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We can now guess the first 3 glyphs on the K tablet are alluding to the 3 islets of spring:

Spring 'stones' out in the water:
Ka1-1 Ka1-2 Ka1-3
Motu Nui Motu Iti Motu Kaokao

The 3rd islet Motu Kao-kao is nowadays named Motu Kau Kau. I think the rongorongo idiom used double names as a way to express negation.

Kao

1. Side, edge, rim; kao gutu (or just kao), labia minora. 2. Steep, almost perpendicular; thin, skinny. Motu Kaokao, name of one of the islets opposite Orongo, with a steep shape. Vanaga.

Cloth, clothing, garb. (Perhaps a variant of kahu.) Kaokao, side, flank, ribs, lateral. P Pau.: kaokao, the side, flank. Mgv.: kaokao, the side, flank. Mq.: kaokao, id. Ta.: aoáo, id. In Nuclear Polynesia this is particularized, in Samoa to the armpit, in Tonga and Futuna to the sides of the canoe. Therefore it may be considered a borrowing from the Tongafiti. Churchill.

Kau

1. To move one's feet (walking or swimming); ana oho koe, ana kau i te va'e, ka rava a me'e mo kai, if you go and move your feet, you'll get something to eat; kakau (or also kaukau), move yourself swimming. 2. To spread (of plants): ku-kau-áte kumara, the sweet potatoes have spread, have grown a lot. 3. To swarm, to mill around (of people): ku-kau-á te gagata i mu'a i tou hare, there's a crowd of people milling about in front of your house. 4. To flood (of water after the rain): ku-kau-á te vai haho, the water has flooded out (of a container such as a taheta). 5. To increase, to multiply: ku-kau-á te moa, the chickens have multiplied. 6. Wide, large: Rano Kau, 'Wide Crater' (name of the volcano in the southwest corner of the island). 7. Expression of admiration: kau-ké-ké! how big! hare kau-kéké! what a big house! tagata hakari kau-kéké! what a stout man! Vanaga.

To bathe, to swim; hakakau, to make to swim. P Pau., Mgv., Mq.: kau, to swim. Ta.: áu, id. Kauhaga, swimming. Churchill.

The stem kau does not appear independently in any language of Polynesian proper. For tree and for timber we have the composite lakau in various stages of transformation. But kau will also be found as an initial component of various tree names. It is in Viti that we first find it in free existence. In Melanesia this form is rare. It occurs as kau in Efaté, Sesake, Epi, Nguna, and perhaps may be preserved in Aneityum; as gau in Marina; as au in Motu and somewhere in the Solomon islands. The triplicity of the Efaté forms [kasu, kas, kau] suggests a possible transition. Kasu and kas are easy to be correlated, kasu and kau less easy. They might be linked by the assumption of a parent form kahu, from which each might derive. This would appear in modern Samoan as kau; but I have found it the rule that even the mildest aspirate in Proto-Samoan becoming extinct in modern Samoan is yet retained as aspiration in Nuclear Polynesia and as th in Viti, none of which mutations is found on this record. Churchill 2

The idea of a Bird Man representing the year from one spring to the next could have been derived not only from observing birds but also from looking at the stars:

South of the equator the left foot Rigel can be seen as the great fist of Orion, rising majestically but showing no head. South of the equator Orion is upside down compared to the northern view and in the Hevelius perspective (looking down on the constellations from high up) with right ascension increasing towards right we cannot see the face of Orion because it is turned towards the Earth. Rigel would then be his left fist, and in my previous hopu manu picture the manu tara egg is held high in his left hand. Unless he happened to be left-handed it should be interpreted as a Sign. In the rongorongo texts the proper place for an 'egg' apparently is in the left hand too, e.g.:

Gb6-17 (400) Gb6-18 Gb6-19 (*100) Gb6-20
  ν Puppis (99.2), ψ3 Aurigae (99.4) ψ2 Aurigae (99.5) ψ4 Aurigae (100.5), Mebsuta (100.7), Sirius (101.2), ψ5 Aurigae (101.4)
'June 27 (178) '28 '29 '30
Al Tuwaibe' 2 (42) 3 4 5

On Easter Island the heliacal rising of Orion occurs not in spring but in late autumn.

Ariki in Ga1-13 was at λ Eridani in the day before Rigel and 8 nights after ariki in Ga1-5, where time possibly was turning around to go backwards. From Ana-muri (Aldebaran) there were 10 dark nights before Rigel arrived:

Ga1-4 (*68) Ga1-5 Ga1-6
Aldebaran (68.2) Theemin (68.5)  
'May 28 '29 '30 (150)
Sheratan 12 13 14
Ga1-7 Ga1-8 Ga1-9 Ga1-10 Ga1-11 (*75)
      Hassaleh (73.6) Almaaz (74.7), Haedus I (74.8)
'May 31 'June 1 '2 '3 '4
Pleione 1 (15) 2 3 4 5
Ga1-12 Ga1-13 Ga1-14
Haedus II (75.9), ε Leporis (76.0), Cursa (76.4) λ Eridani (76.7) μ Leporis (77.6), ĸ Leporis (78.0), Rigel (78.1), Capella (78.4)
'5h (76.1) 'June 6 (157) '7
Pleione 6 7 (21) 8