Whanauka Martin Awa Clarke Langdon at Te Papa Tongarewa has made this mārama video to show us where to locate Puaka and Matariki in the night sky ✨
There are heaps of other resources on the Te Papa website explaining the significance of the stars of the Māori New Year,
for kaiako and tauira.
The difference between Puaka and Matariki is especially illuminating. Check them out!
As the nights close in, and there’s so much to see overhead, it’s easy to get a bit lost in it all! So, here‘s a PDF version of the latest star chart from Alan Gilmore at the University of Canterbury’s Mt John Observatory at Takapō, to help us find our way around the heavens 🌃
Wondering what the names and significance of each of the visible stars in the Matariki cluster are? Te Wānanga o Aotearoa’s Te Iwa o Matariki webpage condenses tohunga kōkōrangi, Prof Rangi Matamua’s go-to text Matariki: the star of the year * and is accompanied by beaut illustrations.
* Matamua, R. (2017). Matariki: the star of the year. Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand: Huia
Alan Gilmore, former superintendent of the University of Canterbury Mount John Observatory at Tekapo, prepared this pūwharu star chart to help us find our New Year stars:
You can download your own jpeg copy of it here…
… along with a PDF copy of the explanation of the wintertime reappearance of Puaka and helical rising of Matariki posted on our News page.
Download this PDF essay by Dr Jim Williams (formerly at Te Tumu, University of Otago) about Puaka and Matariki, but take care to reorient the star illustrations for our southern perspective, as they are upside down.
You can also check out the Christchurch City Libraries’ website Matariki overview and find pārekareka activities for tamariki to download.
And here are some tino pai teaching resources from Te Papa Tongarewa: the Matariki pukapuka mahi (activity book) and Matariki classroom resources.
These are rawe too: Ko te whānau o Matariki: Matariki Education Resource 2015 – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3