Suppose ika hiku glyphs really are depicting shark egg cases. Aside from their shape there is evidence in form of the vaha mea type of open gap:    176 Ga1-4 (5) Ga7-12 (182) vaha mea ika hiku There are 6 lunar months from vaha mea in Ga1-4 to ika hiku in Ga7-12. The 'front side' (my own term and concept) is not beginning with vaha mea in Ga1-4, which would have been a natural choice because the glyph probably illustrates how the rising spring sun brings red (mea) dawn light into the previous gloomy winter sky. Instead, the beginning is with Gb8-30, which causes the day number for ika hiku to be 182 instead of 177 + 1. Gb8-30 is necessarily the beginning of the lunar month count, because 1 extra day is needed in order to create a calendar with 472 (= 16 * 29.5) days. But vaha mea could have been at Gb8-30 (instead of puo). Probably vaha mea was located at Ga1-4 in order to assign day number 182 to ika hiku. Half a year (364 / 2) from the opening of spring ika hiku in Ga7-12 marks its end.

Aa6-67 must be a picture of how the spring shark is being 'devoured', 'killed', by the 'purse' at the time of initiation (midsummer):

Aa6-66	Aa6-67 (483)

The initiation of a youth means his younger self must die. He must be put into the dark, be totally lost, in order to search for a new truth. He must be cut off from childhood, 'sucking time', go from taking to giving, be a member of the community.

Is there any sign of the opening of spring 182 days earlier in the Tahua text? Counting from Aa1-1 vaha mea ika hiku is number 483. If we count 1 glyph per day, day number '5' (as in 'fire') will be glyph number 483 - 182 = 301. If we count with 2 glyphs per day, day '5' will be glyph number 483 - 364 = 119.

301 is Aa4-50 and 119 is Aa2-29:

Aa4-48	Aa4-49	Aa4-50 (301)	Aa4-51

If we count the glyphs from Ab8-41, we must add 44, which changes 301 to 345 and 119 to 163. In the latter case, we should then divide by 2 to find the day number. 163 / 2 = 81.5, i.e. Aa2-29 is in the first half of day number 82. Or maybe we should say Aa2-29 is the first half of the first day beyond day number 9 * 9 = 81.

glyph numbers counted from Ab8-41
Aa2-23 (157)	Aa2-24	Aa2-25	Aa2-26	Aa2-27	Aa2-28
79		80		81
Aa2-29 (163)	Aa2-30	Aa2-31	Aa2-32	Aa2-33	Aa2-34 (168)
1		2		3

Quite possibly Aa2-29--30 represent the day when spring arrives (the legs are prominent in nuku):

glyph numbers are counted from Ab8-41
		360
Aa2-29	Aa2-30 (164)		Aa6-65	Aa6-66	Aa6-67	Aa6-68 (528)
82		180	263		264

The significance of 2-29 may have been used both in A and G:

1
	Ga2-27	Ga2-28	Ga2-29 (60)	Ga3-1
	Ga3-2	Ga3-3	Ga3-4 (64)	Ga3-5

In Aa2-30 we can count 2 * 30 = 60, equal to day number 60 counted from Gb8-30, and Ga2-29 therefore seems to combine Aa2-29 with Aa2-30.

The strength of the argument - 2 glyphs per day and going backwards for 364 glyphs - is not in any way perturbed by uncertainty as to from where to begin counting forward.