Jerrie-Lee Ngareta Hill with her newly published book - The 9 Stars of Matariki. Photo / Stuart Whitaker
Jerrie-Lee Ngareta Hill with her newly published book - The 9 Stars of Matariki. Photo / Stuart Whitaker
Te Puke’s Jerrie-Lee Ngareta Hill has put a new slant on the Matariki story in a recently published book for children.
The seeds for The 9 Stars of Matariki reflect the way the actor, model, beauty queen and mother-of-five tackles life.
“I’m passionate about many different things, and one is creating educational resources for children,” she says.
As more and more people became aware of Matariki and its importance to Māori, she looked around and felt there was a general lack of knowledge.
“I thought there were a lot of people that didn’t really know about Matariki and had - how many stars are there? Are there seven? Are there nine? What do the stars mean?”
She says she was among them until she did some research.
“Then I said ‘I think it’s going to be a pretty awesome idea to teach my children and other people about Matariki - and that’s how this book came to be manifested.”
She felt there was a general lack of resources available.
“I wanted to make something specific for children so I wanted something that was bright, colourful, interesting and also to make a story about it as well, so it’s easier for people to learn about Matariki and what it’s all about.”
She wrote the book last year and it has just been published.
“I’ve made the stars represented by fairies to be more appealing to children - children love fairies and they love fantasy.
“And I made up a story that Matariki is a single parent of eight fairies.”
Matariki works as a star traffic controller. She has to take her children to work with her.
“So while she’s busy working, her daughters are busy making mischief - each has a special gift that ties in with the Matariki stars’ meaning and they use their special gifts to get up to mischief in the night sky.”
Matariki decides to ask her mother Papatūānuku to look after the children “so they aren’t causing havoc in the night sky”.
The stars of Matariki are portrayed as fairies in Jerrie-Lee Ngareta Hill's book.
Papatūānuku sends the stars down to earth as shooting stars.
“And while they are down on earth Papatūānuku gives each of the stars special jobs. The story outlines the special jobs which are what the stars are responsible for.
“Tupu-ā-nuku has a green thumb, so she gets the job of looking after all the plants that grow from Papatūānuku herself.”
Tupu-ā-rangi is associated with tress so in the book is given the job of growing all the fruit, berries and nuts.
“It goes on like that, explaining what each of the stars do, what their names are and what they’re responsible for.”
At the end of the book, the stars return to the night sky, but have done such a good job that their mother agrees to send them back every year.
A QR code at the back of the book opens up a YouTube video for a song to go with the story.
The video features Jerrie-Lee and her children which provides guidance on the pronunciation of the stars’ names.
“We sing the song and have a bit of fun as well. They dressed up whatever outfits they wanted and were being themselves, having fun and being involved in something that’s important for us and for New Zealanders in general.”
Jerrie-Lee says the message she wants to give through the book is she wants Matariki to be celebrated by all New Zealanders.
“A lot of the time people see Matariki as the Māori new year, and that’s what it is, but because New Zealand is multicultural, I want to see it celebrated as the New Zealand new year and something we all celebrate as a multicultural country.”
She says the book is a fun and exciting way of explaining Matariki and she hopes it will help people, children and adults, know what the stars symbolise.
Jerrie-Lee is also in rehearsals for the next Te Puke Repertory Society production, Killer Boobs, appears in two yet-to-be-released films and will represent New Zealand at the Ms Woman of the Universe pageant in Dubai in November.
