A Maori elder shares the stories of Matariki
Thanks to his scholarship and mastery of both western science and mātauranga Māori, Professor Rangi Mātāmua led a renaissance in Te Ao Māori and a new awareness in the Western world of the star cluster that it knows as the Pleiades.
Tom Roa
Our Waikato-Maniapoto-Tainui ancestors recognised that there are hundreds of stars visible to the naked eye in the cluster and focussed on seven – Matariki, Waitī, Waitā, Ururangi, Waipunārangi, Tupuānuku and Tupuārangi.
Matanuku’s Tuhoe ancestors spoke and wrote of another two, Pohutukawa and Hiwaiterangi,
According to ancestral narratives the brightest star in the centre of the cluster, Matariki, married Rehua (Antares) and is the mother of the other six (eight) stars of the cluster.
The first appearance before sunrise of Matariki in the north-eastern sky, in the Tangaroa phase of the lunar month, marks the beginning of the Māori year – this year on July 10 – and is celebrated with our Matariki Māori New Year holiday thanks to the professor’s scholarly research and his publicising of that research far and wide.
Other iwi, primarily those on the West Coast of the North Island, mark their New Year with the rise of Puanga, (Rigel) who appears just before Matariki.
This is the fifth year of the holiday celebration. Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei will host the national event at Takaparawhau in Auckland Tāmaki-makau-rau. Karanga, karakia,and kōrero will start the ‘hautapu’ celebrations and subsequent festivities. Other iwi, hapū, whānau, will celebrate the Māori New Year in their own way over the next few days.
Professor Matamua’s introduction of the ‘hautapu’ concept piqued my curiosity. Following a conversation with him I contacted various of my elders and peers of the Waikato-King Country and reflected with them on the ‘hautapu’ with a view to suggesting we might follow the professor’s example in reviving the practice.
Unsurprisingly most of my elders (and I!) knew little to nothing of the hautapu – merely that it was an ancient practice that they/we never witnessed. At one wānanga the suggestion was that Matariki rose while tribal Whare Wānanga were in session in the wintertime. So those ceremonies would have been conducted by tohunga, and not observed by the ‘ordinary’ people. Hence they were ‘tapu’.
Following that advice, I suggested we might introduce a Māori New Year celebration that would not be ‘tapu’, that we might call a ‘hau-tū’. ‘Hautū’ can be interpreted as ‘to lead’. So this celebration without any accompanying heavy ‘tapu’ would lead out the New Year, acknowledging all that has passed with the old year, looking forward to a ‘happy new year’!
Mānawatia a Matariki!
The night sky and Matariki cluster shine above the silhouette of a wharenui. Photo: Supplied
A Maori elder shares the stories of Matariki
