1. The kava glyph type is like a crooked henua with sharp angles at the bends. It is as if the path of light had rugged terrain to pass over. All over South America there is a sign, the 'staircase' sign (Posnansky), which appears in several different shapes and probably originated in Tiahuanaco, where straight lines and right angles were everywhere to be seen. Maybe this 'staircase' path of the sun is due to the geography with mountain ranges making it impossible for the sun rays to illuminate all the earth below at once.

This piece of ceramics (Posnansky) has the 'staircase' painted on it in black and white. As I interpret the design it is the earth receiving light, heat and water (wavy lines) from the sun (6 double suns at the top). Our world in the sun is light and the black world below (as in a mirror) has another 6 double suns.

There is a black triangle above our steplike world in the light. In the 'black mirror' we can see the black triangle reflected as a white sun with black interior. When we are at winter solstice the sun stands at its highest on the other side of the earth (in the Otherworld as the Maya would say).

In Central America too we can see this fundamental play of light and darkness. Famous is the snake undulating along the northern staircase of the Pyramid of Kukulkan (the feathered serpent) in Chichen Itza.

The Egyptian picture below has the path of the sun illustrated as a snake and the 4 heads are - according to Wilkinson - the four sons of Horus (the sungod). I suppose one interpretation is that they represent the four cardinal points (or maybe the four seasons):

"Behind me, towering almost 100 feet into the air, was a perfect ziggurat, the Temple of Kukulkan. Its four stairways had 91 steps each. Taken together with the top platform, which counted as a further step, the total was 365. This gave the number of complete days in a solar year. In addition, the geometric design and orientation of the ancient structure had been calibrated with Swiss-watch precision to achieve an objective as dramatic as it was esoteric: on the spring and autumn equinoxes, regular as clockwork, triangular patterns of light and shadow combined to create the illusion of a giant serpent undulating on the northern staircase." (Hancock)

Like the path of the sun on the frieze on the Gateway of the Sun in Tiahuanaco, meandering up and down, the Feathered Snake (Kukulkan, Quetzalcoatl etc) is the path of the sun.

(Posnansky)

Feathers because the sun is flying high in the sky - it surely must be a bird. But its path undulates (as observed against the landmarks on the horizon) and therefore it must also be a snake.

"The sun at noon is the sun declining; the creature born is the creature dying." (Needham II)

Churchill has pointed out that kavakava (rib) is related to vakavaka:

"P Mgv.: vakavaka, the breast. Mq.: vakavaka, vaávaá, rib. Ma.: wakawaka, parallel ridges. We shall need all the available material in order to determine the germ sense of this word. Sa.: va'ava'a, the breast-bone of a bird; fa'ava'a, the frame as of a slate. To.: vakavaka, the side. Fu.: vakavaka, the side below the armpit. Ha.: hoowaa, to make furrows.

In all these we may see the idea of ridge or depression, or of both, as primal (Rapanui, Samoa, Marquesas, Maori, Hawaii), and as secondary the part of the body where such appearance is common (Mangareva, Tonga, Futuna)."

The front is (in) the light, the back is (in) the shadow. Equinox, then, must be (in) the side of the body.

On Easter Island a myth about moai kavakava was told which may contain important clues.

Tu'u Ko Ihu the priest and navigator, was the tahunga who first carved images in this land. When he was living at Ahu te peu this chief decided to go to the house at Hanga Hahave called the House of Cockroaches. He therefore left in the early morning and climbed up to Punapau. In front of the red cliff there he saw two spirits, sleeping. They had no flesh, those spirits, their ribs were showing. Their names were Hitirau and Nuku-the-Shark.

Tu'u ko ihu did not stop lest the spirits whould know he had seen them. If they did he would die. He went on his way toward the House of Cockroaches, but another spirit, Ha uriuri, saw him, and he cried out to those others, 'Wake up! The chief saw your ribs!' They woke up with a start and saw this human, they saw his back as he walked up the mountain. Therefore they quickly climbed and crossed the way in front of him. They asked him: 'What do you know?' Tu'u ko ihu answered, 'Nothing'. They said again, 'Perhaps you noticed something', but Tu'u answered 'No.' The spirits disappeared.

Tu'u ko ihu went on his way, but the spirits appeared in front of him again. They asked him, 'What do you know about us, O ariki?' He answered still, 'I know nothing.' The chief went on, the spirits met him again at Pukurautea. 'What do you know about us, O ariki?' 'Nothing.' If Tu'u ko ihu had told those spirits he had seen them they would have killed him. His priestly wisdom held him safe. They left, they disappeared. Afterwards they prowled about his house with their hands up to their ears, listening to hear if he gossiped of what he had seen; but the chief held his tongue. He spoke to no-one of what he had seen.

When Tu'u ko ihu went down to the House of Cockroaches the people were taking the stones from the earth-oven and were throwing out the ends of burning wood. This wood was toromiro. Tu'u ko ihu took two flaming pieces of wood and carried them into that house, into Hare koka. He sat there, and with his sharp pieces of obsidian he carved them into moai kavakava.

They were like men who are dead, with their ribs showing. They were likenesses of Hirirau and Nuku-the-Shark. Tu'u ko ihu spoke to no person of what he had seen.

After he had made these male images Tu'u ko ihu fell asleep and dreamed of two women. Their names were Pa'apa ahiro and Pa'apa akirangi. In his dream he saw that they were hiding their Things with their hands, they were covering them with their fingers; therefore as soon as it was daylight he got up and carved two flat images exactly like those women.

When he had finished, Tu'u ko ihu loaded all the images on his back - the male images with ribs and the moai paepae with their fingers in a certain place; and he returned to his house at Ahu te peu. He left the moai standing in that house.

Tu'u ko ihu dwelt quietly in his house for some time, and the people saw what he had done, they saw his work with the wood. Then they all went to this chief with pieces of toromiro to be carved. They wanted moai kavakava, they wanted moai paepae. They lit their earth-ovens and cooked for him many good things; seabirds, fish, yams and kumara. They brought this good food to Tu'u ko ihu so that he would carve images for them.

The people got the moai when they offered an umu to the owner. If there was no earth-oven, he kept all those that he had made. He kept their pieces of toromiro. One day all the men who had given wood but got no images went to Tu'u ko ihu and said, 'O chief, give us back our images.' 'You wait.' Then Tu'u ko ihu went into his house and made all the images walk. They walked about inside the house! After this the people called that house the House of Walking Images. The images walked, they made turns and turns - karari-karari, karari-karari, all about the house.

Their owners saw them doing this and said to one another, 'See - these images are moving in the house! What good fun this, the images that move!' They saw it, they were amazed, they were filled with admiration. 'How funny are these walking images!' In the evening those people who had made no ovens returned to their houses. Tu'u ko ihu did not give them their images." (Legends of the South Seas)

1. To run out (food, water): ekó pau te kai, te vai, is said when there is an abundance of food or water, and there is no fear of running out. Puna pau, a small natural well near the quarry where the 'hats' (pukao) were made; it was so called because only a little water could be drawn from it every day and it ran dry very soon. 2. Va'e pau, clubfoot. Paupau:  Curved. Vanaga.

1. Hakapau, to pierce (cf. takapau, to thrust into). Pau.: pau, a cut, a wound, bruised, black and blue. 2. Resin. Mq.: epau, resin. Ta.: tepau, gum, pitch, resin. (Paupau) Hakapaupau, grimace, ironry, to grin. 3. Paura (powder), gunpowder. 4. Pau.: paupau, breathless. Ta.: paupau, id. 5. Ta.: pau, consumed, expended. Sa.: pau, to come to an end. Ma.: pau, finished. 6. Ta.: pau, to wet one another. Mq.: pau, to moisten. Churchill.

Water hole, well (natural or artificial). Vanaga.

Spring, fountain, well. P Pau.: mapunapuna, to bubble, to boil. Churchill.