Poor Matariki, about to suffer the same cultural fate as Guy Fawkes – that is to say it’s about to be hung, (re)drawn, and quartered: butchered till it meets the approval of the appropriate Commissar’s Committee charged with Single Cultural Truth.
Delighted with recognition of the occurrence, and that is what it is — an occurrence, not a date — Stuff waxes lyrical about the event’s recognition by way of a national holiday, having somewhat belatedly been enthused about it. Resident experty-type, youngster Glenn McConnell, wrote last year he would be “angry” if it weren’t introduced by 2020, poor thing as he is, possessing such a low threshold for irritation.
McConnell wrote, trying to sound informative, “But, one week after Queen’s Birthday something important happens each year. Around now, the first stars of Matariki appear in the night sky.” Dear, oh dear, such ignorance.
For the several tribes of Maoridom who counted the beginning of the year from Matariki’s appearance (others, including all the northern tribes, and the Moriori of the Chathams, counted from the appearance of Puanga, known to western astronomy as Rigel) it was not a night-time event, it was heliacal — first observed just before sunrise on the eastern horizon — that much should be well-known by latter-day experts like our Glenn, sheesh.
Further, Matariki was the herald, the winding of the clock, which didn’t begin striking time until, for some, the first full moon after Matariki or Puanga, and for others the first new moon, or for the ever-different Tuhoe, the mid-point, the fifteenth day between the phases.
So; good luck with your consensus Ms Ardern, wield that socialist hammer and bring all parties into line on a single cultural truth, the type of which all vacuous cultural dwarfs are so fond. Get an expert on board: someone like Stuff‘s Mr McConnell, someone with a very poor grasp of facts and an inversely high sense of self-importance would be perfect, and do let us know how you get on, but here’s the tip: you’d better budget for a helluva lot of hui (should that be hooey?).
Sources:
- The Maori Year, from: ‘The Maori Division of Time’
- Maori Utilise Heliacal Rising of Stars from: ‘The Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori, Genuine and Empirical’
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