A solar eclipse is a celestial phenomenon that does not occur very often. But they are fascinating to watch when they do. On those rare occasions when you are in the right place at the right time for a full solar eclipse, it is amazing.
The moon orbits the Earth at an angle, approximately 5 degrees relative to the Earth-sun plane, the moon crosses the Earth's orbital plane only twice a year. These times are called eclipse seasons, because they are the only times when eclipses can occur. For an eclipse to take place, the moon must be in the correct phase during an eclipse season; for a solar eclipse, it must be a new moon. This condition makes solar eclipses rare.
The moon is a sphere that travels once around the Earth every 29 days. As it does so, it is illuminated from varying angles by the sun. At the new moon the moon is between the Earth and sun, so that the side of the moon facing towards us receives no direct sunlight. The moon is lit by very dim sunlight, because the Earth blocks the sun from illuminating the moon.
By Anthea and Mei Mun.
Dashing over the rocks I tripped. Damn! Not again! Tui are so annoying, I can never catch one. I could get tons of kumara for just one Tui. Our village is very scared. Huge waka have been spotted off the coast, everybody is worried, no wonder we are harvesting early. I have collected plenty of birds for Matariki, my little brother Tai doesn't know why we celebrate Matariki, and it’s hard to explain so we are taking him to Uncle Tamati in three days. Limping back to the village after hunting for kai, my feet smudged into the moist green moss cooling them from the scorching afternoon sun. As I entered the Marae my mother Whetu was singing to my baby sister Rui. Her voice drifted through the wood like a light breeze becoming louder with every note. My father is a very wise man. His dad was the man who found out how to navigate with the stars. My grandfather said to me: “Kahurangi, if you find Matariki you can go anywhere!” He also said that he came here on a tiny waka much smaller than the waka seen offshore. He mentioned that they followed Matariki and that if they were clear and bright it would be warm and a very productive year but if they were hazy and foggy it wouldn’t. Matariki is approaching. I’m starting to feel a bit sad about my grandfather because Matariki is a time to remember your family and friends who have passed in the recent years. Rawiri, my grandfather, passed away when he was eating my mum’s famous kumara stew. That day I was so mad I caught five kereru for my whanau, they were so proud of me. That made me feel a bit better about Rawiri, but to this day I will never forget my grandfather. He was the best at telling me bedtime stories and he taught me how to use Matariki as navigation. I can now sail the oceans off seas by looking for Matariki and other stars. A few days past and we were prepared to take the trip to Awanui where Uncle Tamati lives, he says we should move to Awanui because it is home to the one of the biggest river ports in Te Ika A Maui, and our home has very little water in our lake. The journey is a very specific one, you have to take all the right paths and there are about fifty intersections. I’m over-exaggerating, more about thirty, but you get it. The walk is about a day's worth of walking, Tai struggled but he was satisfied when I picked him up. The walk was delayed by Tai’s whining but finally we made it. Uncle needed Tai to be calm and happy so we had to wait awhile. I had to sit down and keep him calm so I heard it all and this is what I heard. https://youtu.be/3Mjm2BiCsC8 Matariki was celebrated by giving thanks to the land, sky and sea. It was also for connecting with each other. The pre-rising stars are called Te Tau Hou (the new year). He said Nga Mihi o Te Tau Hou (happy new year) when we last saw him. Matariki was used for navigation and if the stars were clear and bright it would be a warm and they would make lots of kai. If the stars were blurred and were hard to see it would be a cold year to come. For some tribes, the first new moon after Matariki is the start of the New Year. In the past, Matariki was to foretell the future of your crops for the season to come. It was important that they harvested the crops before winter for the cold would ruin them. Matariki was a reminder that it is time to harvest and celebrate the people that helped gather the kai. At first Tai didn’t get it but after Tamati repeated he understood immediately. Mum and I are very glad that Tai understands Matariki. Eventually, we returned to some lovely warm Huia cooked by dad. Matariki has finally arrived, my family have stocked up on kai for our Matariki feasts. We start to make our hangi by creating a Hangi pit. Once our hangi pit is deep enough my family place volcanic rocks at the bottom of the hole. My grandmother has woven a huge sheet made out of flax for us to put over the top of the boiling volcanic rocks. Next we laid a various amount of food, kumara, Huia, Tui, Moa and tons of different kaimoana. Then we spread out another of grandmother’s flax sheets on the Kai and placed more volcanic rocks on to the sheet. This year I got the honour of covering the Hangi with the deep dark and dry dirt that surrounded our whare. The thing I like the most about Matariki apart from the kai is definitely the games. Most hine like kite making and poi when tama like kapa haka. But when we hear the Putatara we know it's time to socialise and talk about the past, present and future. My family really respects Matariki, we always visit the Urupā to pay respect to our loved ones who have passed away.
Matariki: an essay by Tom and William
Matariki is a celebration that signifies the Maori new year, and we’ll be explaining how it works.
< A picture of Pleiades, the constellation that starts Matariki. (source: Wikipedia [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matariki#/media/File:M45_filip.jpg], image as of the 8th of June, 2016 )While we don’t know everything about this celebration and have several questions about it, we have found out that (according to Te Ara, the encyclopedia of New Zealand) Matariki was traditionally a time for remembering the dead and celebrating new life. However, now it has changed and grown into more things. Our main question is: in what ways are Matariki celebrated? But we do have other questions that we will do our best to explain. One of which is what is Matariki used for.
Kites, hot-air balloons and fireworks help mark the occasion. But a long, long time ago, when the constellation rose - people often had feasts (called hangis) and kapa haka sessions. People would also give offerings and they would harvest their crops, planting more when the time came (around September). Kapa haka is a dance that the Maori people did to strengthen themselves. It was also their war dance, which they performed when they went into battle to scare the enemy. They did this to bring advantages to them in the battle.
The names of the stars are: Waiti, Waita, Waipunarangi, Tupu-a-nuku, Tupu-a-rangi, Ururangi, and Matariki. People have not made any assumptions as to why the stars are called that, but there are many tales up to there, such as Tawhirimatea getting extremely angry at his brothers, and tearing out his eyes before flinging them into the heavens. Gruesome, but true, there was a tale that went like that once.
Before Matariki came, people would store food in houses called Patakas. The Pataka would be raised off the ground on stilts, so that pests could not get at the food that was stored in the Patakas. I don’t think that anyone realised this, but it was also good, as the warm air will rise up into the Pataka and keep the food warm. Which I think people would like, they would definitely like it more than if the food was stored on the ground and they ate it slightly colder than they would have, with all the pests getting at the food.
In the 1940’s, Matariki stopped being celebrated, but in 2000-2001, people began to celebrate it again. First only a few people did, but after a while, more and more people celebrated Matariki. And it came to be a big celebration again. Now people are trying to make it an official public holiday in New Zealand. The mayor of Waitakere city was supporting the idea of making Matariki a public holiday, and he thought it should replace the Queen’s Birthday.
Matariki is also used as a form of navigation and a way of knowing when to start the new season. Matariki appears at about sunrise in the relatively cold times of the year, (late may, early june). Some people celebrate Matariki immediately, while others wait for the next full moon, or the beginning of the next new moon to celebrate it.
Also traditionally, Matariki was a signal that the Maori people should begin to get the soil ready for the next year. Some of the produce that had been harvested in the area would be made into an offering for the gods. Particular birds and fish were very easy to catch at the time.
Matariki (Pleiades) is inside the Taurus constellation. Matariki rises at the end of harvesting when the Patakas have a lot of food in them. Matariki is one of the constellations placed right in the backside of the milky way.
Maori were very clever people indeed, they could find out the time and season from the stars, and they could also use the stars to navigate the perilous seas that they would need to traverse. The Maori people would go all over the pacific, finding new islands and places to live.
By William and Tom (Sources to follow)
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