An idea whose time has come
Plucked from obscurity and given the breath of life, since the turn of the century, Matariki has blossomed into an inclusive, popular event. Tied to the rising of Matariki, the Pleiades star cluster, in the night sky, the festival marks the start of te Ma¯ tahi o te tau, the new year.
Once a casualty of colonisation, Matariki’s comeback has fostered greater use of te reo Ma¯ ori, and recognition for Ma¯ ori customary practices.
We believe it is past time to officially acknowledge all Matariki stands for in our national calendar. Today, Stuff is launching a campaign to make Matariki a public holiday from 2021.
Such proposals have been floated before. In 2009, a member’s bill by Ma¯ ori Party MP Rahui Katene failed at its first reading in Parliament. At the time, Katene called it ‘‘an opportunity to embrace and welcome the chance to stand proud of our distinctly New Zealand cultural identity’’.
A decade later, Pa¯ keha¯ are more engaged with Matariki, and Ma¯ ori have reclaimed the tradition and the maramataka, the lunar calendar it aligns to. Sixty-three per cent of respondents to a poll conducted for ActionStation by UMR backed making Matariki a public holiday, with young people most likely to approve.
This week, ActionStation director Laura O’Connell Rapira will present the Government with a 15,000-signature petition calling for a Matariki Day. Writing for Stuff today, O’Connell Rapira describes a cousin’s discovery that Matariki celebrations left them feeling ‘‘so full of love, so connected, grounded, accepted, excited, and inspired’’, and expresses her desire for every wha¯ nau to share in that.
Many already do. Last week, the diverse commemorations around the country included fireworks in Hawke’s Bay, a light festival in Auckland, comedy in Lower Hutt, art installations in Invercargill, and kapa haka in Nelson. Today’s children grow up considering Matariki a standard part of the calendar, an event many schools choose to commemorate.
The law says public holidays exist to observe days of ‘‘national, religious, or cultural significance’’, but most of our holidays aren’t expressly Kiwi.
We’re overdue the creation of a unifying holiday that honours Aotearoa’s past and celebrates New Zealand’s future. Matariki is that holiday. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has indicated she’s open to the idea. This election season represents a chance for other parties to declare their support.
Stuff is not taking a position on whether Matariki Day should be a new public holiday, or whether an existing one should be repurposed. But Matariki needs its own day.
Many iwi use Matariki to mark the Ma¯ ori new year, but tribes in the north and west of the country use Puanga or Rigel for the occasion. Tainui iwi recognise Rerehu, also known as Antares. So we’re agnostic on which day – or days – a Matariki holiday should cover or indeed, whether it should be called Matariki Day. Debate on those points will form part of our coverage over the coming year.
‘‘It’s not a Ma¯ ori celebration any more in my mind,’’ says Dr Rangi Matamua, recent winner of the Prime Minister’s Science Communication prize for his Matariki work. ‘‘It’s become a national celebration and that’s its future for me. It is about the best things of humanity, such as being kind to each other, aroha . . . charity, hope. It’s about promise.’’
Matariki has now passed for 2020, and te Ma¯ tahi o te tau has begun. A Matariki holiday is an idea whose time has come. We’ve got 51 weeks to make a change. Learn more and sign the petition at stuff. co.nz/matariki.
Matariki ‘‘is about the best things of humanity . . . being kind to each other, aroha . . . charity, hope’’.