Matariki, the Pleiades and the Māori New Year

The return of Matariki

Matariki disappears into the evening twilight, then returns before dawn in midwinter to begin the year.

Te Papa (opens in a new tab) describes Matariki setting in the west in the evening around the beginning of winter and vanishing in the Sun's light, then reappearing about a month later on the eastern horizon just before sunrise. Its reappearance coincides with midwinter and marks te Mātahi o te Tau, the Māori New Year; many communities wait for the lunar period of Tangaroa to observe it.

It is a time, Te Papa says (opens in a new tab), to gather, to honour the dead, to celebrate the present and to plan for the future. For the ancestors of Māori it came at the coldest time of year, when the harvest was in and stored for winter.

Sources for this section Te Papa Tongarewa, What is Matariki? (opens in a new tab)

The name

Matariki is ‘the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea’.

Te Papa notes that the ethnologist Elsdon Best translated Matariki as “little eyes”, but that the name comes from Ngā mata o te ariki Tāwhirimātea (opens in a new tab), the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea.

When Tāne separated the sky father and earth mother, Tāwhirimātea (opens in a new tab) fought his brothers to keep his parents together; defeated by Tūmatauenga, he tore out his eyes in rage and grief and threw them into the sky, where they became the stars of Matariki.

Sources for this section Te Papa Tongarewa, What is Matariki? (opens in a new tab)

Seven stars or nine?

Both: different iwi share different kōrero, and Te Papa acknowledges nine.

Te Papa (opens in a new tab) answers the question “seven or nine?” with “both”. Seven are Matariki, Pōhutukawa, Tupuānuku, Tupuārangi, Waitī, Waitā and Ururangi; nine adds Waipunarangi and Hiwa-i-te-Rangi.

Accounts differ because different iwi share different kōrero (opens in a new tab). Guided by the iwi in its residence programme, and because Matariki is visible in its own rohe, Te Papa acknowledges nine.

Te Papa (opens in a new tab) adds that Matariki is the name of the whole cluster and of its brightest star, also known as Alcyone, seen as the mother of the others.

Sources for this section Te Papa Tongarewa, The Matariki star cluster: are there seven or nine stars? (opens in a new tab) · ; Te Papa Tongarewa, What is Matariki? (opens in a new tab)

Puanga

Some iwi herald the New Year with Puanga, the star Rigel, instead.

Not every iwi looks to Matariki. As Che Wilson of Whanganui explains for Te Papa (opens in a new tab), the tribes of Whanganui, Taranaki and parts of the Far North and the South Island recognise Puanga, the star Rigel, because from their land Matariki is hard to see clearly, and Puanga is the next important star near it.

Dates differ too: Māori kept a maramataka (opens in a new tab), a calendar guided by the Moon's phases and the natural world, so the Matariki period varies from year to year and from place to place.

Sources for this section Che Wilson, The difference between Puanga and Matariki, Te Papa Tongarewa (opens in a new tab) · ; Te Papa Tongarewa, The Matariki star cluster: are there seven or nine stars? (opens in a new tab)

A public holiday

Since 2022 Matariki has been a public holiday, the first to recognise te ao Māori.

Matariki became a public holiday under the Te Kāhui o Matariki Public Holiday Act 2022 (opens in a new tab).

Te Papa (opens in a new tab) notes that it is the first public holiday in Aotearoa New Zealand to recognise te ao Māori, the Māori world.

Sources for this section Te Kāhui o Matariki Public Holiday Act 2022, New Zealand Legislation (opens in a new tab) · ; Te Papa Tongarewa, What is Matariki? (opens in a new tab)

In the sky today

The cluster is the Pleiades in Taurus; midwinter in Aotearoa is midsummer in the north.

The Pleiades are an open cluster (opens in a new tab) of more than a thousand stars, easy to see with the unaided eye from a dark site, on the back of Taurus; Rigel is Orion's bright foot.

The Matariki season is a Southern Hemisphere one: midwinter in Aotearoa comes in June and July, when the Northern Hemisphere is in summer. Te Papa (opens in a new tab) also lists other peoples' names for the cluster, from Subaru in Japan to Krittika in India, each with its own meaning.

Sources for this section NASA Hubble, Messier 45 (the Pleiades) (opens in a new tab) · ; Te Papa Tongarewa, What is Matariki? (opens in a new tab)