... From a religious point of view, the high regard for flies, whose increase or reduction causes a similar increase or reduction in the size of the human population, is interesting, even more so because swarms of flies are often a real nuisance on Easter Island, something most visitors have commented on in vivid language. The explanation seems to be that there is a parallel relationship between flies and human souls, in this case, the souls of the unborn. There is a widespread belief throughout Polynesia that insects are the embodiment of numinous beings, such as gods or the spirits of the dead, and this concept extends into Southeast Asia, where insects are seen as the embodiment of the soul ...

Manu rere (the free-moving spirits of life) must sooner or later be 'incorporated' again:

... Then the spirit was gathered in. And this was the chant for that work:

Let the spirit of the man be gathered to the world of being, the world of light. / Then see. Placed in the body is the flying bird, the spirit-breath. / Then breathe! / Sneeze, living spirit, to the world of being, the world of light. / Then see. Placed in the body is the flying bird, the breath. / Be breathing then, great Tu. Now live!

Then man existed, and the progeny of Tu increased ...

Birds and flying insects are the same - manu rere ('flying birds'). Instead of shooting away the 'fire' in the 'eye' of the Old year the method according to rongorongo seems to have been to say that it was 'swallowed'. The swallowing method was known also in Hawaii:

... The Makahiki effigy is dismantled and hidden away in a rite watched over by the king's 'living god', Kahoali'i or 'The-Companion-of-the-King', the one who is also known as 'Death-is-Near' (Koke-na-make). Close kinsman of the king as his ceremonial double, Kahoali'i swallows the eye of the victim in ceremonies of human sacrifice ...

After half a year the shark (mago) comes in as another great swallower and as such the concept is more in parallel with the ideas in America:

A crocodile is close in kind to a shark. The picture is from Izapa Stela 25 according to Maya Cosmos. The 3-fingered One Ahaw is holding the Tree in which 7-Macaw perches and with his foot One Ahaw stands on the snout of the 'Cosmic Monster'. The picture probably shows the 'shark of winter' at right:

... In the island of Pukapuka Te Mango, the Shark, was applied to the long dark rift which divides the Milky Way from Scorpius to Cygnus. They declared that the 'shark of winter' had its head to the south and the 'shark of summer' had its head to the north, referring to the seasonal change in the position of the constellation ...