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GD38
 ika

Metoro often said īka (fish) at this type of glyph, but he sometimes used the Tahitian version ia, or kahi (tuna).
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A few preliminary remarks and imaginations:

1. The ika glyph type is a picture of a fish. But this does not necessarily imply we should understand ika glyphs to literally mean fishes. First of all it is necessary to consider such facts as īka also could mean the 'corpse of a man fallen in war' or a 'victim (wounded or killed), enemy who must be killed, person cursed by a timo and destined to die' (Vanaga)

Timo

Title of those entrusted with ritual duties. The timo īka were entrusted with putting death spells on murderers to avenge the victims. The timo to'a blessed and cast victory spells on warriors. The timo rara koreha were entrusted with drying corpses. Vanaga.

Mourning, grief, sorrow; (clappers made of flat bones etimoika; when an islander is working up his vengeance for the loss of a murdered kinsman he puts on a feather headdress, goes about behind the houses, and makes great yelling and rattles the bones. G). Churchill.

Some think īka was a euphemism for a human sacrifice to be offered to the gods (and also perhaps cannibalized upon). I don't think so. Or rather: If it was so, then it was not the original explanation, but rather a secondary application of the primary īka concept.

Instead I believe in ancient times fishes alluded to the heavenly bodies. After all, the sky is blue like the ocean and therefore, presumably, there are fishes in the sky.

"The principal word for 'fish' in most Dravidian languages is min, which has an ancient homophone meaning 'star', both probably derivatives of the root min 'to glitter'."

"Fish are actually unable to close their eyes, and the fact that 'when the fish sleeps it does not close its eyes' was noticed by ancient Indians. The dot-in-a-circle similar to that occuring among the trefoils of the Harappan 'priest-king“s' robe is identical with the eye of the many small hare- and fish-shaped amulets discovered on the lower levels of Harappa." (Parpola)

There is a dark blotch looking like the head and long ears of a hare (or rabbit) in the moon, which can account for the hare-shaped amulets, and then the next step to stars as fishes is infinitesimal. Moon can be seen also during the day, but the stars only during the night - by the theory of correspondences equal to winter and the dark sea.

On Easter Island, with a free view to the horizon in all directions, the heavenly bodies ascend in the east as if drawn up like glittering fishes from the ocean.