So today is the offi­cial start of Matari­ki, for some time now there has been a push for Matari­ki to become a pub­lic hol­i­day, Min­is­ter of Maori Affairs Dr Pita Sharples last week announced the Maori Par­ty had draft­ed a bill to make Matari­ki a pub­lic hol­i­day.  See what the Prime Min­is­ter thinks of the idea here.

Some accounts have Matari­ki as a moth­er and her 6 daugh­ters assist­ing Te R? as he turns around and heads south.  I like this sto­ry bet­ter than the Greek ver­sion of Pleiades which has the sev­en daugh­ters of Pleione and Atlas turned into stars to ‘save them from Ori­on’s dis­hon­ourable inten­tions’.  Where are the kick-arse god­dess­es of leg­end when you need them?  In Japan­ese leg­end the sun god­dess Amat­era­su was lured out of her cave by a good old bit of bur­lesque danc­ing and silli­ness per­formed by the volup­tuous god­dess of mer­ri­ment Ama-no-Uzume.  That is cer­tain­ly one way of coax­ing the sun out of a funk.

There are a range of things around Welling­ton planned help get the Matari­ki cel­e­bra­tions rolling:

  • Te Papa is plan­ning a whole range of events kick­ing off on the 25th of June until the 12th of July, com­ing cor­rect with the free Sev­en Sis­ters con­cert from 6.00pm on Thurs­day 25th.  The Star Lab ses­sions start from 6.30pm on Thurs­day too and are bound to be pop­u­lar so book to avoid dis­ap­point­ment. 
  • Sub­mit pho­tos for Te Papa’s inter­ac­tive dis­play of Matari­ki images before the 28th June and you may see your image go large on the big screens out­side Te Papa.
  • NZ on Screen have a fan­tas­tic Matari­ki col­lec­tion curat­ed by Whai Nga­ta which is def­i­nite­ly worth a look.
  • NZ Post has put out a set of hei tiki stamps to com­mem­o­rate Matari­ki (I love how the tiki look like they are danc­ing on slideshow).

Peo­ple are cel­e­brat­ing with friends and wh?nau by mak­ing kites, head­ing to the beach to look at the night sky, mak­ing mulled wine with friends and gen­er­al­ly just reflect­ing on the fact that we have an indige­nous mid-win­ter cel­e­bra­tion to rival Christ­mas.

Let us know what you do this month, we would love to hear about it and if you would like to see more/buy some of Taryn Beri’s work (image above enti­tled MAREIKURA TAHI — 09) let us know and we will put you in touch (she also does T? Moko designs).