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The spirit of Matariki

Good kai and new beginnings

The writer was hosted by visitboi.co.nz.

As a New Zealander, I’m ashamed to admit that, until this month, I had participated in celebrations for Chinese New Year, Indian Diwali, Thai Songkran and well over 30 ticking overs of the Gregorian calendar but never the New Zealand New Year.

Or, to give it its proper name, Matariki. With New Zealand set to mark the Ma¯ ori New Year celebration with an annual public holiday from next June, I knew it was time to make amends. And the Bay of Islands’ inaugural Matariki Festival seemed like a good place to start.

Widely considered to be the birthplace of the nation, the Bay of Islands is home to some of its oldest Ma¯ ori settlements and the biggest Ma¯ ori tribe, Nga¯ puhi. Local iwi played a big part in organising the nine-day festival which, in timehonoured Matariki tradition, provides plenty of opportunities for the wha¯ nau to get together to stargaze, listen to and tell stories, take part in traditional activities, and overindulge in locally sourced kai. In a modern spin, there are also astrophotography tours, jewellery masterclasses, pool and dive-bombing contests, and gigs by DJs and White Chapel Jak.

Arriving at Paihia Wharf in pitch black for Fullers GreatSights’ dawn cruise, I am semiconscious at best (I can’t seem to find the on switch to my brain before 8am no matter how much coffee is consumed).

I am resting my eyelids in the heated compartment on the upper deck when a man sitting with his wife and baby in the back row introduces himself as Ngati Kawa Taituha, our guide, and invites the rest of us to follow suit.

Most of us, it emerges, are Kiwis keen to find out more about this new national holiday of ours, and it would be hard to find a better man for the job than Taituha, chairman of Waitangi Marae, and a cultural adviser to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.

After a prayer in te reo to grant us safe passage across the bay, he tempts us into the cold (so much for this being the winterless north) and introduces us to the night sky according to Ma¯ ori astronomy.

I had expected Matariki, whose mid-winter rising signals the start of a new lunar year, to out dazzle the other stars in the sky during its namesake celebration, but it’s little more than a faint fuzzy glow when Taituha points it out.

I’m alarmed when he says a dim Matariki signals a challenging year ahead (no-one needs another 2020) but, as a harbinger of new beginnings, its diminutive size does seem apt.

In a 2016 opinion piece for The Gisborne Herald, Aaron Compton likened the star cluster known to

the ancient Greeks as Pleiades, and to the Japanese as Subaru, to a new baby at a family gathering.

‘‘You don’t see it right away, but you know who to look for, the parents and grandparents who will guide you to the tiny bundle who means so much.’’

The first Ma¯ ori in New Zealand noticed that Matariki disappeared around harvest time in lateautumn and reappeared in mid-winter when the ku¯ mara were safely stored in their pits.

With the hard farming yakka for the year behind them, people were free to rest, spend quality time with wha¯ nau, and feast on the fruits (or rather ku¯ mara and preserved fish and meat) of their labours.

These days, the celebration is a bit like the period between Christmas and New Year: you eat and drink too much, see more of your rellies than you usually would, and have a tendency to forget what day it is.

Taituha shines his torch on Hinetakurua, known as the sun’s winter wife, a particularly bright star at this time of year.

At Matariki, the sun, Tamanuitera¯ , begins to move away from her towards his summer wife Hineraumati, the days slowly lengthening in the process. By the time it’s warm enough to go swimming without getting goosebumps, Hineraumati has taken her rival’s place in the sky and, with it, the job of hauling the sun out of bed. Like the winter solstice, Matariki is a sign that the darkest days of the year are over, and that it’s time to make plans for the brighter ones that lie ahead.

But it’s also a time to look back. Taituha points out the giant waka that sails through the southern Milky Way at this time of year, Matariki marking its bow and Tautoru (Orion’s Belt) its stern.

Te Waka o Tamare¯ reti is captained by a bright spark named Taramainuku who casts his net down to Earth to gather up the souls of the dead so they can begin their ascension through rangi tu¯ ha¯ ha¯ (the heavens).

We have a minute’s silence to remember those we have lost over the past year, and I think of my grandma, who died just after her 90th birthday almost 12 months ago. Saying a silent prayer for her beneath a spectacular starscape, amid the silhouettes of 144 mostly undeveloped islands, seems like a special tribute.

Taituha’s stories of Ma¯ ori star lore continue to flow as Tamanuitera¯ rises and paints Rangi-nui, sky father, and Papatu¯ a¯ nuku, earth mother, orange, mauve and fluorescent pink.

At this early hour, we appear to have the entire bay to ourselves, from the Hole in the Rock in the northeast to the Treaty Grounds in the southwest. Even I have to admit it’s worth getting up before the crack of dawn for.

After a two-course breakfast back at the hotel, I drive to Kerikeri for more kai. The largest Saturday market in Northland, The Old Packhouse market is the place to come for Kerikeri’s famous oranges and other fine fresh produce, artisan foods, vintage clothes, and locally made arts, crafts and skincare products.

I sip a thick hot chocolate from MudWood

MamaZing that makes me feel more human than zombie again, and pick up a skin-soothing kawakawa balm from Rongoa Magic, which specialises in medicinal Ma¯ ori skincare products, and raw chocolate truffles for a pre-lunch snack.

I feel too full to partake in the pot luck lunch at Korora¯ reka Marae when I arrive on a midafternoon ferry from Russell, originally known as Korora¯ reka. But there’s plenty to stick around for, including mirimiri and romiromi (traditional Ma¯ ori healing practices designed to release tension in the body and stimulate internal organs), a whakairo (wood carving) demonstration, and the cutest kapa haka performance I’ve ever seen, courtesy of the kids at Russell School.

Discovering I’m too late to book a bodywork treatment, available for a koha, I walk along the waterfront to the Duke of Marlborough, New Zealand’s oldest licensed hotel.

Its ex-con founder’s good relations with local Ma¯ ori enabled him to buy the site in 1827, and turn it into an unlicensed bottle shop he named Johnny Johnston’s Grog Shop after himself.

Johnston changed the name to The Duke of Marlborough in the 1830s to give the place an air of respectability in a town which, full of drunk whalers and prostitutes at the time, had little.

These days the lounge area – which features faded leather couches around a fireplace beneath an old poster of Korora¯ reka, candleholders shaped like golden anchors, and a sparkling chandelier – feels like it belongs in the home of a rich boatie.

Sipping chamomile tea beside the fire, I try to imagine what life must have been like for the local women who regularly entered into three-week marriages when Korora¯ reka was a bustling whaling port.

I leave just as Duke staff are lighting fires on the beach for a Matariki dinner to be cooked by some of the country’s top Ma¯ ori chefs: Ha¯ ngı¯ Master Rewi Spraggon, New Zealand Chefs Association president Grant Kitchen, White + Wong head chef Tu Fearn, and Duke head chef Tama Salive.

I’m not lucky enough to have a ticket, but I can’t feel too sorry for myself as I’m off to indulge in a four-course Matariki-inspired menu with matching wines at boutique winery Paroa Bay’s restaurant, Sage.

My fellow diners and I are picked up from Russell Wharf and driven down a maze of dark country roads to what Google tells me is an incredibly scenic spot looking out towards Moturua and Motuarohia islands.

I don’t see a thing in the dark, but I’d probably be too distracted to appreciate the view properly anyway: the feast that follows is fit for royalty (or rangatira).

First is an appetiser of Cloudy Bay clams with pickled sea grapes, kimchi, and a sauvignon blanc and thyme granita that I could devour as a summer dessert.

The pressed lamb leg entree with whipped goat’s cheese, crushed broad beans and wild mint oil melts in my mouth, and the cured rock fish with faux caviar, slow-cooked mandarin, and plum vinegar that is entree No 2 is a tasty local twist on Nordic salmon gravlax.

My stomach tells me to stop eating at this point, but my brain is having none of it. Particularly when the restaurant manager reminds me that eating is a big part of what Matariki is about.

She is right, of course, and it would have been a shame to have missed out on the roast pork belly that follows.

Served with smoked bacon, burnt apple puree, braised fennel and pickled apple, drowned in a Moa cider jus, it’s a perfect mid-winter meal. It’s even better washed down with the house CMC – a ruby red blend of cabernet franc, merlot and cabernet sauvignon.

Riding the ferry back to Paihia with a very full puku, I keep my eyes peeled for The Eyes of the God, the English translation of Matariki’s full name: Nga¯ Mata o te Ariki. As Taituha explained, Ta¯ whiri-matea, the god of the wind, is said to have been so angry when his siblings separated their parents Rangi and Papa to form the world as we know it, that he threw his eyes into the sky.

In the calm before the storm that descends the following day, his eyes appear to peer back at me, sending a subtle reminder brighter days lie ahead.

I hadn’t been in the best headspace when I arrived in the Bay – like many at this time of year, I’d felt tired and rundown – but celebrating Matiriki has done what it’s supposed to. It has left me feeling relaxed and recharged. Thank Ta¯ whirima¯ tea that New Zealanders will get a day off to enjoy it from next year.

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2021-07-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

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