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Writer's pictureIosua Ioane Fānene

MANA AND MAUI REVISITED


In ancient #Sumerian, #Olmec, and #Egyptian art detailing the stories of #primordial #gods, men and animal-headed men are frequently depicted carrying #handbags and standing besides an ornate network of palm trees whose roots tie into a larger mother tree all of which are tied to lore of being "Trees of Life".


I think these hand bags are seed bags. They are #metaphorical representations of “#civilization”, of the #seed of Man, his #propagation, also literal representation of “#power”. Those carrying them are often the progenitor gods or servants of the progenitor gods such as the AB.GAL / AP.KAL.LU, the #Seven #Sages of the Sumerian version of Noah’s Ark/Flood who were dispatched by #Enki to re-educate the human race in the lost arts of the previous, pre-cataclysm world.


In #Polynesian languages the word for "power" is #MAGA (in Samoa) or MANA (Hawaiian). This word also contains in it the act of conferring power, authority, and prestige. The word also relates to forks in the road, branches of trees, and specific kinds of trees such as the #MANAPAU TREE which prominently featured in the story of #Maui and his quest to find his mother and father wherein he identifies from whence he originated...not from the west where Australia and Tasmania are, not from the southeast where Chatham and Pitt Islands are, not from the northeast where French Polynesia and Tahiti are. This leaves us with the nearest peopled neighbors in the North, for Antarctica only is in the south and southwest. To the North are Tonga (which literally means "South"), Samoa, and Fiji. Maui-tiki-tiki is in all three nations' ancient lore as Maui-kisi-kisi and Tagalao-a-Ui. Perhaps Maui, like many Polynesian lineages, hailed from Manu'a where the lore of Manu'a keeps remembrances of Ali'i lineages from the Sa-Tagaloa hailing from Fiji. (I will include an English translation of the Manapau story at the end as an extensive footnote)


MANA / MAGA also possesses a sense of "internality", of "baskets", "containers", "belly", "womb", "breath", and "stomach", as with the word #MANAVA.


MAGA and MANA are related to plantations of various kinds, to curses, to the retention in memory of knowledge as in MANAMANA, or MANAMANAILOTO.


[see attached photos]


On the subject of “POWER” let’s re-examine the Polynesian concept and word for “power”, but through Sumerian #cuneiform and Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs...because--why not?:


MA = 𒈠 = “to approach”, “to make a landing”, “to go”, “to flow”, “to propagate”

MA = 𒈣 = “a ship”, “a boat”, “a watercraft”, “a seagoing vessel”

MA = 𒅡 = “native speech” (literally EŠ 𒂠“native” inside of KA 𒅗 “a mouth”), “native tongue”, “local word”

GA = 𒂵 = “a suckling” (cow), “young” (of any species); “to bring”, “to carry”, “to heap up”; also “big”, “great”, “mighty”

GA = 𒂷 = “a basket”, “a container”, “a vessel”, “a place”, “a house”; “a mother”

GA = 𒃷 = “to bear young”, “child-bearing”; “a reed vessel”, “a reed basket”, “a womb”

MA.GA = 𒈠𒃷 = “to propagate” by “bearing young”

MA.GA = 𒈣𒃷 = “ship”, or “boat” PLUS “bearing young”

MA.GA = 𒅡𒂵 = “native tongue” PLUS “to bring”

MA.GA = 𒅡𒂷 = “mother tongue”

MA.GA = 𒈠𒂵 = “to make landfall” with “the young”; “to bring the young”

MA.GA = 𒈠𒂷 = “to flow from the mother”; “to pour out of a basket”; “to gather into a basket”

MA.GA = 𒈣𒂵 = “a big ship”, “a mighty ship”

MA.GA = 𒈣𒂷 = “a mothership”


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So, does the Sumerian transliteration of our word MAGA sound like an immortal #spiritual power that is cultivated by selective breeding, as with the Hawaiian Ali’i concept of MANA cultivation (through breeding, conquest, and the dietary practices of the ‘aikanaka / ‘aitagata)?

Is the Sumerian MA.GA reminiscent of the following?:


* Conquest by ship—disembarking troops.

* Colonization by ship—disembarking settlers—as with the 7 Waka.

* Spreading of a mother tongue, of a maritime expansion.

* Conveyance of seed.

* Propagation of trees.

* Conveyance in baskets.


I believe so.


Makes me wonder what kind of Mannah the Israelites were “gathering up” “in baskets” during their wanderings.


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MA.GA could also describe the preservation of the human race after the Great Flood, and the re-education of our species by ... if the Sumerian is true... Seven Sages.


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[mnw] in Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs means variously: “trees”, “plantations”, “pains”, “Stones”, the name of MIN the god of making babies... no kidding


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_(god)


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MAUI IN THE MANAPAU TREES:


...At last he saw a party of people coming along under a grove of trees, they were manapau trees [The manapau was a species of tree peculiar to the country from whence the people came, where the priests say it was known by that name], and flying on, he perched upon the top of one of these trees, under which the people had seated themselves; and when he saw his mother lying down on the grass by the side of her husband, he guessed at once who they were, and he thought, “Ah! there sit my father and mother right under me;” and he soon heard their names, as they were called to by their friends who were sitting with them; then the pigeon hopped down, and perched on another spray a little lower, and it pecked off one of the berries of the tree and dropped it gently down, and hit the father with it on the forehead; and some of the party said, “Was it a bird that threw that down?” but the father said, “Oh no, it was only a berry that fell by chance.”


Then the pigeon again pecked off some of the berries from the tree, and threw them down with all its force, and struck both father and mother, so that he really hurt them; then they cried out, and the whole party jumped up and looked into the tree, and as the pigeon began to coo, they soon found out from the noise, where it was sitting amongst the leaves and branches, and the whole of them, the chiefs and common people alike, caught up stones to pelt the pigeon with, but they threw for a very long time without hitting it; at last the father tried to throw up at it; ah, he struck it, but Maui had himself contrived that he should be struck by the stone which his father threw; for, but by his own choice, no one could have hit him; he was struck exactly upon his left leg, and down he fell, and as he lay fluttering and struggling upon the ground, they all ran to catch him, but lo, the pigeon had turned into a man.


Then his mother asked Maui, who was sitting near her, “Where do you come from? from the westward?” and he answered, “No.” “From the north-east then?” “No.” “From the south-east then?” “No.” “From the south then?” “No.” “Was it the wind which blows upon me, which brought you here to me then?” When she asked this, he opened his mouth and answered, “Yes.” And she cried out, “Oh, this then is indeed my child;” and she said, “Are you Maui-taha?” He answered, “No.” Then said she, “Are you Maui-tikitiki-o-Taranga?” and he answered, “Yes.” And she cried aloud, “This is indeed my child. By the winds and storms and wave-uplifting gales he was fashioned and became a human being; welcome, oh my child, welcome; by you shall hereafter be climbed the threshold of the house of your great ancestor Hine-nui-te-po, and death shall henceforth have no power over man.”

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