Would you believe it if I told you that there are more than one New Year’s day in a year?!!
I’ve always known Jan 1 to be the beginning of a new year not until I traveled abroad for my study in New Zealand.
Then, I began to hear things like Persian new year, Chinese new year, Tamil new year etc. Mind you, I was aware of the lunar calendar before then but, I never knew what that meant when it came to New Year’s day and the celebrations that followed.
Many countries celebrate New Year’s day on Jan 1 and this is true for the modern Gregorian calendar system. But guess what, not every culture has new year on Jan 1. There are traditional and/or religious New Year’s day where the New Year falls on a completely different day, and is also movable, on the Gregorian calendar.
It was a wonderful awakening when I finally realized it. So, what is New Year?, and why am I talking about New year when the title of the post says Matariki?
Firstly, New Year, according to Anthony Aveni for Wikipedia, is the time or day currently at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar’s year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner.
The reason why I started with a brief discussion on New year is because Matariki is Māori’s New year.
What is Matariki?
Matariki is a cluster of stars (also called Pleiades) and marks the start of a new year in the Māori culture (Māori lunar calender). It is an abbreviation for ‘Ngā Mata o te Ariki Tāwhirimātea’ (‘The Eyes of the God Tāwhirimātea’.
While Pleiades are 7 in number (also called 7 sisters), Matariki is made up of 9 stars with one of the stars also called Matariki, the mother of all the stars.
| Stars of Matariki | Gender | Association/significance |
|---|---|---|
| Matariki | Female | Well-being and health/Hope, reflection, connection to environment |
| Tupuārangi | Male | Food that comes from above (everything that grows up in the trees, and birds) |
| Tupuānuku | Female | Foods the grow in the soil |
| Ururangi | Male | The winds |
| Pōhutukawa | Female | The deceased |
| Hiwa-i-te-rangi | Female | Growth and prosperity; Wishing star |
| Waipuna-ā-rangi | Female | The rain |
| Waitā | Male | The ocean, and the food sources within it |
| Waitī | Female | Fresh water and the food sources that are sustained by those waters |
The celebration goes on for a period of days just like any traditional new year celebration.
Why is it talked about so much in 2022?
You would think that since Matariki marks the start of a new year in Māori culture and New Zealand is traditionally a Māori country, that means that day should be a public holiday, right?
Well, that wasn’t the case until Friday, 24 June 2022. This will be the first pubic holiday to recognise Te Ao Māori, and the first new public holiday since Waitangi Day became a public holiday in 1974 (Source here).
I made a video where I explained Matariki in details and the significance of each star in Māori culture. Click this link to check it out (Manawatia a Matariki).
Ngā mihi o Matariki, te tau hou Māori‘ (happy Matariki)
