Mānawatia a Matariki - When the Stars Come Home

There is something quietly extraordinary happening in Aotearoa.

Five years ago, on a cold June morning in 2022, people gathered before dawn at Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington for a hautapu ceremony most New Zealanders had never witnessed. Matariki was observed as a public holiday for the first time — and it was received positively, broadly, and with something that felt like relief. Like something long overdue had finally been given its rightful place.

I remember watching that first celebration on television and feeling the weight of that moment. The stars rising. The karakia offered to the darkness before the sun. The emotion on people’s faces. It felt like a turning point — not just for Māori, but for the idea of who we are as a country.

What has unfolded since then has been nothing short of beautiful.

For years, the knowledge, the tikanga, the deep mātauranga held within iwi around this time of year — the reading of the stars, the offering of kai to the atua, the naming of those who had passed — was carried quietly, often in small and isolated groups, while the wider world moved on. To watch that knowledge step into the national light has been moving beyond words.

Since 2022, the national hautapu ceremony has travelled around the motu, with different iwi taking turns to host, each sharing their own traditions and connections to Matariki, and each year drawing more people in.

This year, Matariki comes home to Tāmaki Makaurau. For the first time, the national hautapu ceremony is being held at Takaparawhau — Bastion Point — hosted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. A site that carries its own profound layers of memory, struggle, and resilience. There is no accident in that.

What struck me watching the celebrations this year was the faces in the crowd. People of every background, standing together in the pre-dawn cold, waiting for the stars. The hautapu at Takaparawhau drew strong turnout from across our communities. And there was one moment — a Pākehā wahine, visibly moved — not because of her own ancestral connection to the kaupapa, but because she could see and feel the beauty of it. The richness of what Māori culture holds, and the unity it has the power to create. That is not a small thing.

Much of this can be traced — in no small part — to the vision and mahi of one person. Professor Rangi Mātāmua, one of the leading architects of the Matariki public holiday, has spent years championing a kaupapa that he could see clearly, even when the wider world couldn’t yet. His advocacy, his scholarship, and his ability to share mātauranga Māori in ways that connected with people across all walks of life helped bring Matariki from the margins to the heart of our national identity. He did not do it alone — and today there are many, many people contributing to that growing movement, carrying the knowledge wider, sharing it deeper. But vision matters. And he had it.

This year’s theme, Matariki Herenga Waka — For Everyone, says it simply and well. Matariki is a time to bring people together across cultures, communities and generations. Not to flatten or commercialise — but to genuinely include. To recognise that what makes Aotearoa unique in the world is found right here, in the mātauranga of tangata whenua, and in our willingness to come together around it. That is the thread that unites us — not despite our differences, but because of the richness they bring.

Matariki asks us to remember. To give thanks. To look at the horizon and ask — where are we, and where do we want to be?

It is a question worth sitting with, whatever your whakapapa.

Mauri ora.