Ah!
He was called Māui-Kisikisi “Dragonfly Māui”, because dragonflies zigzag when they fly, turning corners on a dime with ease, and because they have sticklike bodies.
Māui sailed back and forth across vast distances, zigzagging across the blue continent of the Pacific. In Hawaiian KIHIKIHI still means "angular; corners, curves; full of corners; zigzag". I believe this is a linguistic cognate of Sumerian kisikisi / kišikiši.
And Kisikisi (𒄀𒋝 𒄀𒋝)in Akkadian means “(Reed Fence)²” which in ancient Mesopotamian design utilized zig-zag interlaced woven patterns. The Marsh Arabs continue this tradition in their mudhif reed wall houses.
For several thousand years the phrase “reed wall, reed wall” persisted in Mesopotamian mythology from the Sumerian flood story to the Akkadian flood story to the Babylonian and Assyrian flood story wherein the god Enki (Eā or 'Ia), the creator of mankind, whispered the secret plan of the divine council betraying the death order to save a remnant of mankind through his servant, a son of Enki, called Utnapishtim / Atra-hasis / Zi-ud-Sura / Nūkh / Nū / Nuach. The message was conveyed through “reed-wall reed-wall”.
I think it wasn’t a reed wall at all.
“Reed-wall-reed-wall” was a divine messenger’s title or nickname - “Zigzag”, “Back-and-forth”.
What if Māui-Kisikisi was an inheritor of a maritime tradition that predates and survived the flood of worldwide mythological stories? And that myth survives still today preserved in the “Ark Tablet”, “Gilgamesh”, the “Atra Hasis” and in a vastly degraded form in the book of Genesis? A story that was already ancient in 2100 BCE and has been recovered well preserved on clay tablets unearthed from Nineveh and translated by the acclaimed Assyriologist Dr. Irving Finkel and others of this field…
“Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall!
Atra-hasis, pay heed to my advice,
That you may live for ever!
Destroy your house, build a boat;
Spurn property and save life!”
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On a related note:
A homonym of kisi could be kiši (kishi) (𒊾) which means “ant”.
Ants are known to forage and scout on zigzag patterns.
An article from the University of Arizona explains why:
“The study finds that the ants' meandering, or zigzag, walking pattern may make their search more efficient than a purely random search. This is because the ants can explore a large area in less time, as they cross their own paths less frequently... The researchers compared the walking paths of these ants to random simulations and discovered that these ants explored their newfound home with methodical movements, combined with some randomness..."These ants don't form obvious foraging trails like many ants we are familiar with," Popp said. "Instead, the colony depends on individual foragers finding resources, making their search strategy a crucial part of colony success."”
SIG (𒋝) ŠEG (𒊾)
SIG.ŠEG (𒋝 𒊾)…
Could this be the origin of “zigzag”? Or coincidence?
This sounds like a great explanation for how human migrations across the Pacific must have occurred—planned explorations using a logical, economical strategy to maximize returns on investments of labor. In the Navy, we were trained to economize our search patterns and scanning when on watches at sea. The pattern we were advised to use was in essence a lattice--the most economical method for scanning, quadrant by quadrant.
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