Tahiti will mark Matari’i as a national public holiday for the first time in November, following in the footsteps of Matariki in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Matari’i refers to the same star cluster as Matariki. And for Tahitians, November 20 will mark the start of Matari’i i ni’a — the “season of abundance” — which lasts for six months to be followed by Matari’i i raro, the “season of scarcity”.
Te Māreikura Whakataka-Brightwell is a New Zealand artist who was born in Tahiti and raised in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, Gisborne, with whakapapa links to both countries. He spoke to RNZ’s Matariki programme from the island of Moorea.
His father was the master carver Matahi Whakataka-Brightwell, and his grandfather was the renowned Tahitian navigator Francis Puara Cowan.
In Tahiti, there has been a series of cultural revival practices, and with the support of the likes of Professor Rangi Mātāmua, there is hope to bring these practices out into the public arena, he said.
The people of Tahiti had always lived in accordance with Matari’i i ni’a and Matari’i i raro, with six months of abundance and six months of scarcity, he said.
“Bringing that back into the public space is good to sort of recognise the ancestral practice of not only Matariki in terms of the abundance but also giving more credence to our tūpuna kōrero and mātauranga tuku iho.”
Little controversy
Whakataka-Brightwell said there had been a little controversy around the new holiday as it replaced another public holiday, Internal Autonomy Day, on June 29, which marked the French annexation of Tahiti.
But he said a lot of people in Tahiti liked the shift towards having local practices represented in a holiday.
There would be several public celebrations organised for the inaugural public holiday but most people on the islands would be holding more intimate ceremonies at home, he said.
“A lot of people already had practices of celebrating Matariki which was more about now marking the season of abundance, so I think at a whānau level people will continue to do that, I think this will be a little bit more of an incentive for everything else to align to those sorts of celebrations.”
Many of the traditions surrounding Matari’i related to the Arioi clan, whose ranks included artists, priests, navigators and diplomats who would celebrate the rituals of Matari’i, he said.
“Tahiti is an island of artists, it’s an island of rejuvenation, so I’m pretty sure they’ll be doing a lot of that and basing some of those traditions on the Arioi traditions.”
Whakataka-Brightwell encouraged anyone with Māori heritage to make the pilgrimage to Tahiti at some point in their lives, as the place where many of the waka that carried Māori ancestors were launched.
“I’ve always been a firm believer of particular people with whakapapa Māori to come back, hoki mai ki te whenua o Tahiti roa, Tahiti pāmamao.
“Those connections still exist, I mean, people still have the same last names as people in Aotearoa, and it’s not very far away, so I would encourage everybody to explore their own connections but also hoki mai ki te whenua (return to the land).”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
