning for RE / LE as: "to emit; to shine; to let out; to radiate; to produce; to trickle; to walk; to wander"
An older entry for Tongan LE relates the word means "to drive, to affrgiht fish into the net; the instrument used for that purpose"
And Moriori HOKO-RE meaning "to avoid" explains the meaning of Samoan LE as "not", "no" as a being a word of avoidance, of movement away, or driving away, and therefore fundamentally resonates with Tongan LE "to drive".
On that note... What celestial deity "drives" a chariot in most Asiatic religions? Usually it is the sun god--Helios, Apollo, the half-mortal son of the Sun, Phaethon, who would be the Greek version of Re / Ra, the sun god. The sun drives away the darkness with his return, and in the Pacific, this would mean ending the reign of Pō "night"... perhaps in one sense the sun may hold up his hands to the east and to the west and simply say "No, not today, Darkness."
But let's stick with RE / LE as meaning "to emit", which is a great word for describing the sun and sunlight, or the sun's **rays**.
Now, let's add on the O / 'O morpheme. This one is rather straightforward. In Samoan, O means "to answer; to penetrate, as a spear into the body; to go deep down, as a stick into the ground and meeting with no obstacle..." This perfectly describes the journey of the sun through the underworld, whether by land or sea, his journey through night always comes to an end. All other dialects mostly agree on this piercing dimension of the word O.
Put them together RE+O / LE+O "penetrating answer", "deep voice", "sun's spear", "ray of the sun", and that aptly describes the voice of the lion in the darkness--deep, thunderous, penetrating, and terrifying all at once. So, the lion is in every respect the animal symbol best suited to embody the majesty and power of our primary celestial body around which our humble, blue dot circles. (Sagan)....
==== This is further speculation on my part, but given the heavy emphasis on the root word LOU in Pasefika as “a long pole”, “fork”, or “hook”, my attention is inescapably drawn to two aspects of Mesopotamian religion. The first is the word cluster used for the messengers of one god in particular credited for creating the first humans—to the Sumerians, Enki (𒀭𒂗𒆠), god of Wisdom and the two Waters (Vailua / Wailua / Wairua); to the Akkadians, Eā (𒀭𒂍𒀀); to the Canaanites, I’a… his agents or messengers, were often described as “fish-men” and portrayed as men in the bodies of fish. The agents of the water god are credited with delivering knowledge to mankind after the world destroying flood to help them recover from total loss. They were called AB.GAL (𒉣𒈨), from NUN (𒉣) “prince, best, principal, foremost” and ME (𒈨) “thing, knowledge”… like our word MEA “thing”. Akkadians used the term APKALLU. There may be a linguistic drift occurring from Abgalu to Apkallu and to Akero, but the mechanism for losing the interstitial /b/ and /p/ in both cases is not satisfactory or clear, and the cuneiform do not decompose well into anything related to poles, crooks, hooks, or forks.
The second matter (ME 𒈨) is embedded with the story in the epic of Gilgamesh of his encounter with the ferryman Uršanabi who relies on stone men (presumably statues or carved idols) to plan his voyages. I am tempted to draw parallels with the Moai on Rapanui as it is on the precipice of the cosmic ocean that Gilgamesh finds Uršanabi during his quest to gain immortality for humans. Failing to initially enlist the navigator’s help, Gilgamesh topples several of the stone men. Uršanabi relents and enlists eventually but his tools are ruined, so he directs Gilgamesh to supply 100 long poles taken from the trees in the area… deforestation and subsequent erosion are a major feature of Rapanui’s landscape. There is speculation by Yale University trained Robert M Schoch, PhD, author of “Forgotten Civilization”, that some of the Moai may have originally been erected as early as just prior to the end of the last ice age more than 10,000 BCE. This would afford Gilgamesh a hypothetical window in time to have ventured to Rapanui after the great flood c. 10,000 BCE.
Lastly, if Si’ule’o / Hikule’o means “tail of the lion” and the Egyptian iconography portrayed the sun often as resting between two lands or mountains situated between two lions facing away from one another, then the space between two lands must be — what??
There is a lone sentinel in eastern Africa in Egypt on the Giza plateau—the Sphinx. It has the body of a lion and faces due east. There are some scholars who believe the Sphinx’s face was recarved into that of a pharaoh from an earlier lion’s face on account of the disproportionate scale of the human head in comparison with the body. The head is undersized for a lion’s body of that magnitude. If indeed the Sphinx was once a lion, I wonder if it is only one of the twins in the Aker [Akerw] earth deity’s pairing.
Questions:
Could there be, or could there have been at some time in the distant past, another Sphinx somewhere in Africa facing due west—perhaps buried under the dunes of the Sahara?
Or, if Robert Schoch's hypothesis is correct and the Sphinx is a relic of the Ice Age, and mankind was capable of open ocean voyaging to places like Rapanui, could there be another Sphinx in a different part of the world altogether outside of Africa that faces due west?
The Sphinx sits on 29° 58’31” N meridian roughly 650 meters to the east of the center of the Necropolis (literally: "death city", "city of the dead"), the middle of the three great pyramids.
Would there have once been another Sphinx on or near the same northern latitude equidistant heading west from the middle pyramid or unfulfilled plans to erect one?
Of course we may never know and perhaps this is one aspect of the legendary, many millennia old "riddle of the sphinx" that goes without saying.
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