Ngāti Whātua leader thrilled Matariki recognised after being repressed by colonisation

July 2, 2021

The Māori New Year was pushed "underground", Ngarimu Blair of the Ngati Whatua Orakei Trust says.

Being able to celebrate Māori culture through Matariki is "awesome", a Ngāti Whātua leader says, after being buried by the process of colonisation.

Matariki, the cluster of stars that signals Māori New Year, changes dates each year but generally rises in June or July and spans a three-week period.

Speaking to Breakfast on Auckland's Viaduct this morning, deputy chair of the Ngāti Whātua Orakei Trust Ngarimu Blair said centuries of cultural repression meant Matariki was nearly lost.

However thanks to the passing down of knowledge and the work of experts such as Rangi Matamua in more recent times, recognition of the significane of Matariki to has been sparked back into life.

Breakfast host Jenny-May Clarkson told viewers she knew nothing of Matariki until she began learning te reo in 2012, and asked Blair why many New Zealanders hadn't been aware of Matariki until recent times.

"It’s been underground, it’s been invisible, and that’s through the process of colonisation," Blair said.

"These types of customs have been taken from us through Crown policy, through racism and the like.

"It was driven underground with very few people holding onto that knowledge.

"There are others now like Rangi Matamua who are really bringing back the depth of those customs to everyday Māori and everyday New Zealanders."

The decision to make Matariki a public holiday from next year onwards was invaluable to New Zealand's national identity too, he said.

"It’s the first Māori public holiday. We’ve got Judea, Christian holidays like Easter and Christmas, which doesn’t really make much sense at this end of the world, so to finally have this recognised in our lifetime is awesome.

"It’s another chink in our armour that was excessively broken down through colonisation and it’s another badge that we’re going to be putting back onto ourselves and back onto our kids so that they take these sorts of customs – they take our language, they take our genealogies, our stories of our wonderful ancestors – and they wear that as their armour so that they can stand in this world and take whatever is thrown at them.

"For so many generations our [ancestors] suffered under previous generations where our culture was not valued at all, it was despised. Festivals like this (Matariki) help share the beauty of our collective culture as New Zealanders."

The dates of Matariki public holidays for the next 30 years were announced today. Next year's will take place on June 24.

The Māori New Year was pushed "underground", Ngarimu Blair of the Ngati Whatua Orakei Trust says.

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