Metoro nearly always said marama, which fundamentally means 'light'.

A few preliminary remarks and imaginations:

1. In the calendar of the month in Mamari this glyph type (marama) signifies 'a night'. The Polynesians did not count 'days' but 'nights' instead.

They had different names for the different nights of the lunar month (just as we have names for the 'days' of the week). Moreover, though, they associated each such 'night' with definite activities and omens such as regarding fishing, planting, birth, weather, tides etc. We, on the other hand, have not much left of such associations, we even may work on Sundays.

Some of the 'nights' were restricted because of tapu, others were free - kore (tapu), 'without' (taboo). The Hawaiian calendar of the month serves as a good example of this type of system, but the details varied between the different Polynesians islands.

Due to the fact that the moon needs 29.5 nights to move through its different phases (or 'faces') two months (59 nights) are needed for a functional moon calendar. The number of the nights in a month will then vary in the pattern: 29, 30, 29, 30, 29, 30 ...  One of the nights in the calendar will be used only once in a double-month period.