Ling408: Rongorongo

In this lecture we'll cover the "talking boards of the Pacific", the Rongorongo of Easter Island. Despite about 130 years of concerted effort to understand this script, very little is really known about it. One of the most fundamental questions is whether it is really a writing system (in the narrow sense we have defined that in this course), or merely a kind of mnemonic device. Most experts on Rongorongo see overwhelming evidence that the system actually encoded the Easter Island Rapanui language, and thus should count as a writing system. In my view the evidence for that conclusion is pitiful.

A great source of information about Rongorongo is the web site www.rongorongo.org

History

Easter Island today (from the top of Mt. Terevaka)

Between 300 and 800 AD Settlement of Easter Island by Polynesians possibly from the Marquesas, the Cook Islands or Mangareva.
300 AD - 1500 AD, Statue Cult Develops.
Gradual Deforestation of the Island due to slash and burn agriculture and in part due to lumber needed to move the statues.
Around 1600 AD Birdman Cult replaces statue cult.

Rano Kao from Orongo, Place of the Birdman Cult

Motu Iti, Motu Nui (larger island): Birdmen hopefuls would camp out on Motu Nui
1722, First Contact, Dutch expedition headed by Jacob Roggeveen (Easter Sunday, 1722).
19 November 1770, Felipe Gonzales de Haedo lands. Claims the island for King Carlos III, renaming it San Carlos.
Rapanui "signatures" (from Fischer).
Island subsequently visited by Cook (1774) and La Pérouse (1780).
Late 18th century, Early 19th century: All the statues on the ahus are knocked down.
1805. New England whaler "Nancy" kidnaps 22 natives
1862. 2000 natives kidnapped and taken to Peru as slaves
1864. First Missionary (Eyraud)
1865. Kidnapped Islanders return, bringing smallpox
1877. Population of island reduced to 111 people. Many have already moved to Tahiti

Ethnography of the Tablets

Father Eugène Eyraud (1864)

"Dans toutes les cases on trouve des tablettes de bois ou des bâtons couverts de plusieurs espèces de caractères hiéroglyphiques: ce sont des figures d'animaux inconnues dans l'île, que les indigènes tracent au moyen de pierres tranchantes. Chaque figure a son nom; mais le peu de cas qu'ils font de ces tablettes m'incline à penser que ces caractères, restes d'une écriture primitive, sont pour eux maintenant un usage qu'ils conservent sans en chercher le sens."

1873, Etienne Jaussen, Bishop of Tahiti, asks an Easter Islander, Metoro, who worked on a plantation in Tahiti and who claims a knowledge of Rongorongo to read some tablets (or photographs of tablets). He proceeds to read, but seems merely to be describing the signs rather than actually reading.

Here an example of Jaussen's catalog (see http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/frame.html

William J. Thomson (Paymaster, US Navy) 1891. Excerpt from www.rongorongo.org/thomson/514.html "A man called Ure Vaeiko, one of the patriarchs of the island, professes to have been under instructions in the art of hieroglyphic reading at the time of the Peruvian visit, and claims to understand most of the characters. Negotiations were opened with him for a translation of the two tablets purchased; but he declined to furnish any information, on the ground that it had been forbidden by the priests. Presents of money and valuables were sent him from time to time, but he invariably replied to all overtures that he was now old and feeble and had but a short time to live, and declined most positively to ruin his chances for salvation by doing what his Christian instructors had forbidden. Finally the old fellow, to avoid temptation, took to the hills with the determination to remain in hiding until after the departure of the Mohican. It was a matter of the utmost importance that the subject should be thoroughly investigated before leaving the island, and unscrupulous strategy was the only resource after fair means had failed. Just before sundown one evening, shortly before the day appointed for our sailing, heavy clouds rolled up from the southwest and indications pointed to bad weather. In a heavy down-pour of rain we crossed the island from Vinapu to Mateveri with Mr. Salmon, and found, as had been expected, that old Ure Vaeiko had sought the shelter of his own home on this rough night. He was asleep when we entered and took charge of the establishment. When he found escape impossible he became sullen, and refused to look at or touch a tablet. As a compromise it was proposed that he should relate some of the ancient traditions. This was readily acceded to, because the opportunity of relating the legends to an interested audience did not often occur, and the positive pleasure to be derived from such an occasion could not be neglected. During the recital certain stimulants that had been provided for such an emergency were produced, and though not pressed upon our ancient friend, were kept prominently before him until, as the night grew old and the narrator weary, he was included as the 'cup that cheers' made its occasional rounds. A judicious indulgence in present comforts dispelled all fears in regard to the future state, and at an auspicious moment the photographs of the tablets owned by the bishop were produced for inspection. Old Ure Vaeiko had never seen a photograph before, and was surprised to find how faithfully they reproduced the tablets which he had known in his young days. A tablet would have met with opposition, but no objection could be urged against a photograph, especially something possessed by the good bishop, whom he had been instructed to reverence. The photographs were recognized immediately, and the appropriate legend related with fluency and without hesitation from beginning to end. The story of all the tablets of which we had a knowledge was finally obtained, the words of the native being written down by Mr. Salmon as they were uttered, and afterwards translated into English."

According to Thomson, Ure Vaeiko sang a procreation hymn Atua Mata-Riri when shown a picture of the Small Washington Tablet (though Fischer disagrees); and another text, Apai, when shown a picture of table Keiti.

The text of Atua Mata-Riri is apparently a creation myth of the form "X mated with Y and produced Z".

(Guy argues Atua Mata Riri might just be a "spelling bee")

Katherine Routledge (1914-1915) (see Katherine Routledge, 1919, The Mystery of Easter Island, republished by Adventures Unlimited Press, and see also http://www.rongorongo.org/routldge/243.html) interviewed several Easter Islanders who were involved in the Rongorongo recitation ceremonies about the nature of those ceremonies. Anakena

The Corpus

The main extant tablets are:

Tahua (recto, from Fischer):
Aruku-Kurenga (recto):
Mamari (recto):
Keiti (verso):
Small Santiago (recto):
Great Santiago (verso):
Santiago Staff:
Small London (recto):
Rei Miro:
Great St. Petersburg (from Fischer):
Small St. Petersburg (from Fischer):
Atua Mata Riri (Small Washington -- recto):

(Fischer, p 458: "Thomson (1981) or his editor at the Smithsonian, mistakenly called [this tablet] `Atua Matariri' after the first name of Ure Va'e Iko's procreation chant that was sung to the photograph of one of Bishop Jaussen's tablets, not to this one")
Great Washington (from Fischer):

Properties of the Script

"Reverse boustrophedon", read from bottom of tablet to top. This is known from oral tradition, and also because long copied portions wrap in a way that suggests that reading order.
Many texts show lots of repeats of the same character in slightly different "poses", making it look a lot like a comic strip or crude animation:
Large portions of text are copied among various tablets. This was first discovered by Leningrad school children visiting the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology in 1940.
For some examples see: http://compling.ai.uiuc.edu/rws/ror/.
Where do the figures come from? Not surprisingly some glyphs (though not as many as some people seem to imply) are related to common symbols used in petroglyphs. Note the "birdmen" and the double headed bird in the petroglyphs from Orongo below:

Prayers to the Gods. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, Monumenta Archaeologica 17. Page 71.
Finally, Guy has shown that the glyphs may be fused. Consider the following from lines 3, 4 and 6 from tablet Aruku-Kurenga:

The symbol on line 3 seems to correspond to two symbols on lines 4 and 6: it seems to consist of a fusion of the two glyphs representing the bird-headed figure, and the lens-shaped glyph with the two raised arms. It also seems as if the fused glyph is to be read upwords (i.e. upwards catenation in the terminology of Sproat 2000). (Jacques Guy. 1982. "Fused glyphs in the Easter Island script." Journal of the Polynesian Society. 91:445-447)

Attempts at Decipherment

Carroll (1892): claimed a decipherment on the basis of the language being Quechua.
Guillaume de Hevesy's claimed that Rongorongo was related to the Indus valley script. He noted a large number of similar looking symbols between the scripts.

(From: Andrew Robinson, 1995. The Story of Writing. London, Thames and Hudson. page 147)
Most "decipherments" have proposed a largely logographic or even "ideographic" analysis. These included:
- The Leningrad team (Butinov, Knozorov, Federova), though they also claimed to have found semantic-phonetic components like in Chinese.
  Thus: is supposed to be rangi "send, visit", decomposed as: MOTION (lefthand symbol of a running figure), with rangi, meaning "sky", but used here for its phonetic value.
- Thomas Barthel. 1957. Grundlagen zur Entzifferung der Osterinselschrift.
  Barthel provided the first catalog of the tablets and a catalog of the glyphset as well as a corpus based on etchings. But it is claimed that about 7-10% of Barthel's tracings are errorful. On top of this, his coding system (as any coding system) is a judgment call, and the system is "lossy".
  Barthel's coding system is based, somewhat algorithmically, on the form of the characters. See: http://www.rongorongo.org/corpus/codes.html. The Cercle d'Études sur l'Île de Pâques et la Polyné'sie has extended Barthel's system.
  There has also been dissatisfaction with his glyphset, with many people arguing that he made too many distinctions.
  The main problem with Barthel's approach is that he relied on the assumption that Metoro's chantings were a key to the decipherment.
- Fischer.
  The Santiago staff is the only text where there are apparent text divisions. Fischer analyzes the groups on the staff as representing the type of procreational text sung by Ure Va'e Iko in his Atua Mata Riri. Thus he proposes that be translated as "Te manu mau ki 'ai ki roto ki te ika, [ka pû] te ra'â", "all the birds copulated with the fish and there issued forth the sun". He argues that the grabbing hand on the bird represents the word mau 'all' (ma'u = 'grab' in Old Rapanui, hence a rebus).
  Crucial in Fischer's decipherment is the presence of the phallus-like appendage apparently representing "copulate". But he then goes on to suggest that a number of other phallus-less texts also represent procreation chants. (There is a phallus-less sequence BIRD-FISH-SUN on the tablet Échancrée.)
  Fischer has been roundly criticized by Jacques Guy. See, http://www.rongorongo.org/rosetta/i2.html and elsewhere. Indeed there are a number of problems with Fischer's analysis:
  - The only actual "translation" he proposes is the one shown above.
  - While Atua Mata Riri may serve as the model, the verse that Fischer claims to have translated does not correspond to any of the verses that Ure Va'e Iko sang.
  - There was a previous proposal by the Russian team to the effect that the phallus symbol is actually a patronymic, and that the Staff thus represents a kind of genealogy. Since legend has it that this staff belonged to the Ariki (King), such an interpretation is not implausible. Oddly, Fischer seems not to say much about this alternative analysis.
  - Even if Fischer is correct, his analysis does not support his strong conclusions that the "rongorongo code has finally broken" (Rongorongo, p. 261) or that this is the "first scientifically verifiable phonetic breakthrough". With the exception of the word mau, all of the symbols in his single translation would appear to denote what they depict. Thus the system, if anything, would be purely logographic (not phonetic).
But there have also been claims that rongorongo is actually a syllabary once you figure out how to decompose it into the right number of basic units (around 70 for Rapanui). This includes Macri in the Daniels and Bright volume, and also Konstantin Pozdniakov, in:
Pozdniakov, Konstantin. 1996. "Les bases du déchiffrement de l'écriture de l'île de Pâques". Journal de la Societé des Océanistes, 103(2), pages, 289--303.
There is just one teensy little problem with these analyses: neither Macri nor Pozdniakov have published their decomposition, so until they do, there is little reason why one should accept their claims to have found a decomposition.
Pozdniakov does a little better than Macri. He at least does some statistical analysis that purports to show that the statistical distribution of his decomposed syllable set correlates with the distribution of syllables in the Rapanui language, for example, using the text Apai as the source of the linguistic syllable distribution. This results in a plot like the following, where the two curves are claimed to be "pratiquement identiques".

But Pozdniakov would appear to have merely re-discovered Zipf's law (well, not quite since the populations of syllables are too small for the curves to be truly Zipfian). Using this argument I can show that the letters (upper and lower case, including punctuation) in the first 12,000 words of the English version of Genesis encode Rapanui.

In any case, if Pozdniakov is right he ought to be able to take his reduced glyph set, use the frequencies to match them one-for-one with the syllables, and then proceed to translate. The fact that this hasn't happened would seem to suggest that things cannot be so simple.

Final thoughts

So is Rongorongo a real writing system? If it isn't, is there a possible model for what it is?

The ethnographer Alfred Métraux proposed that Rongorongo is a mnemonic device rather than a way of representing the Rapanui language directly, though he later backed away from that belief, due to Barthel's work. (But then Barthel's decipherment attempts were never successful.)

One possible model is the script of the Naxi (Sino-Tibetan), a minority people of China.

Naxi Dongba texts have only recently been translated, in this case with the help of living Dongba experts. For the most part the script does not represent language in the normal sense that a writing system does: rather, "several characters may tell a complete story, and sometimes, a character in one script might not have the same meaning in another script." (see http://fpeng.peopledaily.com.cn/200001/24/eng20000124R121.html). In other words, a significant function of Dongba script is to provide mnemonic cues to texts that the reader knows.

If Rongorongo is like Dongba, then the hopes of ever deciphering significant portions of it are slim indeed. Previous attempts to decipher Dongba without the help of native experts failed.