"Indeed, at the rituals of the installation, the chief is invested with the 'rule' or 'authority' (lewaa) over the land, but the land itself is not conveyed to him. The soil (qele) is specifically identified with the indigenous 'owners' (i taukei), a bond that cannot be abrogated. Hence the widespread assertion that traditionally (or before the Lands Commission) the chiefly clan was landless, except for what it had received in provisional title from the native owners, i.e., as marriage portion from the original people or by bequest as their sister's son ... 

The ruling chief has no corner on the means of production. Accordingly, he cannot compel his native subjects to servile tasks, such as providing or cooking his daily food, which are obligations rather of his own household, his own line, or of conquered people (nona tamata ga, qali kaisi sara). 

Yet even more dramatic conditions are imposed on the sovereignity at the time of the ruler's accession. Hocart observes that the Fijian chief is ritually reborn on this occasion; that is, as a domestic god. If so, someone must have killed him as a dangerous outsider. He is indeed killed by the indigenous people at the very moment of his consecration, by the offering of kava that conveys the land to his authority (lewaa). Grown from the leprous body of a sacrificed child of the native people, the kava the chief drinks poisons him."  

"Sacred product of the people's agriculture, the installation kava is brought forth in Lau by a representative of the native owners (mataqali Taqalevu), who proceeds to separate the main root in no ordinary way but by the violent thrusts of a sharp implement (probably, in the old time, a spear). Thus killed, the root (child of the land) is then passed to young men (warriors) of royal descent who, under the direction of a priest of the land, prepare and serve the ruler's cup ... 

...the tuu yaqona or cupbearer on this occasion should be a vasu i taukei e loma ni koro, 'sister´s son of the native owners in the center of the village'... Traditionally, remark, the kava root was chewed to make the infusion: The sacrificed child of the people is cannibalized by the young chiefs. 

The water of the kava, however, has a different symbolic provenance. The classic Cakaudrove kava chant, performed at the Lau installation rites, refers to it as sacred rain water from the heavens... This male and chiefly water (semen) in the womb of a kava bowl whose feet are called 'breasts' (sucu),

(pictures from Lindqvist showing very old Chinese cooking vessels)

and from the front of which, tied to the upper part of an inverted triangle, a sacred cord stretches out toward the chief ... 

The cord is decorated with small white cowries, not only a sign of chieftainship but by name, buli leka, a continuation of the metaphor of birth - buli, 'to form', refers in Fijian procreation theory to the conceptual acception of the male in the body of the woman. The sacrificed child of the people will thus give birth to the chief.

But only after the chief, ferocious outside cannibal who consumes the cannibalized victim, has himself been sacrificed by it. For when the ruler drinks the sacred offering, he is in the state of intoxication Fijians call 'dead from' (mateni) or 'dead from kava' (mate ni yaqona), to recover from which is explicitly 'to live' (bula). This accounts for the second cup the chief is alone accorded, the cup of fresh water. The god is immediately revived, brought again to life - in a transformed state."

"There is a further motivation of the same in the kava taken immediately after the chief's by the herald, a representative of the land. This drinking is 'to kick', rabeta, the chief's kava. Raberabe, the same reduplicated version, means 'a sickness', the result of kicking accidently against a 'drau-ni-kau'... The herald here takes the effects on himself: drau-ni-kau is the common name for 'sorcery'..." (Islands of History)

On Easter Island they had not the kava root. Instead they used the word kava for ginger (gingembre, according to Bishop Jaussen's word-list, ref.: Barthel). And ginger roots are yellow, twisted and knobby:

Picture from Internet (Wikipedia). It is said that the root of Zingiber - from Tamil Iñci Officinale - traditionally was eaten by pregnant Chinese women to 'combat morning sickness'. In India they apply it to the temples (i.e. to the sides of the head) as a paste to relieve headache. Both these uses harmonize with what has been proposed above.

1. To blow; to light a fire; to extinguish, to blow out; he-puhi te umu, to light the fire for the earth oven. 2. To fish for lobsters at night using a bait (but during the day one calls it hî); puhiga, night fishing spot. Vanaga.

To blow; puhi mai, to spring up; pupuhi, wind, fan, to blow, puffed up, to blow fresh, to ferment, to swell, to bloat, to spring out, to gush, yeast; pupuhi vai, syringe; pupuhi eve, squirt; pupuhi heenua, volley; pupuhi nunui, cannon; pupuhi nui, swivel gun; ahuahu pupuhi, amplitude; vai pupuhi, water which gushes forth; pupuhihia, to carry on the wind; hakapupuhi, to gush, leaven, volatilize; puhipuhi, to smoke, to smoke tobacco, a pipe. Churchill

The kava glyph type is designed as a zigzag pattern, much like that written in lightning on the dark stormy sky.

Lightning and thunder work magic together creating sunligth and rain. Sunlight and rain are related:

"On February 9 the Chorti Ah K'in, 'diviners', begin the agricultural year. Both the 260-day cycle and the solar year are used in setting dates for religious and agricultural ceremonies, especially when those rituals fall at the same time in both calendars.

The ceremony begins when the diviners go to a sacred spring where they choose five stones with the proper shape and color. These stones will mark the five positions of the sacred cosmogram created by the ritual. When the stones are brought back to the ceremonial house, two diviners start the ritual by placing the stones on a table in a careful pattern that reproduces the schematic of the universe. At the same time, helpers under the table replace last year's diagram with the new one. They believe that by placing the cosmic diagram under the base of God at the center of the world they demonstrate that God dominates the universe.

The priests place the stones in a very particular order. First the stone that corresponds to the sun in the eastern, sunrise position of summer solstice is set down; then the stone corresponding to the western, sunset position of the same solstice. This is followed by stones representing the western, sunset position of the winter solstice, then its eastern, sunrise position. Together these four stones form a square. They sit at the four corners of the square just as we saw in the Creation story from the Classic period and in the Popol Vuh. Finally, the center stone is placed to form the ancient five-point sign modern researchers called the quincunx ...

Later on in this series of rituals, the Chorti go through a ceremony they call raising the sky. This ritual takes place at midnight on the twenty-fifth of April and continues each night until the rains arrive. In this ceremony two diviners and their wives sit on benches so that they occupy the corner positions of the cosmic square. They take their seats in the same order as the stones were placed, with the men on the eastern side and the women on the west. The ritual actions of sitting down and lifting upward are done with great precision and care, because they are directly related to the actions done by the gods at Creation. The people represent the gods of the four corners and the clouds that cover the earth. As they rise from their seats, they metaphorically lift the sky. If their lifting motion is uneven, the rains will be irregular and harmful." (Maya Cosmos)

One of the effects of kava drinking is to enhance the sensitivity of the eyes - light appears to be growing.

Aa8-26	Aa8-27	Aa8-28	Aa8-29	Aa8-30	Aa8-31	Aa8-32	Aa8-33

A mauga with 'feathers' emerges from this kava sign. Mauga probably means the dark end state of the 'old fire' and here the dark state is transformed into its opposite, 6 'fiery feather' signs appear at the top of the 'mountain'. Probably the 'old fire' (sun) is reborn again (like a Phoenix bird).

In Aa8-30 it looks as if a 'fist' is opening up like a 'sun flower'. Metoro's words at Aa8-30--31: ka puhi i te ahi i te toga nui e hua o te pua presumably were meant to convey the sense of a fire (ahi) being blown upon (puhi) in the great darkness (winter) - i te toga nui. The last part (e hua o te pua) may mean the 'fruit' (hua) of the 'flower' (pua) - the seed (of the 'sunflower') generates a new flower.

The pair of tapa mea glyphs in Aa8-28--29 indicates a change of state from light to darkness (also expressed by their ordinal numbers 28 and 29). The viri in Aa8-26 is cut off short at the upper end, and in Aa8-27 the sky (ragi) no longer has any light (no moon sign). Number 26 is expressing the last phase of sun (similar to the 16th and last night of growing moon).

Tahua has 4 viri glyphs, and Aa8-26 is unusual in being cut off short instead of continuing into the normal pointed end. Presumably the intention is to express the demise of the old sun in another way than in P, where 'te pito' (Pb9-33) can be regarded as the 4th special member of a group with 3 viri:

Ab1-1	Ab7-26	Aa5-7	Aa8-26	Pb9-33

Metoro began his reading of Tahua at the beginning of side b, with Ab1-1. We can imagine a 'birth' at Ab1-1, followed by growing and reaching maximum stature at Ab7-26, then declining (Aa5-7 is slightly bent forward as if old) and the inevitable 'finish' at Aa8-26 (59 glyphs before rebirth at Ab1-1). Twice 29.5 (number of nights in a month) is 59 and the number alludes to the end of a pair of twin seasons.

26 in Aa8-26 indicates how the 'mauga phase' of the 'old king' is similar to the maximum (midsummer) phase of his twin (in Ab7-26).

Mauga with 'feathers of light' is a type of glyph used also in e.g. Mamari.

Pua, pu'a

Pu'a. 1. (Modern form of pu'o), to cover up something or oneself, to put on; ka-pu'a te ha'u, put on your hat; ka-pu'a-mai te nua, cover me up with a blanket. 2. To respond to the song of the first group of singers; to sing the antistrophe; he-pu'a te tai. 3. To help; ka-pu'a toou rima ki a Timo ite aga, help Timothy with the work. 4. Pu'a-hare, to help a relative in war or in any need; ka-oho, ka-pu'a-hare korua, ko ga kope, go, give your relative a hand, lads. 5. To speak out in someone's favour; e pu'a-mai toou re'o kia au, speak in my favour, intercede for me. Pu'apu'a, to hit, to beat. Vanaga.

1. Flower, ginger, soap; pua mouku, grass. 2. To grease, to coat with tar, to pitch; pua ei meamea, to make yellow. Puapua, a piece of cloth. Mgv.: pua, a flower, turmeric, starchy matter of the turmeric and hence soap. Mq.: pua, a flower, soap. Ta.: pua, id. Ma.: puapua, cloth wrapped about the arm. Churchill.

'Red Torch' (Etlingera elatior), an example of zingiberaceae according to Wikipedia.

To cut with scissors (since this is an old word and scissors do not seem to have existed, it must mean something of the kind). Vanaga.

To tear; kokoti, to cut, to chop, to hew, to cleave, to assassinate, to amputate, to scar, to notch, to carve, to use a knife, to cut off, to lop, to gash, to mow, to saw; kokotiga kore, indivisible; kokotihaga, cutting, gash furrow. Churchill.

1. Fat, grease, lard, marrow, tallow. PS Mq.: nako, turtle meat; kao, fat. Pau.: akohaga, meat. Ta.: ao, fat of fowl or fish. Sa.: gaó, fat, lard. To., Fu., Niuē, Ma.: gako, id. Had Monseigneur Dordillon eaten his way to the civic chair of London instead of coming to a starveling preferment in the bishopric of a savage diocese he would surely have defined the nako of the Marquesan turtle in terms of calipash and calipee. 2. Squamous, scurfy. 3. Pau.: Nanako, to tattoo. Ta.: nanao, tattooing. Churchill.