This person often has a special headgear (mostly adorned with feathers). The defining characteristic of the ariki glyph type, however, is his arms and legs which form a cross.

1. This type of glyph probably indicates the king.

Mummies of pharaohs have their arms crosswise over their chests according to a TV program I happened to watch.

The Inca kingdom was called Tawantinsuyu = 'the indivisible four quarters of the world' and the Inca himself was ruling in its center (Cuzco). (The Two Worlds of Peru)

The Ariki is like the Pharaoh and the Inca, rulers at the top of a pyramid, close to the gods in the sky. They unite the four quarters by being at the immovable center in a high position, in the 5th corner of the pyramid.

"The French Admiral de Lapelin was the first to mention that, 'Gaara or Gabara' taught the reading and writing of the 'talking boards'. This was the famous Nga'ara of the Miru († c. 1859), the 'ariki mau or paramount chief of Easter Island and most famous rongorongo expert who ever lived.

Nga'ara plays the central figure in the drama of rongorongo on premissionary Easter Island. This is because, at the point of minimum regard for an 'ariki mau, Nga'ara brilliantly exploited from his seat at 'Anakena the sacral prerogative of the rongorongo - which ostensibly had been elaborated only for sacred purposes two generations earlier - to render it an expression of the royal mandate as well, hereby profiting from the mana-imbued phenomenon while simultaneously expanding its social domain. (It is doubtful whether, before Nga'ara, the rongorongo constituted a franchise of Rapanui's 'ariki mau.) Nga'ara's reign, extending from c. 1835 up to c. 1859, embraced the Golden Age of rongorongo. Almost immediately after Nga'ara's death, beginning in 1862-63, came the labour raids, the pandemics, the destruction and concealment of the rongorongo artefacts, and the wholesale collapse of Rapanui society.

Nga'ara´s father was Easter Island's 'ariki mau Kai Mako'i, after whom Nga'ara named his son and successor: Kai Mako'i 'Iti ('Junior'). From Juan Tepano's ancient grandmother Veri  'Amo we know that Nga'ara was 'very fat + did nothing - wrote rong o rongs - much tatooed so he looked black'. Joanne Vieko (born c. 1850) recalled that Nga'ara was 'a very big man, not tall but fat'." (Fischer)