It is the new year for Te Ao Māori, and what better way to celebrate than sharing kai with whānau and learning about Matariki.

This term's whānau hui was centered around our celebration of Matariki. As we celebrated another term coming to a close we wanted to let our Māori whānau know the many wonderful things their tamariki are doing in Te Ao Māori and elsewhere, as they embarked on exciting achievements and accomplishments.

With Ofa Puleiku and Maia Te Whetu as the MCs for the night, we shared our usual kai, enjoyed a kapa haka performance and heard from many of our Māori leaders on what they had been up to over the last few months

Our main focus of this term's hui was Matariki. Whaea Anna, Andrew Smythe and Maia Te Whetu attended a lecture lead by Rangi Matamua which outlined the true history and astronomy of Matariki.

In this lecture, Matamua highlighted how Matariki was celebrated in the past, and the revitalisation of celebrations in recent times, and activities that are occuring in Ōtautahi to celebrate the New Year. Below this article is a summary of the information we presented.

Thank you to Mr Sandes and Mrs Keith who put their time and effort into feeding our whānau and thank you to Whaea Anna and Mr White who helped facilitate the event. Thank you to our Māori Leaders and Kapa Haka group for preparing kai and performing wonderfully and most importantly, a huge thank you to our Māori students and whānau of Burnside High School.

The whakapapa of Matariki is the story of Rehua, who married Matariki, and had eight children. Each star has a special purpose. Matariki is connected to well-being and is thought to be a sign of good fortune and health. Each child has a balancing sibling and they are usually paired male and female. Pōhutakawa is connected to the dead, and is the reason that people cry out the names of the dead. When a person dies, their spirit leaves and goes on a journey to Te Rerenga Wairua, the departing place of the spirits. At that point there is an old pōhutakawa tree. The spirit then descends down the root of this tree, towards the entrance to the underworld.

Tupuānuku is connected to food grown in the whenua and Tupuārangi is connected to food that comes from the sky, such as birds, fruit and berries.

Waiti is connected to fresh water and creatures that live in the rivers, streams and lakes. Waitā is connected to the oceans.

Waipunarangi is connected to the rain and Ururangi is connected to the winds. This star determines the winds for the rest of the year.

Hiwa-i-te-rangi is connected to the promise of a prosperous season.

Māori believe that Matariki causes people to gather together for many reasons, to honor the dead, remember the past, celebrate the present and plan for the future. For our tīpuna, astronomy was interwoven into all facets of life.

Traditionally Māori believed that when Matariki gathers in the sky that it calls for people to gather on the earth. People were free to do leisure activities together such as dancing, singing, art and games. The festival period would begin with the first sighting of Matariki and it would end at the new moon. Matariki was discontinued as a practice with the arrival of European settlers in the later part of the 19th century. In the early 1990s Matariki began to be revived. During the month of Pipiri, many different celebrations occur around the Aotearoa, including, public lectures, balls, dinners, art exhibitions, and the viewing of the cluster in the early morning sky.