x
Home
Search
Topics
Almanac
Science
Nature
People
History
Society
Signup
Login
HOME
TOPICS
ALMANAC
SCIENCE
NATURE
PEOPLE
HISTORY
SOCIETY
PHILOSOPHY
Matariki
Topic Home
Discussion
0
Encyclopedia
In the Māori language
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...

 Matariki is both the name of the Pleiades
Pleiades (star cluster)
In astronomy, the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters , is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky...

 star cluster
Star cluster
Star clusters or star clouds are groups of stars. Two types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of hundreds of thousands of very old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters, more loosely clustered groups of stars, generally contain less than...

 and also of the season of its first rising
Heliacal rising
The heliacal rising of a star occurs when it first becomes visible above the eastern horizon for a brief moment just before sunrise, after a period of time when it had not been visible....

 in late May or early June - taken as the beginning of the new year. Similar words occur in most Polynesian languages, deriving from Proto-Polynesian
Proto-Polynesian language
Proto-Polynesian, , is the hypothetical proto-language from which all the modern Polynesian languages descend. Historical linguists have reconstructed the language using the comparative method, in much the same manner as with Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afro-Asiatic...

 *mataliki, meaning minute, small, and the use of the term for the Pleiades constellation is also ancient and has been reconstructed to Eastern Oceanic.

Māori traditions

The constellation was important for navigation and timing the seasons. The first rising of the Pleiades and of Rigel
Rigel
Rigel is the brightest star in the constellation Orion and the sixth brightest star in the sky, with visual magnitude 0.18...

 (Puanga in Māori) occurs just prior to sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

rise in late May or early June. The actual time for the celebration of Matariki varies, some iwi
Iwi
In New Zealand society, iwi form the largest everyday social units in Māori culture. The word iwi means "'peoples' or 'nations'. In "the work of European writers which treat iwi and hapū as parts of a hierarchical structure", it has been used to mean "tribe" , or confederation of tribes,...

 (tribe or clan) celebrate it immediately, others wait until the rising of the next full moon
Full moon
Full moon lunar phase that occurs when the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. More precisely, a full moon occurs when the geocentric apparent longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180 degrees; the Moon is then in opposition with the Sun.Lunar eclipses can only occur at...

, or the dawn of the next new moon
New moon
In astronomical terminology, the new moon is the lunar phase that occurs when the Moon, in its monthly orbital motion around Earth, lies between Earth and the Sun, and is therefore in conjunction with the Sun as seen from Earth...

 - and others use the rising of Puanga/Rigel in a similar way.

In traditional times, Matariki was a season to celebrate and to prepare the ground for the coming year. Offerings of the produce of the land were made to the gods, including Rongo
Rongo
In Māori mythology, Rongo is a major god, the god of cultivated food, especially the kūmara, a vital food crop. Other food crops cultivated by Māori in traditional times include taro, yams , cordyline , and gourds . Because of their tropical origin, most of these crops were difficult to grow except...

, god of cultivated food. This time of the year was also a good time to instruct young people in the lore of the land and the forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

. In addition, certain birds and fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 were especially easy to harvest at this time.

The name Matariki is used also for the central star in the cluster, with the surrounding stars named Tupu-a-nuku, Tupu-a-rangi, Waiti, Waita, Waipunarangi and Ururangi.

Recent revival

Since The Māori Language Commission
Maori Language Commission
New Zealand's Māori Language Commission is an autonomous crown entity set up under the Māori Language Act 1987 with the following functions:...

 began a move in 2001 to "reclaim Matariki, or Aotearoa
Aotearoa
Aotearoa is the most widely known and accepted Māori name for New Zealand. It is used by both Māori and non-Māori, and is becoming increasingly widespread in the bilingual names of national organisations, such as the National Library of New Zealand / Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.-Translation:The...

 Pacific New Year
New Year
The New Year is the day that marks the time of the beginning of a new calendar year, and is the day on which the year count of the specific calendar used is incremented. For many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner....

, as an important focus for Māori language regeneration" it has increasingly become common practice for various private and public institutions to celebrate Matariki in a range of ways and over the period of a week or month
Month
A month is a unit of time, used with calendars, which was first used and invented in Mesopotamia, as a natural period related to the motion of the Moon; month and Moon are cognates. The traditional concept arose with the cycle of moon phases; such months are synodic months and last approximately...

 anywhere from early June to late august

National holiday proposals

With the wider recognition there have been proposals to make Matariki an official holiday in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 - in particular Māori Party
Maori Party
The Māori Party, a political party in New Zealand, was formed on 7 July 2004. The Party is guided by eight constitutional "kaupapa", or Party objectives. Tariana Turia formed the Māori Party after resigning from the Labour Party where she had been a Cabinet Minister in the Fifth Labour-led...

 MP Rahui Katene
Rahui Katene
Rahui Katene is a New Zealand politician. She was elected to the 49th New Zealand Parliament at the 2008 general election representing the Māori Party in the seat of Te Tai Tonga, but lost in the 2011 general election to Labour's Rino Tirikatene.- Ancestry :...

's private member's bill 'Te Ra o Matariki Bill/Matariki Day Bill' drawn from the ballot in June 2009.

The Bill would have fixed the date of a public holiday using the New Moon in June however this was later changed to the new moon of the helical rising of Matariki when the bill was drawn a month later and set down for introduction into parliament. Mayor of Waitakere
Mayor of Waitakere
The Mayor of Waitakere was the head of the municipal government of Waitakere City, New Zealand, and presided over the Waitakere City Council. Waitakere City was New Zealand's fifth largest city. It was part of the Auckland region...

 City Bob Harvey
Bob Harvey (mayor)
Robert "Bob" Harvey QSO is the mayor of Waitakere City, one of the four cities which make up the Auckland urban area in New Zealand...

 supported the call to make Matariki a public holiday to replace Queen's Birthday, along with the Republican Movement
Republican Movement of Aotearoa New Zealand
The Republican Movement of Aotearoa New Zealand is an organisation formed in 1994 whose object is to support the creation of a New Zealand republic . It is Chaired by Lewis Holden. The patron of the Movement is Keri Hulme, a New Zealand writer famous for her 1985 Booker Prize winning novel The Bone...

, which found none of New Zealand's local authorities held celebrations for Queen's Birthday, but many held celebrations for Matariki. However, the Bill was voted down at its first reading.

Matariki (2010 Film)

A 2010 New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 drama film set in Otara
Otara
Ōtara is a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, situated 18 kilometres to the southeast of the Auckland CBD. Ōtara lies near the head of the Tāmaki River , which extends south towards the Manukau Harbour...

, South Auckland. Starring: Sara Wiseman
Sara Wiseman
Sara Wiseman is a New Zealand actor living and working in New Zealand.-Film:* Matariki .... Megan* The Insatiable Moon .... Margaret* Jinx Sister .... Laura* This Is Her .... Sandra...

, Susana Tang, Alix Bushnell
Alix Bushnell
Alix Bushnell is a New Zealand actress, best known for her role as "Britta McMann" on the television series, Go Girls.-Early life:...

 and Jason Wu.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
Silverdale Interactive © 2024. All Rights Reserved.
 
x
OK