Editorial: Finding ourselves under Matariki

Friday, 10 July 2026

EDITORIAL: In the beginning were Ranginui and Papatūānuku, the primordial Sky Father and Earth Mother. Locked in a tight embrace, they bore more than 70 children.

Over time, those children grew restless living in darkness. They longed to know what it might be like to live in the light. Eventually they resolved to separate their parents. There were many attempts, but it was Tāne Mahuta, god of the forests, who finally forced them apart. Yet once the world was opened, it was not as the children had imagined. There was cold, darkness and emptiness, followed by floods from the tears of their grieving parents.

One sibling had opposed the plan from the beginning: Tāwhirimātea, the god of wind and storms. Furious that his parents had been torn apart, he declared war on his brothers. After a great battle he was defeated by Tūmatauenga, the ancestor of humanity and god of war. Enraged, Tāwhirimātea tore out his eyes, crushed them and cast them into the heavens. Those fragments became the Matariki cluster, a reminder of his enduring anger.

So goes one account of Matariki's origins. There are others. Another well-known tradition tells of Matariki as a family of stars associated with the changing seasons.

When the then Prime Minister, Dame Jacinda Ardern, took the policy of making Matariki a national holiday to the 2020 election, it was very on-brand. A new holiday for a new nation, reflecting Labour’s commitment to its vision of te ao Māori as well as Dame Jacinda’s personal brand of forward looking progressivism, and, at the time in the middle of the pandemic, political kindness. The holiday follows the Māori lunar calendar, with its date changing each year to coincide with the pre-dawn rising of the Matariki star cluster in midwinter.

The first public holiday was celebrated in 2022. This year marks only its fifth observance. At the time there was predictable debate. Employers questioned the cost of another statutory holiday.

And there has also been some pooh-poohing and sniffiness from certain corners, that, for instance, the Matariki cluster is actually what is known as Pleiades which dates back to Greek antiquity. But so what? This completely misses the point.

The sun and the moon are also known by different names in cultures and civilisations. This is what Māori knew the star grouping as, in these lands and upon the seas. What Matariki does is invest that constellation with local meaning and give us good reason to celebrate New Zealandness. The fact that the holiday is held in the middle of winter also, coincidentally, seems to somehow gel with the more flinty protestant heritage brought to New Zealand by its particular band of earlier European settlers.

Aotearoa New Zealand now has four principal public holidays related to the state: Waitangi Day, commemorating our founding document; Anzac Day, recognising the sacrifice of war for the state; King's Birthday, recognising our constitutional head of state; and Matariki.

Public holidays are more than just days off. They are moments when a country reflects on itself. Waitangi Day carries the weight and complexity of our history - and the signing of a document with huge political historical importance. Anzac Day, the memory of the dead and wounded; King's Birthday, while constitutionally important, has become little more than a long weekend for most New Zealanders.

Matariki is evolving into something different. Schools organise performances, evening celebrations and star walks. Families gather before dawn. New traditions are emerging, from community festivals to children enthusiastically singing Matariki songs. The one to the tune of the Macarena is fast becoming a favourite. And with all new social changes, or rediscovered traditions, it is often children teaching their parents.

But above all else this still new celebration is a new step on the pathway of what Aotearoa New Zealand is. It is a young, frontier country where both Māori and pakeha explorers and later generations of settlers and migrants have come to - not for religious freedom as in the United States, or as convicts, as in Australia. But to forge new societies and lives in a far-flung and at-times unforgiving land.

That is something worth celebrating. Mānawatia a Matariki.