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At the end of the old year, when old sun has stopped moving and a new one is needed, the whole community is engaged in activities preparing for the new year, sweeping out all the old. So it was among the Maya and so it presumably was also on Easter Island.

... the name [Vindler, one of the epithets of Heimdall] is a subform of vindill and comes from vinda, to twist or turn, wind, to turn anything around rapidly. As the epithet 'the turner' is given to that god who brought friction-fire (bore-fire) to man, and who is himself the personification of this fire, then it must be synonymous with 'the borer' ...

The Sibyl's prophecy does not end with the catastrophes, but it moves from the tragic to the lydic mode, to sing of the dawning of the new age:

Now do I see / the Earth anew / Rise all green / from the waves again ... / Then fields unsowed / bear ripened fruit / All ills grow better ...

The ceremonies held reflect what is happening up in the sky. A new fire on earth will be in harmony with a new fire in the sky. Kava will make the eyes more sensitive, generating an illusion of returning light.

Possibly the kava glyph type sometimes illustrates a bolt of lightning. At other times the glyph type may depict a ginger root.

The kava glyph type seems to have been used in the rongorongo calendars to mark where the new fire is generated.
Excursion:

Searching in the text of Small Santiago (G) for 'the 27th kuhane station' (when the old fire is blown out and a new one alighted).