Text V of the rongorongo corpus, the Honolulu oar, also known as Honolulu tablet 3 or Honolulu 3622, may be one of two dozen surviving rongorongo texts. Its authenticity has been questioned.

Other names

V is the standard designation, from Barthel (1958). Fischer (1997) refers to it as RR13.

Location

Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. Catalog # B.03622.

Description

Apparently the end of a European or American oar, like tablet A, though of unknown wood, and cut with a steel blade. It measures 71.8 × 9 × 2.8 cm and is not fluted. Side a is worm-eaten and split at its thick end; side b has fire damage.

Provenance

Collector J. L. Young of Auckland purchased three of the Honolulu tablets circa 1888 "from Rapanui through a reliable agent", who Fischer thinks was probably Alexander Salmon, Jr. It was transferred to the Bishop Museum in August 1920. Métraux (1938) did not include V as he did not think it was authentic: However, Barthel (1958:32) believed it to be authentic. Fischer is of the opinion that the burnt wood, However, this reasoning is not sound: juxtaposing the two common glyphs 200 man and 700 fish is hardly remarkable. The only ligature is the 200.200.11-2, whereas known authentic texts, even short ones, have numerous ligatures.

Text

Side a has two areas of text: a single 22-glyph line, with a separate pair of glyphs slightly above and 4 cm to the right of this (on the other side of the label). Fischer reports that on side b pencil rub****bings reveal possible traces of an inscription at the edge of the burnt area.