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New year begins when sun starts to move again after having been sitting still on his 'perch':

'The ten or twelve days when the Sun appeared to linger at the winter solstice were a period of deep concern to primitive man, who trembled lest the luminary hesitate too long or fail to return to give life and warmth to earth and mankind. Hence the reference to the 'long pit' [marua-roa - a term used by the Maori for both solstices (and for the seasons of the solstices)].

Rua or lua is the cavern on the horizon from which the Sun rises or the corresponding pit on the western horizon through which he descends to the Underworld, and the 'long pit' was the one in which he remained for several successive days rising at the same point and setting at the same point while apparently making up his mind to retrace the path toward the equinoxes. In the short winter days when food was scarce and the earth unproductive and one looked forward with longing to the welcome warmth of spring it was impossible not to feel apprehension until the lengthening of the hours of daylight became perceptible, bringing assurance of the renewal of life ...'

But the year ends already before 12 months have passed, when sun starts to wane and his 'head' is 'falling'. In the Inca mind the 4th quadrant (Cuntisuyu) was 'black':

When sun at autumn equinox had gone down at the horizon in the west the Pleiades (once upon a time some 4,000 years ago) reappeared in the east to indicate that 'night' had arrived.

'... Whatever may have been the reason for the preëminence of the Pleiades cluster - and it was probably a combination of several reasons - it is certain that when men became increasingly alert to the annual cycles of celestial phenomena, the changing altitudes and azimuths of the Sun, the lengthening and shortening of days and the corresponding variation in temperature, the slow march of the constellations across the sky, and realized the need of choosing a day on which to begin the yearly cycle of the calendar, they turned to the Pleiades for guidance.

Undoubtedly the Polynesians carried the Pleiades year with them into the Pacific from the ancient homeland of Asia. With but few exceptions they continued to date the annual cycle from the rising of these stars until modern times. In the Hawaiian, Samoan, Tongan, Society, Marquesan, and some other islands the new year began in late November or early December with the first new Moon after the first appearance of the Pleiades in the eastern sky in the evening twilight ...'

The pattern in Tahua maybe alloted three quadrants to the sun and one to the moon?

The number of hatchmarks in the X-area may indicate this. After 15 nights full moon is reached (according to my interpretation of the Mamari moon calendar). When counting double-months 15 means ¼ of the circuit of the Moon.

13 + 13 = 26 is, however, a number not divisible by 3 (to represent 3 quarters). Instead - probably - the 1st half-year is equal in length with the 2nd half-year, each being 13 * 14 = 182 nights long. A solar quarter presumably has a duration of 91 (7 * 13) nights.

4 of the 364 nights of the year must, though, be discarded in order to arrive at 12 * 30 = 360 nights. Then we could add a 7th solar double-month to reach 420 nights, at which point Moon will have turned around 15 times.

If we add 1 to the number of hatchmarks in the 1st half-year (representing the downward sloping top of Aa2-48) we arrive at a solar 'year' with 14 + 13 = 27 = 3 * 9 hatchmarks, which suggests 3 quarters with 90 days in each. Adding 15 (for the number of hatchmarks in the X-area) we get 27 + 15 = 42, presumably meaning 420. Adding a 7th flame of the sun (7 * 60 = 420) may be equivalent to adding the X-area. We can understand the X-area either as the 4th quarter of the solar year or as the 7th flame (or maybe even as a 'half-year' to be added - the 9 hatchmarked glyphs are divided in three groups).

7 can be understood either as the 7th flame of the sun or as the number of days in a week. Saturn, being the last day of the week, corresponds to the 7th (dark) flame of the sun. The first 6 days of the week are then corresponding to the 6 doublemonths in a solar year.

6 weeks equals 42 days and 14 + 13 + 15 = 42:

Watching for the time when the Pleiades would tell about vernal equinox requires observing in the east just before sun arrives. The heliacal rising of the Pleiades nowadays, however, has moved away some 30°:

'The Pleiades are situated 24° above the celestial equator at the present time on the circle which marks the northern limit of the Sun in declination [23°26′ 22″]. They rise soon after sunset on November 20, are on the merididan at sunset about February 20, and set in the rays of the setting Sun toward the end of April. Thirty of forty days later they are visible on the eastern horizon just before dawn ...'

We must look for the explanation of the association of the Pleiades with the agricultural seasons on which early man depended for his chances of survival far in the past, for the cult of the Pleiades certainly dates from remote antiquity. Owing to the precession of the equinoxes the cluster is now 30° farther east of the vernal equinox than it was 2,000 years ago, when it was also 7° closer to the celestial equator. Some 4,000 years ago it was situated about 10° north of the vernal equinox. In that position their early morning rising ushered in the spring and the planting season in the northern hemisphere ...'

New year, consequently, may begin not only at the reappearance of sun after winter solstice, but alternatively at autumn equinox (when the old sun dies and therefore a new sun - 'son' - must be born) or at vernal equinox (when light reappears for real). On Easter Island new year began in midwinter, that we find affirmed in Aa1-1--15:

 

Before midsummer the glyphs describe stylized arms (pushing the sun / sky up) and therefore it cannot be 'knees' - it must be 'elbows'. At midsummer there is a more fundamental reversal than shifting the 'elbows' from left to right (as in a vertically placed mirror), there is a reversal from going up to going down (a reflection as if in a horizontally placed mirror).

If we compare the day time (according to Tahua) with the 'summer' (as seen above), we note the similarity in sun 'dying' during the 'after noon':

We should also note the differences in the 'death' glyphs:

In the diurnal cycle the impression is that a 'person' is waving goodbye and then we see his arm turned into bone and his 'soul' rising while his earthly remains are marked by a stone.

In the yearly circuit the arm is cut across (hatchmarked) to indicate darkness, or possibly caught in the strands of black hair, and after that we see just a grand burial stone.

Presumably we should interpret the difference between GD45 and GD73 as due to the fact that in GD45 the 'soul' already is in the sky, whereas in GD73 the 'soul' is rising:

  

The head of the sun is shown in profile also in the middle of the year and he is stopping to look at us only later, in his 6th and final phase:

"As Ke expressed it: 'When you see Rimwimata (Antares) in the middle between the ridgepole and the first purlin to the westward, you know the Sun is on his bike-ni-kaitara, islet-of-making-face-to-face (equinox).' ..." (Makemson)

I guess that the reason for en face in the 6th phase of the sun (both day and year) is to allude to the appearance of the Pleiades:

"The Polynesian word for new year, matahiti or makahiki, may be a contraction from Matariki-whiti (or Makalii-hiki, according to the dialect used) - in other words, the 'Pleiades rise'. In the island of Niue the new appearance of the cluster was greeted with the song:

The group of seven stars / That disappeared from the sky / Are shining again!" (Makemson)