#matariki

Happy Māori new year friends!!

At least here, Matariki has risen and it’s the time of celebration for the Māori new year, and is the time for the traditional new year for many indigenous peoples across the pacific, from here in the south in Aotearoa me Te Wai Pounamu, to Fiji, to Hawai’i, and off the coast of Argentina!

Matariki mā Puanga

Matariki mā Puanga means Matariki (Pleiades) and Puanga (Rigel). These are stars that sit in the night sky together to signal the start of the Māori new year for different iwi

Happy Matariki/Māori New Year

Image source: Jancis Robinson

Matariki (an abbreviation of Ngā Mata o te Ariki Tāwhirimātea/The Eyes of the God Tāwhirimātea) is a constellation of nine stars known in other parts of the world as the Pleiades.

According to the Māori creation myth, Ranginui sky father and Papatūānuku earth mother lay embracing each other, with their sons dwelling in the dark, cramped space between them. As the children grew, some became restless and wanted to live in the light. They succeeded in forcing apart Ranginui and Papatūānuku.

Tāwhirimātea, the god of the wind, became so angry about his parents’ forced separation that he tore out his eyes and threw them into the heavens, where they became the stars.

Matariki disappears from the skies in early winter, bringing the past year to a close, then rises again in midwinter (June/July in the Southern Hemisphere), which signals the start of the new year. The date varies each year.

This is a time to come together to pay our respects to those who have died since the last rising of Matariki, welcome people who have joined our whānau, and celebrate what we have now and look forward to what the new year will bring.

Whakataukī/Māori proverb:

Ngā mihi o te tau hou ki a koutou katoa! Ko te tumanako ka pai ki a koutou katoa ngā whetu i tēnei pō.

And have a beautiful matariki 2026 <33333