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2. The head of the whale is rising later than the knot of Pisces:

At the other end of the sea monster Deneb Kaitos (the tail of the whale) is encircled to make also this star significant.

Deneb Kaitos β Ceti 2.04 18º 16' S 00h 41m 10.4 418.4 418.2
Baten Kaitos ζ Ceti 3.74 10º 35' S 01h 49m 27.6 435.6 435.5
Mira ο Ceti 3.04 03º 02' S 02h 17m 34.7 442.7 442.2
Kaffaljidhma γ Ceti 3.47 03º 02' N 02h 41m 40.8 448.8 448.2
Menkar α Ceti 2.54 03º 54' N 03h 00m 45.7 453.7 453

Counting with a 360-day long cycle there are 30 days from Deben Kaitos to Kaffaljidhma, from the tail to the head. And Mira is 24 days from Deben Kaitos:

24
Gb7-5 Gb7-6 Gb7-7 (418)
    Schedir (417.6), Deneb Kaitos (418.4)
Gb8-1 (443) Gb8-2 Gb8-3 Gb8-4 Gb8-5
Mira (442.7)        
Gb8-6 Gb8-7 Gb8-8 (450) Gb8-9 Gb8-10
  Kaffaljidhma (448.8)      
Gb8-11 (453) Gb8-12 Gb8-13
Menkar (453.7)    

I think the hole at Deneb Kaitos is alluded to in the story about Ure Honu:

... Another year passed, and a man by the name of Ure Honu went to work in his banana plantation. He went and came to the last part, to the 'head' (i.e., the upper part of the banana plantation), to the end of the banana plantation. The sun was standing just right for Ure Honu to clean out the weeds from the banana plantation.

On the first day he hoed the weeds. That went on all day, and then evening came. Suddenly a rat came from the middle of the banana plantation. Ure Honu saw it and ran after it. But it disappeared and he could not catch it. On the second day of hoeing, the same thing happened with the rat. It ran away, and he could not catch it. On the third day, he reached the 'head' of the bananas and finished the work in the plantation. Again the rat ran away, and Ure Honu followed it. It ran and slipped into the hole of a stone. He poked after it, lifted up the stone, and saw that the skull was (in the hole) of the stone. (The rat was) a spirit of the skull (he kuhane o te puoko).

Ure Honu was amazed and said, 'How beautiful you are! In the head of the new bananas is a skull, painted with yellow root and with a strip of barkcloth around it.' Ure Honu stayed for a while, (then) he went away and covered the roof of his house in Vai Matā. It was a new house. He took the very large skull, which he had found at the head of the banana plantation, and hung it up in the new house. He tied it up in the framework of the roof (hahanga) and left it hanging there ...

The last part of his 'banana plantation' had a stone with a hole in it, and in this hole was the skull of the Sun King. The last part had 'the head', i.e. the beginning of the new agricultural cycle. Perhaps the cranium (gagana) in Gb8-7 (at the head of the whale, Kaff-al-Jidmah) illustrates how it is turned around into a new generation (hua). This new generation has to be 'unearthed', and puo in Gb8-8 (where 8 * 8 = 64) probably is a sign of 'hilled up'.

Perhaps Gb8-30 at the end of side b is the last day of the 'hilled up' season:

19
Gb8-6 Gb8-7 Gb8-8 (450) Gb8-9 Gb8-10 Gb8-30 (472)
  Kaffaljidhma (448.8)