How Matariki is celebrated across Aotearoa
Sunday, 20 June 2021
Glenn McConnell heard from four families across Aotearoa to see how Matariki is marked and what it means to different whānau.
At 5am on Thursday, June 10, Professor Rangi Mātāmua spied two stars that heralded exciting news for followers of the Maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar.
Mātāmua, a Tūhoe astronomer who was awarded the Prime Minister’s Science Communication Prize in 2019, saw the first of the stars of Pipiri.
In basic Māori dictionaries, Pipiri is translated simply as “June”. But it is really the first month of the Māori New Year.
Acknowledged as a leading voice of the Maramataka, Mātāmua wrote to followers that morning to tell them “Whiro o Pipiri”, the first day of the new year, had begun.
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However, he said it was not yet time to celebrate Matariki. Whiro, recognised as the atua of death, darkness and evil, is generally a time to take things slowly.
And Matariki, the star cluster known in other parts of the world as Pleiades, was not yet visible. He says Matariki, the start of the Māori New Year, will not begin until July 2.
“Matariki is not celebrated until the Moon is in the Tangaroa phases. This will be from the 2nd to the 5th of July. By this stage Matariki will be high in the sky,” he says.
When Matariki does arrive, it will be the last Matariki to go unmarked by a public holiday. In 2022, the arrival of Matariki will be celebrated on June 24 with a day off.
Broadcaster Stacey Morrison and her husband, Te Karere’s Scotty Morrison, have an early start planned for Matariki. With their children, she says, they’ll be starting the new year with education and commemoration.
“Matariki can be quite personal, as well as engaging in public ceremonies and events.
“It’s a time to look at how you’re going to reset with this opportunity to assess and remember. One of the stars in Matariki, Hiwa-i-te-rangi, is a wishing star. I love that. I think everyone can connect with that. When you send your hopes to Hiwa-i-te-Rangi, you are taking stock of how the year has been for you so you can reset.
“We also remember those we have lost. I’ll be remembering our kuia, who passed just before lockdown last year. Our belief is that now her spirit will fly across the sky and be looked after by Pōhutukawa [one of the other stars of Matariki].
“We’ll get up at 4-something-am, with our clothes and everything ready. We’ll talk the kids through it … Our eldest daughter – she’s 12 – does think that atua Māori should get up at a more reasonable time. But they’ll be amongst it too.
“We’ll head up a mountain, having planned with the wānanga before. We’re going with whānau from our school and wānanga community. Up there we will have our karakia, which go for about half an hour, with a beautiful view. If anyone wants to say anything, to remember those they’ve lost, they’ll be able to do that, and then we might have waiata or karanga. After that, we’ll have a big breakfast together, and then we start our wānanga – we’re going to have a big learning day, learning te reo, with other families.
“To me, it’s about whānau. There’s a healing aspect to Matariki, and so unity is important. My friend wants to go to a concert – I don’t know if I’ll make it that late.”
In Ōtautahi, Rex Morgan is looking out to the stars. He thinks he might have seen Matariki, but he’s unsure. Astronomy is not his strong point. He is, after all, a chef, and he’s celebrating the Māori New Year with food and friends.
“I always heard of Matariki from the elders. I had a great uncle who used to live by the Maramataka, with his kūmara farm in Te Puke. He used to cook hāngī every day. That’s how he lived.
“I’ve been a chef for 35 years or so. About 15 years ago, when I had my first restaurant, we did a Matariki-themed menu to acknowledge things Māori. It wasn’t until I started cooking, then people started to talk about celebrating Matariki more.
“The idea of Matariki is celebrating the living and those who have passed. To me, it was not so much about astrology, but about celebrating great things Māori. It’s about acknowledging our history and ancestors.
“I was brought up with hāngī and things like that. When I think Matariki, I think hāngī – it’s been a big influence on what I do. I love smoked food, earthy flavours and a bit of bush spices. Something like kawakawa or horopito, when you can find it, or seaweed. Even though I was French-trained, I look to use these. Horopito has a pepper flavour, so when I see something with pepper in it, you can replace it with horopito, and it gives a unique flavour.
“I come from Te Arawa, in Rotorua, and Kai Tahu, from down south here. I was brought up on the marae. My dad had 16 brothers and sisters, so we always had cousins around. We always had something happening on the marae, so those cousins – about 80 or 90 of them – were like brothers and sisters. That’s what Matariki is to me: sharing, kapa haka, cooking a nice kai, remembering the old and our aunties, uncles, grandparents who have gone before us. That’s what Matariki is about for me.”
Eight years ago, Maxine Grahan’s life changed as she travelled Aotearoa to learn from different hapū and tohunga about te ao Māori. Now, she sees it as her goal to pass on that knowledge to her children back in Kirikiriroa.
“I grew up in Australia. I am Māori, but this is all fairly new. But I think it’s ‘knew’, rather than ‘new’, because it is familiar to me. It is walking back to what my ancestors meant for me to be doing.
“From my Hauraki whakapapa, Dr Korohere Ngapo brings us together to honour Te Mātahi o te Tau – the beginning of the year. This year, it’s on the 4th and 5th of July. So, we will go back to Hauraki where he’ll have a fire going. We tuku, we write the names of the loved ones we have passed and we let them go. We say their names out loud, and then we finish with a hākari.
“My daughter has been asking, ‘When are we going for the ahi?’ She wants to say koro’s name. Last year we lost my father-in-law; this year we will honour him and let him go.
“That means a lot to me. It makes me feel like I’m doing something right as a parent – normalising our tikanga.”
Professor Rangi Mātāmua is renowned as an expert on Matariki and the Maramataka. For him, Matariki is not a one-day thing. It’s a whole week of events, commemoration and celebration. On July 2 he’ll start the Māori New Year before dawn.
“Every year, I am on top of a hill with groups conducting karakia for Matariki, cooking food for Matariki and going through the traditional ceremony. I’ll be going round various events celebrating for about a week. These ceremonies are based on three things:
Remembering those we have lost since the last light of Matariki. We remember them and call out their names.
Celebrating the present. With food, festivities, music and all the things we enjoy doing.
Planning for the future. It’s a time to get ready for the new year. We talk about what we’ll do, and even resolutions.
“Since June 10, we have been in Pipiri – the first month of the Māori year – but the ‘new year’ is different. We celebrate the new year from July 2 this year.
“We don’t acknowledge it until then because Pipiri started in the phase of Whiro, the god of death and darkness. In a Māori mindset, you don’t celebrate anything during that phase as it is such a sinister time. In the last quarter, when the Moon wanes and just one half of it is bright while the other is dark, that is the moment when everything peaks, and we celebrate the Māori New Year.
“The lunar cycle fluctuates between good and bad, and the end of the month focuses on the major Māori atua that give substance such as Tangaroa, god of the sea, Tāne, god of the forest, and Rongo, god of the garden. It’s a six-, seven-day celebration.”