... The correspondence between the winter solstice and the kali'i rite of the Makahiki is arrived at as follows: ideally, the second ceremony of 'breaking the coconut', when the priests assemble at the temple to spot the rising of the Pleiades, coincides with the full moon (Hua tapu) of the twelfth lunar month (Welehu). In the latter eighteenth century, the Pleiades appear at sunset on 18 November. Ten days later (28 November), the Lono effigy sets off on its circuit, which lasts twenty-three days, thus bringing the god back for the climactic battle with the king on 21 December, the solstice (= Hawaiian 16 Makali'i). The correspondence is 'ideal' and only rarely achieved, since it depends on the coincidence of the full moon and the crepuscular rising of the Pleiades ...

... Antares, visible in the morning sky of December-January, came to stand for summer heat; hence the saying, 'Rehua cooks (ripens) all fruit' [hakatupu]. The generally accepted version of the Rehua myth, according to Best, is that Rehua had two wives, the stars on either side of Antares. One was Ruhi-te-rangi or Pekehawani, the personification of summer languor (ruhi), the other Whaka-onge-kai, She-who-makes-food-scarce before the new crops can be harvested ...

Puo. (Also pu'a); pu'o nua, one who covers himself with a nua (blanket), that is to say, a human being. Vanaga. 1. To dress, to clothe, to dress the hair; puoa, clothed; puoa tahaga, always dressed. 2. To daub, to besmear (cf. pua 2); puo ei oone, to daub with dirt, to smear. 3. Ata puo, to hill up a plant. Churchill.

... When the man, Ulu, returned to his wife from his visit to the temple at Puueo, he said, 'I have heard the voice of the noble Mo'o, and he has told me that tonight, as soon as darkness draws over the sea and the fires of the volcano goddess, Pele, light the clouds over the crater of Mount Kilauea, the black cloth will cover my head ...