Electronic Library of Scientific Literature
Electronic Library of Scientific Literature
Volume 7 / No. 2 / 1998
Viktor Krupa
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of
Sciences,
Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia
In his paper V. Krupa speculates on the likely sources of the
motif of the island of immortals in Part III of Jonathan Swift's
Gulliver's Travels and finds them in the writings of the Portuguese
missionary João Rodrigues.
pp. 113-117
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Michael H. Dietrich
Stitzenburgstraße 17, D-70182 Stuttgart, Germany
"Little Eyes" on a Big Trip - Star Navigation as
Rongorongo Inscriptions
An attempt is made here to prove that rongorongo does not reproduce
coherent texts, creation chants, rituals, etc., as has been conjectured
so far. All signs are symbols of stars and planets, quaters, winds,
the moon, the guiding stars, etc.
The new endeavour to analyse the rongorongo signs is based on
the accessible astronomical knowledge of Micronesia and Polynesia.
The body of rongorongo signs consists of tropical descriptions
of single stars, planets, zodiacal signs and other constellations.
What has been registered are particular nights and, on the smaller
tablets, general data on astronomical itineraries. The all in
all about 12,000 rongorongo signs convey exclusively instructions
for sidereal navigation within the Packfic.
This article deals with the signs which are supposed to represent
the Pleiades (matariki) in rongorongo. More than half of
all signs can only be understood through the astronomical knowledge
of the New Zealand Maori. The present approach, then, provides
the possibility to explain nearly all existing rongorongo signs,
which hitherto was held to be an illusion.
This is the first part of the study to be continued in Volume
9, 1999.
pp. 118-150
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Marián Gálik
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of
Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia
This is a preliminary contribution to the study of the Prague
School of Sinology, dedicated to its founder Professor Jaroslav
Prùšek (1906-1980), one of the greatest world Sinologists
of his time, who left a deep imprint on Sinological and Oriental
Studies in former Czechoslovakia and contributed much to the spirit
of mutual communication and understanding between East and West
in scholarly research and translation work.
pp. 151-161
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Viera Pawliková-Vilhanová
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of
Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia
The second stage of Europe's contact with Africa beginning
in the late eighteenth century and continuing throughout the nineteenth
into the twentieth century started the long and difficult problem
of the identity of Africa and of the Africans which is vital even
today. During this period of Afro-European contact Africans were
repeatedly confronted with the questions of change and choice
as they tried to come to terms with the new world of an expanding
Western civilization which was in process of moulding the world
in its image. One man in nineteenth-century Africa who tried to
see the problem in its entirety was Edward W. Blyden (1832-1912),
a West-Indian of pure African descent who during his active career
in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Lagos summed up his political and
cultural theories, based on a rich fund of living experience and
profound study, in his concept of African personality.
pp. 162-175
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Marián Gálik
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of
Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia
The aim of this review article is to analyse the complete set
of the proceedings of the 13th Congress of the International Comparative
Literature Association, Tokyo 1991, and the separate Chinese version
containing the contributions of the Chinese participants from
the PRC.
pp. 176-196
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Jana Benická
Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Countries of
East Asia, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University, Gondova 2, 818
02 Bratislava, Slovakia
The aim of this review article is to analyse two volumes of
essays, which were dedicated to the Slovak Sinologist Marián
Gálik on the occasion of his 65th birthday on February
21, 1998: - Autumn Floods and Asian and African Studies,
Volume 6, No. 2, 1997.
pp. 197-210
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Ladislav Drozdík
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of
Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia
pp. 211-218
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pp. 219-224
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