Discovering the intricacies of Matariki, mātauranga later in life

Thursday, 23 July 2020

Dr Dan Hikuroa, a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland's Te Wānanga o Waipapa grew up with no connection to his ancestral knowledge.

OPINION: Matariki – once a critical part of Māori society, effectively outlawed for a time by the Tohunga Suppression Act, has in recent times experienced a huge resurgence.

I grew up in Auckland disconnected from my marae, from ancestral knowledge, ritual and practice, including Matariki.

I first recall hearing about Matariki in the early 2000s, right as I was really beginning to engage with mātauranga - Māori knowledge, culture values and worldview - through working with Māori communities and colleagues.

What I remember is Matariki being described as ‘the Māori New Year’, that it fell on ‘one day’, that it referred to the group of stars known elsewhere as Subaru, Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, and that similarly, there were seven stars in Matariki.

In subsequent years I then learnt that often there was a dawn ceremony with karakia and that flying kites and having a kai were part of the ceremony. I also recall Auckland City really getting into it – organising many Matariki events.

Fast-forward to today, Matariki, which has between seven and nine stars, is not the only New Year marker. With Puanga/Puaka/Puangarua (Rigel) the key tohu for some groups it is better referred to as the ‘Matariki/Puanga’ day or days, not just a single ‘day’, and that the days and specific signals for marking the New Year varied across the country.

What appears to be consistent is that whatever stellar signal was used, its rise occurred after the winter solstice. What is also apparent is that there is a huge national interest in Matariki/Puanga.

Matariki has become a widely accepted festival across the country. (First published, September 25, 2020.)

But due to the variation between tribal groups, there is also a lot of confusion about what Matariki/Puanga is/are, how the New Year is defined and how it is acknowledged in wider New Zealand society.

In the past 20 years since I first encountered Matariki, coincident with its increasing public interest, there has been the emergence of ‘newly remembered’ yet ancient knowledge.

I have been fortunate to have spent time with some of those sharing that knowledge, in particular Professor Rangi Matamua and Matua Rereata Makiha.

What I am now aware of is that the vast mātauranga, regarding Matariki and Puanga, is only one small part of the wider, deep and detailed knowledge of the Maramataka – the lunar-stellar-ecological calendar that marked time – months, nights of the lunar months and a detailed schedule of activities.

One widely held major misconception is that Māori followed one universal lunar calendar and observed the moon phases, seasons and New Year in exactly the same way, at the same time, across Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Rangi Matamua shares the way Tūhoe mark the new year in his seminal work Matariki – The Star of the Year (from which I have drawn some information for this piece). Matariki is celebrated when the Matariki group of stars rises in the pre-dawn, in the month of Pipiri, in the Tangaroa phase (last quarter).

According to mātauranga Māori experts from the far north, the New Year starts during the first full moon, called Rākaunui, for some. This follows the appearance of Te Puanga, and when the tide is incoming, called the Taipari (Rereata Makiha in Harris et al. 2013).

The Matariki cluster will send Aotearoa a new public holiday in 2022.

As best I can tell, the reason we have Puanga as a marker for some and Matariki for others is twofold – firstly Puanga is a first order magnitude star meaning it is quite bright, whereas Matariki are third order magnitude so not as bright.

Secondly it is geographical. For many tribal groups Matariki is the first visible group of stars to rise in the east in the pre-dawn following the winter solstice, for others it is Puanga.

Something I have learnt recently is that Matariki was a time when you acknowledged those who had passed in the previous year. Another is that Matariki is a time to remember the past, celebrate the present and look forward to prosperity in the future.

Amidst all the amazing things occurring around Matariki, one of the challenges I see moving forward is clarifying the whakapapa of its name. For many years it was widely accepted that the name meant ‘Little Eyes’ – this meaning was attributed to the ethnographer Elsdon Best.

Instead, my preference is for ‘Ngā Mata o te Ariki Tawhirimatea’ – ‘The Eyes of the god Tawhirimatea’, as detailed in Rangi Matamua’s seminal book ‘Matariki – The Star of the Year’. This is not because it is more poetic or mentions an atua, but because it derives from mātauranga and has rich detail. It is not just a simple guess by someone a long time ago.

Another challenge is to ensure we don’t try to colonise it by trying to ‘universalise’ it. We should respect its variability, and look to mana whenua as the authorities wherever we are, and be guided by them.

I think that would be a great way for our communities to celebrate Māori New Year – by empowering and resourcing mana whenua to take the lead.

What better way to enable them to lead than by having Māori New Year as a public holiday?

Dr Daniel Hikuroa is a senior lecturer for the University of Auckland's Te Wānanga o Waipapa and the culture commissioner for the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO. He is of Ngati Maniapoto and Waikato-Tainui.