The nuku sign indicates the season when sun is absent, when he has gone north to his 'wintermaid'. This can be concluded by studying the text of Q.

Presumably the absent arms in the glyph type is meant to convey the meaning absence of 'fire' (i.e. sun):

Arms are (like hands and fingers) called rima and rima is also used for number 5, the number of fingers on a hand. In the myth about Maui stealing fire from Mahuika the fire is lodging in the finger nails of Mahuika.

Maui is mischievous as always and soon the whole world is on fire:

... Looking round, he saw that the whole land would soon be aflame. So he changed himself into a karearea, a hawk, and tried to soar above the flames. But the fire pursued him there and scorched his feathers, which accounts for the colour of that bird. Seeing a lake, he plunged down into it, but found that it was almost boiling. All the forests then caught fire, the land everywhere was alight, and Maui came very near to death. 

Then he called on his ancestor Tawhiri matea and all his offspring, to send down rain. 'Let water be given to quench this fire!' he cried, and spoke the appropriate chants. Great clouds appeared, and Tawhiri sent down first the small rain, and then the lasting rain, and everything was drenched, and the flames went out.  

Even Mahuika herself almost perished before she could reach her place of shelter, and her shrieks were as loud as those of Maui when he was scorched. The waters rose all around her, and in this way Mahuika was deprived of her former power ...

From one extreme to the other our world is wobbling along.