4. If the spirits of the recently dead had to wait for their leader before they could go up into the sky, then the path they would follow probably was the starstudded Milky Way. The movement of earth around the sun during the year would at one and only one point be in touch with the galactic path. The different calendars for the year with two halves, summer and winter (or - alternatively - with the halves equal to the events between the solstices) cannot rule over what happens in the sky. There is only one time in the year when the path for the spirits will be in touch with the earth. I quote from Allen:

... This Snake-river of sparkling dust, the stream of the abyss on high through which it runs, the golden cord of the heaven-god ... connected alike with the hill of the Sun-god and with the passage of ghosts, is the Milky Way ... The Norsmen knew it as the Path of the Ghosts going to Valhöll (Valhalla), in the region Gladsheimr, - the palace of their heroes slain in battle;  and our North American Indians had the same idea, as witness the 'wrinkled old Nokomis', when, teaching the little Hiawatha, she

Showed the broad white road in heaven, / Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows, / Running straight across the heavens, / Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows, / To the Kingdom of Ponemah, / To the land of the hereafter;

the brighter stars along the Road marking their camp-fires ...

... Our aborigines and the Eskimo also called it the Ashen Path, as did the Bushmen of Africa, - the ashes hot and glowing, instead of cold and dark ...

A panoramic picture of the Milky Way as seen from Death Valley. (Wikipedia)

The 'Snake-river' in the sky surely must run in a valley - a valley of death. The dream soul (kuhane) of Hau Maka named the 6th place (on her journey mapping Easter Island) Te Piringa Aniva. The word aniva means 'people', and the 'shadows' of the recently dead people are presumably travelling along the Milky Way. According to Makemson the Milky Way was called Aniva in the Samoan Islands. Te Piringa Aniva is presumably the last half-month of He Maro (June), in which winter solstice occurs. According to Barthel 2: