The ancient Greeks called this celestial cluster Pleiades or Seven Sisters, the daughters of Atlas and Pleione. To the Japanese it is known as Subaru and to the Babylonians it was Mul Mul
The star constellate is mentioned in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and spoken of in the Bible. It's believed the earliest known depiction of Pleiades is probably a bronze-age artifact called the Nebra sky disk dated around 1600 BC.
To the naked eye they appear as six stars of a 'necklace'. According to Greek legend the seventh star marriedamortal and disappeared after being struck by lightning.
This 'sisterhood' of stars is part of the constellation of Taurus, the Bull, and is our cosmic neighbour, about 100 million years old- relatively young and considered hot-and made up of around 500 stars around four hundred lights years from Earth. Put another way, we see them as they were four hundred years ago.
Matariki Aotearoa
To Maori these seven stars are known as Matariki which has two meanings: Mata Riki (Tiny Eyes) and Mata Ariki (Eyes of God) and mark new beginnings, a cause for celebration and a time in June for gathering together. Some iwi celebrate Matariki on different days. To Tai Tokerau, for instance, Matariki is the rising of Puanga (Rigel) which occurs towards the end of May but indicates the imminent arrival of the Matariki star cluster which, in fact, can be seen at other times of the year too.
Harko Brown of Ngati Mahana and Te Uri O Hau hasamore readily understood explanation of Matariki and what's happening in the sky at this time of the year.
''If you look a couple of hours before sunrise you will see the constellation just above where the sun rises in the north east, a beautiful necklace, lovely little constellation. It's a constellation ramming into our one, the Milky Way. There is a big mass coming in-the dawn maiden, the first light of the morning, when the heavenly bodies are closely aligned.''
The reason why the Maori New Year falls at this time of the year is associated with the new moon, Marama, which offers a season and reason to celebrate, to come together as hapu, to partake of food, to play traditional games, to fly kites and, if the aunties had anything to do with it, to match-make.
''This was tamahine, a gathering of youthwhen the elders tried to match-make and it was still kicking when I was a teenager. You couldn't get close any other way because you were too shy and game playing broke down any barriers. It was very important and historically away to keep hapu strong and as a peace-keeping mechanism.''
Harko Brown now conducts workshops on the astrological implications of Matariki and he'samaker of traditional kites, pakaukau or manatukutuku. Maori, of course, had pinpointed Matariki as a navigational guide but there are other reasons for its importance. It was the time to prepare land for the coming spring-and it's said that the brighter these stars, the warmer the coming season. And it's a seasonal downtime and an 'excuse', says Mr Brown, to take time out.
The celebratory aspect of this important date in the Maori calendar has never been lost to Maori although the cultural significance was perhaps subdued from around the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and festivities essentially retreated to the marae. It was Napier iwi around the 1990s who, with funding, resurrected Matariki as of potential national significance.
Today the agglomeration of stars that signify our winter solstice is celebrated around the country withevents, art, craft, food, games and congregation as a
