3. There could be an orifice (a hole, pu) in the centre of vaha kai. Holes are dark, cold and often filled with water. A hole could be the entrance to the world below. There are holes around the horizon, through which the winds, the celestial bodies, and ships must find their way. At the horizon in the northeast sun emerges every morning. At the opposite horizon sun leaves in the evening. Morning 'birth' and evening 'death' can then be transposed to the year, with sun reappearing around spring equinox and leaving again half a year later. Sun is reborn through an orifice (a 'birth canal') which seemingly leads him back to our world after having being recycled, 'eaten', by the opening in the west. Down he went into the underworld, through which he must travel during the night to reappear fresh again in the east in the morning. ... 'My child', said Makea now in a tone of deep sorrow, 'there has been a bad omen for us. When I performed the tohi ceremony over you I missed out a part of the prayers. I remebered it too late. I am afraid this means that you are going to die.' 'What's she like, Hine nui te Po?' asked Maui. 'Look over there', said Makea, pointing to the ice-cold mountains beneath the flaming clouds of sunset. 'What you see there is Hine nui, flashing where the sky meets the earth. Her body is like a woman's, but the pupils of her eyes are greenstone and her hair is kelp. Her mouth is that of a barracuda, and in the place where men enter her she has sharp teeth of obsidian and greenstone ... This idea may have guided the creator of the G text when he decided to put a vaha kai at the end of the year:
The 4 fishes which then will rise evidently are connected with vaha kai because we saw them also in the text on the Paris Snuff Box:
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