Matariki: the past, the present, and the future
This article was first published in the Wairarapa's community newspaper, the Midweek, on Wednesday 19 June 2024.
Stars that are the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea
Matariki is a celebration to mark the mid-winter rising of the cluster of stars heralding the Māori New Year in Aotearoa. It is not only a day of celebration and a statutory holiday (on Friday 28 June this year) but also a period of weeks or even months of significance.
Traditionally, Matariki has been a time to acknowledge those who have passed and release their spirits to become stars. It’s also a time to reflect, to be thankful to the gods for the harvest, to feast, to share the bounty of the harvest with family (whānau) and friends, and to think about the future while celebrating the Māori New Year (te Mātahi au te Tau).
The word Matariki is an abbreviation of ngā mata o te ariki Tāwhirimātea (the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea) and refers to the cluster of stars known in some European traditions as the Pleiades.
The Pleiades cluster took its name from pleiad, the ancient Greek word for sail, because its appearance in the morning northern sky heralded the beginning of sailing season. The Pleaides cluster is made up of the ancient Greek god Atlas, his wife Pleione, and their seven daughters: Alcyone, Maia, Electra, Taygeta, Merope, Asterope and Celaeno.
Almost every culture has a name and a story about this cluster of stars. Māori legend has it that Tāwhirimātea (the god of the wind) was so angry when his siblings separated their parents, Ranginui the sky father and Papatūānuku the earth mother, that he tore out his own eyes and threw them into the heavens, forming the Matariki cluster.
The first sightings of Matariki are traditionally greeted with expressions of grief for those who had died since its last appearance.
Once the time of grief is over, the emphasis of Matariki shifts to celebration. Because Matariki takes place at the end of harvesting, there is an abundant supply of food for feasting. People rejoice, sing, and dance to celebrate the change of season and the potential for new beginnings. It is also a time of planning for the year ahead.
Matariki celebrations throughout the rohe of Kahungunu are planned between 7 June to 13 July. Wairarapa, for example, celebrates with a Tīrama Matariki Light Glow event on 12 and 13 July to be held at Masterton’s QEII Park from 6 to 8 pm. Entry is free. The Light Glow will include light displays, kai, entertainment, and remembrance.
Matariki at Stonehenge Aotearoa
“For more than 6,000 years throughout the northern hemisphere, the dawn rising of the star cluster, often known as Pleiades or the Seven Sisters, has been a significant and celebrated event. It heralded the spring equinox and the beginning of the seasons,” Richard Hall says.
Kay Leather adds that this tradition “was carried into the Pacific, with Māori celebrating the star cluster as Matariki.”
Englishman Richard and Kiwi-born Kay met while working at Carter Observatory, got together around 2000, and opened Stonehenge Aotearoa to the public in 2005. Before South Wairarapa and Carterton skies were designated a Dark Sky Reserve, the couple spent time educating locals and tourists alike about the special nature of our local skies.
Richard was brought up “in a little Norman village in England that has since been swallowed up by London.” He made New Zealand his home about 50 years ago and started working for the Carter Observatory in the 1980s. His love of astronomy began as a boy with binoculars, and he soon became a member of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Kay was a teacher at Karori West Normal school. She took some courses at the Carter observatory then applied to become an education officer. Kay and Richard’s joint love of the stars, along with their understanding of the role that stars have played in human civilisation, are unmistakable.
“Stonehenge Aotearoa is a way of revealing ancient traditions and the origins of civilisation,” Kay explains.
Stone circles were built by hunter-gathers from different tribes. “They were meeting places for tribes that survived using the sun, moon, and stars to guide their nomadic journeys. Different stones were placed by, and represented, each tribe. The stone circles gave rise to the first permanent settlements as well as agriculture. They marked the celestial bodies that told them when to plant, when to harvest, and when to sail. The stars would tell them when the rains were likely to come and when animals would appear.”
Pleiades and Matariki are also highly related to survival in relation to the abundance of food. In Aotearoa New Zealand, Matariki takes place at the end of harvesting with (usually) an abundant supply of food for feasting. Matariki has conventionally also been a time for planning of the planting for the year ahead. If the stars are clear and bright, it signals a favourable and productive season ahead, and so planting can begin in September. If the stars appear hazy and closely bunched together, a cold winter is in store and so planting could be put off until October.
Matariki is important to Richard and Kay, and Stonehenge Aotearoa is their special place that can put people “in touch with our history.”
“A tour at Stonehenge is an opportunity for people to experience what their ancestors experienced,” Kay says. We can learn about cycles of nature, movements of celestial bodies and archeoastronomy, how our ancestors understood the phenomenon in the sky, and how they used this phenomenon and what role the sky played in their cultures.
Close to Carterton, Stonehenge Aotearoa is built to the same scale as its famous Northern Hemisphere namesake at Salisbury Plain in England. Here, visitors can grab a map and take a self-guided walk around the stones or book in for a daytime or evening tour to hear how our earliest ancestors made sense of the sky.