Matariki a time to engage

The stars have aligned for Te Puke to have its own Matariki celebrations this year. Kassie Ellis (community liaison), Tatai Takuira-mita (Ka¯ hui Ako acrossschool leader) and Sam Hema (Nga¯ti Tu¯heke/hemasphere Media) have pulled together the various strands, and plans are well advanced for a town celebration in July.

A community steering group started organising an event in 2020, but due to Covid, the celebrations didn’t happen. However, Sam had started the process of a Matariki Whakanuia (celebration) in Te Puke.

“I started having discussions with tangata whenua and the conversations led to, ‘we need to be doing stuff here in our community’,” he says.

“Kassie and the creative groups, which also had aspirations of doing something for Matariki, got involved, realising the groundwork and the seed had already been laid because it was something both the tangata whenua and the community would like.”

With Kassie and the steering group, Sam’s background in kaupapa Ma¯ori and events, tangata whenua support and Tatai Takuira-mita representing the community of learning, Te Ka¯hui Ako o Te Puke, all keen to be part of the event, the four strands have meshed.

‘‘We met as a group and immediately said ‘this is a great collaboration’,” says Sam. “Now we’ve had almost two months of really, really good discussions and good preparation.”

One of the most significant tasks was to give the celebrations an appropriate name.

“The title means everything, to keep it local and have tangata whenua involved with it,” says Sam.

With local iwi leader and Makahae Marae chairman Dean Flavell involved, the name Te Kete o Matariki was given to capture the event’s kaupapa.

The celebration’s name draws on the story of Whakaoterangi, who had the role of securing the kumara plants brought from Hawaiki to Aotearoa in a kete (basket) on the Te Arawa waka.

The story is told in the whakatauaki (proverb) Te Keterokiroki-a-whakaoterangi — the secure basket of Whakaoterangi. She is a Te Arawa ancestress that links both Tia and Hei, the tu¯puna (ancestors) of this area, who were on the Te Arawa waka, to this kaupapa.

Whakaoterangi not only had to look after the kumara on the waka, but ensure it was safe for cultivation once the waka landed. Kumara is a well-known food source for the people of the area.

Matariki is a time when the ground is being prepared for planting kumara and a time for renewal entering the Ma¯ori New Year.

“We are inviting the whole community of Te Puke to celebrate with