Dr Rangi Matamua is the author of Matariki: Star of the Year. Photo Massey University
There is a myth that Matariki means “little eyes,” but it doesn’t. Instead, it is short for ngā mata te ariki Tāwhirimātea, or ‘the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea.’
The former phrase is a mistranslation, according to experts like New Zealander of the Year, Māori astronomer Dr Rangi Mātāmua and local Maniapoto historian Paul Meredith.
The “little eyes” version goes back to nineteenth century anthropologist Elsdon Best, who wrote about star lore in Astronomical Knowledge of the Māori and other texts.
This misunderstanding was repeated in a popular and influential English language text on Māori mythology published in Victorian times.
That was Māori Tales and Legends by Kate Clark, a former mayoress of Auckland and whose many primary sources for the book included none other than Kingi Tāwhaio.
It is believed Clark’s account originally came from the Cook Islands, rather than New Zealand.
Confusingly, elsewhere in Polynesia, similar names for the Pleiades constellation and its biggest star do refer to little eyes.
Fast forward more than 100 years, and the myth is still hanging around. A quick Google search by King Country News found it on websites such as that of wildlife sanctuary Zealandia, and there has even been an Auckland theatre production based around the idea.
But Maniapoto historian Paul Meredith said Matariki is all about the wind god’s eyes, not little ones.
“According to Māori tradition, the god of the wind, Tāwhirimātea, was so angry when his siblings separated their parents, Ranginui the sky father and Papatūānuku the earth mother, that he tore out his eyes and threw them into the heavens,” Paul wrote in his entry in the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
In his book, Matariki the Star of the Year, maramataka expert Dr Rangi Mātāmua expands further on events in the atua and what the god’s actions mean.
The plucking out and crushing of his eyes was “a display of rage and contempt towards his siblings,” but the meanings did not end there, he said.
“It was also a symbol of aroha from son to father revealing the deep-seated sorrow and affection Tāwhirimātea felt for Ranginui. The eyes of Tāwhirimātea stuck to the chest of Ranginui and there they remain to this day.”
This mythology explains why the wind can be so unpredictable, Rangi wrote.
“Because Tāwhirimātea has no eyes he uses the winds to feel his way around the world, seeking revenge for the separation of his parents by periodically causing storms that ravage his siblings.”
Rangi notes several names for Matariki in te reo, such as Te Huihui o Matariki, ‘the assembly of Matariki’ and Tāriki, an abbreviation of Matariki.
The sources he used to write his book were handed down through generations within his family.
He wrote that while Pākehā anthropogists like Best “wrote down as much as they could about Māori star lore,” his own tūpuna had produced their own, far more detailed work.
That work was a 400-page manuscript by Te Kōkau and his son Rāwiri Te Kōkau from Ruatāhuna – two men Best interviewed in the 1880s.
The anthropologist gave the two a star map, and they used it to create a lengthy and detailed work based on their own expertise, begun together in 1898 and finished in 1933 by Rāwiri.
