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1000 people gather at Takaparawhau

Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei held a Umu Kohukohu Whetū, a traditional ceremonial offering to mark the rise of Matariki inviting members of the public to join them.Ranginui, the sky father, eventually cleared the skies and Tāwhirimatea and made sure the wind was low for the occasion, so that Matariki could be seen glistening in the morning sky.Today marks the first day in most Maramataka, of the Tangaroa phase, when Matariki is most known and best recorded to be seen and marked, celebrations begin an...

Matariki:

Instead, it was when Rereata Makiha, Papa Ral to many, years ago told me to show up, microphone in hand, to a random university lecture hall. He gave no other information. I, of course, did what I was told, and rolled up with no idea what was about to happen. My mind was about to be blown.I heard about this magical cluster of stars that our ancestors looked to mark te matahi o te tau - the new year - as it aligned with our lunar calendar. It all made absolute sense. Of course. I will never forge...

Matariki's key elements

Indigenous studies and Māori cultural astronomy academic Professor Rangi Mātāmua (Ngāi Tūhoe) told First Up Matariki is the earliest and best recorded history of a group of stars in humanity."There's a cave painting that's 17,000 years old in France that marks the Pleiades and right across the globe cultures used its rising and setting to mark change of season or harvest or planting or celebration."The Pacific and Polynesia used Matariki as a marker of change of season, he said."W...

A Taranaki town showcasing its talents

A north Taranaki community group is working to restore the future and fortune of its town, starting with its artists.Waitara Co-operative, a group in which members pay to have co-ownership, is hosting an art exhibition at Matariki weekend to boost numbers and showcase Waitara talent.“The goal is to return Waitara to the community it once was when it was a thriving community and people had money, and it was a genuine sense of community,” co-operative founder Arno Percival said.Percival said a...

'Whānau are at breaking point':

The charitable trust is asking the public to donate $15 each, which will help to feed a child for one week.The funding will go towards feeding 15 percent of children in New Zealand who live with food insecurity.KidsCan's founder and chief executive Julie Chapman said families on low incomes were doing it tougher than ever before."They can't absorb the rising cost of living, and by the end of the week the food runs out. It's an awful way to live," Chapman said.The cost-of-living crisis was also a...

Te Matau a Māui iwi

Iwi across Te-Matau-a-Māui or Hawke's Bay are making big investments in orchards, bringing whānau back to their whenua.They hope this new kaupapa will bring their people jobs.Roimata King works at Ngāti Pāhuwera's Pākuratahi orchard near Tangoio, just north of Ahuriri or Napier.She moved to Te-Matau-a-Māui from an infant formula industry job in Waikato to join her whānau."I've got my grandmother who works here with me, I've got my sister, cousins," she said.She said work such as this was ...

Puanga

Puanga (Rigel) is Taranaki’s tohu of the new year. In our rohe, it is said to be the oldest star in the sky which is why she leads these celestial bodies into te tau hou. The traditions surrounding her are almost as abundant as the stars themselves, each celebrating her relationship to the world as we know it. Some have her as the wife of Rehua (Antares), the tohu of summer, and claim puawānanga (White clematis) as the child of these two lovers, the flower blooming in the months between ...

Māori astronomer says first Matariki public holiday

Aleading Māori astronomer believes grandchildren and descendants will look back on the first Matariki public holiday and say it's a moment in our national history where we came of age.It comes as preparations and celebrations are well underway to mark the beginning of the Māori New Year. A six-minute immersive light show at Auckland's Stardome is illuminating the core values of Matariki by shining a spotlight on the star cluster that heralds the Māori New Year."Remembering who we have lo...

The changing lives of our children:

Gone are the days when little ones spent their preschool years at home. So who’s looking after our children and what effect does this have on their development? FRANK FILM reports.For Sally Burt, mornings are a busy flurry of getting her little ones ready for preschool and out the door.Four-year-old Cole and two-year-old Bo spend four days a week at Fundamentals Early Childhood Education (ECE) centre in Merivale, Christchurch. Cole was eight months old when he went into preschool, and Bo had j...

New head of steam keeps rising

Hautapu is a name recently rediscovered in Waikato for an old Matariki ceremony involving feeding the constellation’s whetū (stars) with steam (hautapu) from an oven.It’s a term Matariki expert and astronomer Dr Rangi Mātāmua has acknowledged was revived at Rāwhitiroa Marae in the Wharepuhunga rohe, south of Te Awamutu, by the Ngāti Takihiku hapū.The hapū’s Paraone Gloyne – a Ngāti Raukawa te reo and tikanga expert also recognised nationally as a rangatira in kapa haka – said i...

Matariki

Link to book purchase: Aotearoa Books | Matariki Around the World...

Celebrating Matariki

In celebration of Matariki, Māori astronomer Professor Rangi Matamua (Ngāi Tūhoe) and journalist Miriama Kamo (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mutunga) have come together to create a new children's book, Matariki Around the World (with illustrations by Isobel Te Aho-White), which explores the origins of the Matariki cluster through nine name whetū (stars) and includes stories about the same star cluster from the Pacific Islands to Australia, Asia, the Americas, Europe and Africa.Kamo is an awar...

'We can begin to plant kūmara':

I remember being woken up around midnight by one of my grandmothers, Mini Tupara.“E Witsh, get up.”I was a young boy, 9 at the time, and this memory comes from the early 1950s. Mum and Dad lived in Gisborne, so I must have been visiting Nani Mini at Waituhi. As I dressed I could see outside the window people carrying lamps and walking up the hill opposite, where Tākitimu marae was.Link to article: 'We can begin to plant kūmara': Witi Ihimaera on his favourite Matariki metaphor | ...

No-one wants to see a ‘Matariki Big Mac’:

With Matariki around the corner, Māori cultural advisers, academics, and the Government are warning businesses to avoid commercialising the mid-winter holiday.Skye Kimura is chief executive of Tātou, a Māori cultural marketing and communications agency.Recently, Kimura became concerned at a number of client briefs asking the agency to “leverage Matariki” as a marketing opportunity, and she decided to do something about it.“We are trying to tell people that Matariki is not a selling oppo...

Take Five:

The new awareness among non-Māori of the Matariki mid-winter celebrations is also a reminder of how strongly people of the past related to the natural world.In these days when atomic clocks keep time with an accuracy of about a second every 100 million years, most of the recurring patterns in the night sky are unknown to many of us.Matariki is a chance to correct that in a small way, even if our modern understanding of what we’re looking at is markedly different to the concepts our ...

Matariki night market

Timaru’s main street will come alive with buskers, kapa haka performances, fire dancers, light installations and more than 60 food and craft stalls for the second annual Matariki night market.Organised by the Timaru CBD Group and Timaru Artisan Farmers Market, the event follows a successful market in 2021 when more than 2000 people attended the festivities.Organisers hope to build on that success this year, and CBD Group experience and enhancement working group chairperson Tim Black said ...

Matariki at Britomart

Celebrate Matariki with a range of activations taking place over a few days at Britomart, including kapa haka, all-day music, food trucks and markets. See what's happening and when below.Kapa Haka by Te Wharekura o Hoani Waititi Marae | Takutai Square, June 22 & 29, 12.15pm and 1.15pmEnjoy dynamic, live kapa haka performances in celebration of Matariki. The champion kapa haka performers from Hoani Waititi Marae bring two show-stopping lunchtime kapa haka performances to Britomart. The kapa ...

Air New Zealand to launch mixed reality

National carrier Air New Zealand is launching a mixed reality Matariki exhibition in which attendees will be able to take to the sky without leaving the room.The celebration of the Māori New Year will be held at Canterbury Museum on June 18 and 19, followed by Te Puia in Rotorua from June 22.The airline's senior cultural development manager Jahmaine Cummings-Hodge is excited to take people on the journey using Magic Leap headsets that integrate the real world into the virtual.Pou Tikanga, Pou P...

Māori All Blacks

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Māori author Ataria Sharman

There are fierce Māori warriors with sharpened teeth and huge pitch-black eyes. Also, a friendly moa, a giant eagle, a tribe of kea. We meet Maui’s grumpy grandmother, an enchanted dog, a terrifying sorcerer intent on world domination.Hine and the Tohunga Portal, $25, is the first book by Ataria Sharman (Tapuika, Ngāpuhi) - a pacy fantasy adventure shortlisted in the Best First Book category at the upcoming New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.Sharman has a master of arts in...

Marae invites community

Toi Maori (Maori art), local purakau (stories) and the cosmos are set to converge at the Bluff marae, under the Matariki stars.During Matariki, Te Rau Aroha Marae in Bluff will host a four-day event, from June 23-26, to celebrate the significant time for Maori with the Murihiku community.Matariki is the Maori name for the cluster of stars also known as Pleiades, which rises in June and signals the Maori New Year.Project leader Jay Coote said it was a time to remember those who had died since las...

‘Portal to the old world’:

As the crisp morning dawns, tangata whenua and the surrounding community will gather at the world’s only traditional māra kai replica, known as Te Parapara. The food garden will be Waikato’s launching site for Matariki celebrations during a dawn ceremony on Friday, ahead of Aotearoa’s first Matariki public holiday. For Ngāti Wairere researcher, Wiremu Puke, Te Parapara acts as a portal from past to present and a legacy project of his late father, Hare Puke. He sa...

Matariki 2022:

A Māori entity is celebrating Matariki by showing off some of Aotearoa's most unique products and services at an event starting this weekend.The Top 50 Māori Products in Aotearoa showcase will kick off tomorrow.Ngahere Communities - made up of nine wahine staff members - was approached by powerhouse online shopping platform Shopify when it heard Matariki was going to be a public holiday in New Zealand.Chief executive Mel Tautalanoa said: "Shopify is a Canadian company [that] has genu...

Calls for wider rollout of

The partnership, which ran for a year, saw a police officer, paramedic and mental health clinician attend emergency mental health callouts in the same vehicle. A "first of its kind" in New Zealand, the co-response team saw a reduction in the number of people being taken straight to a police station or emergency department. Calls for the partnership to continue in Wellington and nationally come after figures obtained by 1News under the Official Information Act show an 87% jump in t...

Hongi to Hāngī:

Ever wondered why Māori hongi, or why women sit behind men in a pōwhiri? A new series from TVNZ aims to demystify te ao Māori while also showcasing the beauty of Māori culture along the way. Hongi to Hāngī and Everything in Between is hosted by TVNZ’s Tamati Rimene-Sproat.Link to video: Hongi to Hāngī: New series to demystify te ao Māori (1news.co.nz)...