When the 'trunk' (tino) of the 'tree' - Hotua Matua - died he had many roots: ... The people (mahingo) listened as he spoke. The king called out to his guardian spirits (akuaku), Kuihi and Kuaha, in a loud voice: 'Let the voice of the rooster of Ariana crow softly. The stem with many roots (i.e., the king) is entering!' The king fell down, and Hotu A Matua died. Then all the people began to lament with loud voices. The royal child, Tuu Maheke, picked up the litter and lifted (the dead) unto it. Tuu Maheke put his hand to the right side of the litter, and together the four children of Matua picked up the litter and carried it ... At first I thought it strange to regard roots as offspring, because 'fruits' should be hanging up in a tree. But a little thought made it clear. Descendants are lower down and on Easter Island the main source of food (kumara, the sweet potato) was to be found down in the earth.
The Hindu Mula station has a bunch of roots (8 of them) tied together, which could refer to the offspring of the old year:
The first pair of glyphs in line Ca4 could express something of that sort, perhaps illustrating the descendants from the previous year with powerful growth making them rise:
Right ascension 259.9 is practically equal to day 260 counted from March 20, and notably η Scorpii is the only Mula star without a name. Metoro's te kihikihi we have met earlier, close to the end of the previous year:
... Sunset was kihi on Hawaii, and my rule of thumb for doublewords leads us to kihikihi as being its opposite, viz. dawn ... This 'dawn ' could measure 59 nights, a lunar double-month. The C text maybe is referring to stars which were visible close to the full moon and the Hindu nakshatra stations could therefore be useful for us. Mula is associated with 'roots'. June 6 (where 6 * 6 = 36) has a glyph with 1 + 3 = 4 'fruits' striving hard upwards, whereas the glyph in April 9 has 3 + 1 'fruits' hanging down. The odd 'ball' is the big last one in Ca1-19 but the first small one in Ca4-1. There could be a reversal beyond Ca2-22 (where Metoro said hia, perhaps meaning 'to count'):
4 + 3 = 7 'double' feathers in Ca1-20 is contrasted in Ca4-2 (58 days later) with 3 * 2 + 7 = 13 feathers designed in another way. The 'head' in Ca4-2 is not in the vertical center of the line as Ca1-26 but low down:
78 - 26 = 52. From Benetnash to η Scorpii there are 259.9 - 208.5 = 51.4 days, a number which could allude to manzil day 378 (Saturn's number), because 514 = 378 + 136:
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