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Happy Matariki
Jun. 23rd, 2022 06:06 pmLooks like creating new public holidays during the pandemic was all the rage. The US got Juneteenth. New Zealand got Matariki. [Edit: a commenter on LJ has pointed out that this might sound like I think Juneteenth is a brand new holiday. Considering the amount of racist remarks I've seen about how it's been made up, that's the last thing I would want. To clarify, that should read that Juneteenth is a new *federal* holiday.]
Matariki is the Maori new year. Like Easter, it's a moveable feast, depending on when the Pleiades appear in our skies. This year it falls tomorrow, Friday 24 June, but it will wander in years to come between then and the first week-ish of July. It's the first public holiday to be created for a very long time here, and it's pretty exciting.
We have tons of holidays that fall in the summer. We celebrate Christmas, New Year and Waitangi Day then, plus provincial holidays like Auckland Anniversary Day. The long school and university holidays fall then too (do not ever try to get anything done in New Zealand between Christmas and February, because everyone is on holiday). So it's really nice to get a new holiday in midwinter. It's lovely to get the opportunity for a midwinter celebration like they have in the Northern Hemisphere, while still keeping the occasion very much our own. I got my Yule tree out so the twinkling lights would represent the stars of Matariki, and it looks so much prettier now than in the full light of summer. I also love the sheer uncommercial-ness. No blitz of ads. Nothing to buy. Love it.
It's traditional at Mataraki to celebrate with whanau (family) and to remember the dead. That's a wonderful combination. Tomorrow I will be doing both.
Matariki is the Maori new year. Like Easter, it's a moveable feast, depending on when the Pleiades appear in our skies. This year it falls tomorrow, Friday 24 June, but it will wander in years to come between then and the first week-ish of July. It's the first public holiday to be created for a very long time here, and it's pretty exciting.
We have tons of holidays that fall in the summer. We celebrate Christmas, New Year and Waitangi Day then, plus provincial holidays like Auckland Anniversary Day. The long school and university holidays fall then too (do not ever try to get anything done in New Zealand between Christmas and February, because everyone is on holiday). So it's really nice to get a new holiday in midwinter. It's lovely to get the opportunity for a midwinter celebration like they have in the Northern Hemisphere, while still keeping the occasion very much our own. I got my Yule tree out so the twinkling lights would represent the stars of Matariki, and it looks so much prettier now than in the full light of summer. I also love the sheer uncommercial-ness. No blitz of ads. Nothing to buy. Love it.
It's traditional at Mataraki to celebrate with whanau (family) and to remember the dead. That's a wonderful combination. Tomorrow I will be doing both.
