... The palolo worm or Samoan palolo worm (Palola viridis) is a species of invertebrate in the Eunicidae family ...

... According to an etiological Hawaiian myth, the breadfruit originated from the sacrifice of the war god Ku. After deciding to live secretly among mortals as a farmer, Ku married and had children. He and his family lived happily until a famine seized their island. When he could no longer bear to watch his children suffer, Ku told his wife that he could deliver them from starvation, but to do so he would have to leave them. Reluctantly, she agreed, and at her word, Ku descended into the ground right where he had stood until only the top of his head was visible. His family waited around the spot he had last been, day and night watering it with their tears until suddenly a small green shoot appeared where Ku had stood. Quickly, the shoot grew into a tall and leafy tree that was laden with heavy breadfruits that Ku's family and neighbours gratefully ate, joyfully saved from starvation ...

The glyph type hua poporo was used at Spica (Ana-roto, the Middle Pillar):

hua poporo	SPICA

... The plant is - according to bishop Jaussen's documentation of what Metoro Tau'a Ure told him - a species of the family of plants named Solanum. Barthel suggested the species to be Solanum nigrum. As nigrum means black, the glyph perhaps signified 'black'. Poporo was used for obtaining colour for tattooing ...

... Barthel informs us that the Maori singers in New Zealand, where the breadfruit did not grow, 'translated' kuru (= breadfruit) in the old songs - from the times when their forefathers lived in a warmer climate - into poporo. He points out that in the Marquesas they counted the fruits from the breadfruit trees in fours, perhaps thereby explaining the four 'berries' in this type of glyph. The breadfruit did not grow on Easter Island but the berries of Solanum nigrum were eaten in times of famine. Barthel compares with the word koporo on Mangareva. The poor crop of breadfruits at the end of the harvest season was called mei-koporo, where mei stood for breadfruit. On other islands breadfruit was called kuru, except in the Marquesas which also used the word mei. Koporo was a species of nightshade ...

At Ca1-2 Metoro said ki te hoea, which ought to refer to a place where tattooing instruments (hoea) were used, the implication being a movement down towards the Underworld:

... He continued travelling until he reached the house of Uetonga, whose name all men know: he was the tattoo expert of the world below, and the origin and source of all the tattoo designs in this world.

Uetonga was at work tattooing the face of a chief. This chief was lying on the ground with his hands clenched and his toes twitching while the father of Niwareka worked at his face with a bone of many sharpened points, and Mataora was greatly surprised to see that blood was flowing from the cheeks of that chief. Mataora had his own moko, it was done here in the world above, but it was painted on with ochre and blue clay. Mataora had not seen such moko as Uetonga was making, and he said to him, 'You are doing that in the wrong way, O old one. We do not do it thus.'

'Quite so,' replied Uetonga, 'you do not do it thus. But yours is the way that is wrong. What you do above there is tuhi, it is only fit for wood. You see,' he said, putting forth his hand to Mataora's cheek, 'it will rub off.' And Uetonga smeared Mataora's make-up with his fingers and spoiled its appearance. And all the people sitting round them laughed, and Uetonga with them ...

 

Uru Uru. 1. To lavish food on those who have contributed to the funerary banquet (umu pâpaku) for a family member (said of the host, hoa pâpaku). 2. To remove the stones which have been heated in the umu, put meat, sweet potatoes, etc., on top of the embers, and cover it with those same stones while red-hot. 3. The wooden tongs used for handling the red-hot stones of the umu. 4. To enter into (kiroto ki or just ki), e.g. he-uru kiroto ki te hare, he-uru ki te hare. 5. To get dressed: kahu uru. Vanaga. Uruga. Prophetic vision. It is said that, not long before the first missionaries' coming a certain Rega Varevare a Te Niu saw their arrival in a vision and travelled all over the island to tell it: He-oho-mai ko Rega Varevare a Te Niu mai Poike, he mimiro i te po ka-variró te kaiga he-kî i taana uruga, he ragi: 'E-tomo te haûti i Tarakiu, e-tomo te poepoe hiku regorego, e-tomo te îka ariga koreva, e-tomo te poporo haha, e-kiu te Atua i te ragi'. I te otea o te rua raá he-tu'u-hakaou ki Poike; i te ahi mo-kirokiro he-mate. Rega Varevare, son of Te Niu, came from Poike, and toured the island proclaiming his vision: 'A wooden house will arrive at Tarakiu (near Vaihú), a barge will arrive, animals will arrive with the faces of eels (i.e. horses), golden thistles will come, and the Lord will be heard in heaven'. The next morning he arrived back in Poike, and in the evening when it was getting dark, he died. Vanaga. He ui a Ira.ko te motu etoru.he ki a Ira.he ro korua e kau a repa e ku ketu ana te urunga.a Hau maka o to tatou matua.i hakahi mai ai kia au.ko nga kope ririva tutuu vai a te taanga.te ingoa o te motu ena etoru i nape ai e te kuhane o Hau maka. Ira saw that there were three such islets. Ira said, 'Hey you, crew of young men, the vision of Hau Maka, our father, which he revealed to me, has come true. There are 'the handsome sons of Te Taanga, who are standing in the water', for this is the name that the dream soul of Hau Maka gave them. (E:17) Uru manu. Those who do not belong to the Miru tribe and who, for that reason, are held in lesser esteem. Úru-úru. To catch small fish to use as bait. Uru-uru-hoa. Intruder, freeloader (person who enters someone else's house and eats food reserved for another). Vanaga. 1. To enter, to penetrate, to thread, to come into port (huru); uru noa, to enter deep. Hakauru, to thread, to inclose, to admit, to drive in, to graft, to introduce, penetrate, to vaccinate, to recruit. Akauru, to calk. Hakahuru, to set a tenon into the mortise, to dowel. Hakauruuru, to interlace; hakauruuru mai te vae, to hurry to. 2. To clothe, to dress, to put on shoes, a crown. Hakauru, to put on shoes, to crown, to bend sails, a ring. 3. Festival, to feast. 4. To spread out the stones of an oven. Uruuru, to expand a green basket. 5. Manu uru, kite. Uruga (uru 1). Entrance. Churchill. Ta.: uru, the human skull. Mq.: uu, the head. Sa.: ulu, id. Moriori: ulu, id. Uru, make even. Kapingamarangi.

... When the man, Ulu [Uru] returned to his wife from his visit to the temple at Puueo, he said, 'I have heard the voice of the noble Mo'o, and he has told me that tonight, as soon as darkness draws over the sea and the fires of the volcano goddess, Pele, light the clouds over the crater of Mount Kilauea, the black cloth will cover my head. And when the breath has gone from my body and my spirit has departed to the realms of the dead, you are to bury my head carefully near our spring of running water. Plant my heart and entrails near the door of the house. My feet, legs, and arms, hide in the same manner. Then lie down upon the couch where the two of us have reposed so often, listen carefully throughout the night, and do not go forth before the sun has reddened the morning sky. If, in the silence of the night, you should hear noises as of falling leaves and flowers, and afterward as of heavy fruit dropping to the ground, you will know that my prayer has been granted: the life of our little boy will be saved.' And having said that, Ulu fell on his face and died. His wife sang a dirge of lament, but did precisely as she was told, and in the morning she found her house surrounded by a perfect thicket of vegetation. 'Before the door,' we are told in Thomas Thrum's rendition of the legend, 'on the very spot where she had buried her husband's heart, there grew a stately tree covered over with broad, green leaves dripping with dew and shining in the early sunlight, while on the grass lay the ripe, round fruit, where it had fallen from the branches above. And this tree she called Ulu (breadfruit) in honor of her husband.  The little spring was concealed by a succulent growth of strange plants, bearing gigantic leaves and pendant clusters of long yellow fruit, which she named bananas. The intervening space was filled with a luxuriant growth of slender stems and twining vines, of which she called the former sugar-cane and the latter yams; while all around the house were growing little shrubs and esculent roots, to each one of which she gave an appropriate name. Then summoning her little boy, she bade him gather the breadfruit and bananas, and, reserving the largest and best for the gods, roasted the remainder in the hot coals, telling him that in the future this should be his food. With the first mouthful, health returned to the body of the child, and from that time he grew in strength and stature until he attained to the fullness of perfect manhood. He became a mighty warrior in those days, and was known throughout all the island, so that when he died, his name, Mokuola [Living Islet], was given to the islet in the bay of Hilo where his bones were buried; by which name it is called even to the present time ...