Mānawa maiea te putanga o Matariki: Today is the first day of Matariki

When Rangi Matamua sets his gaze across Te Whanganui-a-Tara this morning, he'll contemplate many things as he watches the twinkling cluster of stars on the northeast horizon: Those who have been, those he is with, and those yet to be.

"I lost a couple of friends and relations that are close to me, so I'll be thinking about them at this moment first and foremost. Then I'll be thankful for my family and the ones I still have.

"I'll be thinking about my hopes that I'll be sending to Hiwa, the wishing star. The hope … that [this] is another brick in the wall of our evolving national identity."

"Reflecting on the past; celebrating the present … and then that last bit is about the promise of a new season, sending your wishes into the sky," Matamua added, defining the significance of Matariki.

Mānawa maiea te putanga o Matariki. Today is the first day of Matariki, the Māori new year, when the tight group of nine stars also known as Pleiades rises. From next year, it will also be the country's newest public holiday.

Matamua (Tuhoe) is one of the world's foremost indigenous astronomers.

Recently, he was chair of the seven-person panel that drafted the calendar for the Matariki public holiday, which will shunt around various Fridays from mid-June to early-July in line with maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar.

"I think that we're doing something so special and unique with Matariki," Matamua said. "We're willing to share this in the hopes that it can be used as a tool to reaffirm who we are. I'm just so thrilled."

The government last year announced it would make Matariki a public holiday, and today it released the proposed dates for the next 30 years. The first public holiday will be on 24 June 2022. A stand-alone bill to formally introduce the holiday will go before Parliament later this year.

"Matariki will be our first public holiday that recognises Te Ao Māori and will be one that's uniquely New Zealand," acting associate minister for arts, culture and heritage, Peeni Henare said in a statement.

To Māori, Matariki is a time of renewal and celebration timed to the rise of the Matariki cluster in, bringing the old lunar year to an end and heralding the time to plant new crops.

Ka puta Matariki ka rere Whānui. Ko te tohu tēnā o te tau e.

Matariki reappears, Vega starts its flight. The new year begins.

The cluster of nine stars is said to be the eyes of Tāwhirimātea, a son of Ranginui and Papatūānuku. So enraged at the separation of his parents - the sky and the earth - by his brothers, he gouged out his eyes, crushed them, and threw them to the sky.

There they rotate across the year, before setting out of sight in June, when the whenua is plunged into the depths of winter.

Huhake tū, ka tō Matariki.

The harvest ends when Matariki sets.

Weeks later, as the cluster rises in the dawn sky, a celebration ensues; it is time to prepare a new harvest, to remember those who have died in the previous year, and to cast wishes for the year ahead.

But according to maramataka, three things align for the new year to begin. What Matamua calls the sun + star + moon equation.

"You're really looking to triangulate three things. Where the sun is rising, so the sunrise gives you the season. The pre-dawn rising of certain stars like Matariki give you the month, or activity. So it's telling us about the time of the new year. But you've got to wait for the correct lunar phase to give you the day."

This phase is Tangaroa, the point in the lunar month where the last quarter moon rises. Add to this the complication that several western iwi define their year by Puanga, not Matariki. (Puanga is more visible in the west than Matariki, but they fall roughly about the same time).

This equation is why a panel of seven Māori astronomical experts had to convene for months, working to determine the dates for the next 30 years.

But now there is a schedule for celebration, and that's exactly what Matamua planned to do at a ceremony at Te Papa this morning, gathered around a smouldering fire - umu kohukohu whetu - waiting for the cluster to rise.

"When Matariki rose [our ancestors] would conduct a ceremony that's in three parts," he said.

"Number one, they'd read the signs of the year." The brightness of the cluster would determine the fortunes of that year's harvest. Bright and clear, it would be a good year. Faint and blurry, struggles lay ahead.

Ngā kai a Matariki nāna I ao ake nei.

Food that is scooped up by Matariki.

"The second thing they would do was call out the names of all the people who have departed since the last rising of Matariki and it's a final farewell to the dead of the year. It's a very moving part of the ceremony," Matamua said.

Then, finally, the top is taken off the umu, letting the steam and smoke rise into a dawning sky slowly taking on its colour, "feeding Matariki and the Gods."

"We conduct karakia, various incantations and prayers to honour the various stars in the cluster to open a new year," he said. "Then it's a period full of dance and music and feasting and coming together."

For Matamua, who started as a possum hunter in Te Urewera and has spent more than 30 years studying the stars and Matariki, becoming one of the country's foremost experts, the formal recognition of a public holiday is a huge milestone, the culmination of years of mahi and campaigning.

"Why do we have to sing about reindeer and snow in the middle of summer? Why do we celebrate a nine-foot rabbit that lays chocolate eggs? Why can't we have something that's unique to where we are? It's built around unity and collectivity and sharing and aroha," he said.

"I think it's a very courageous move. I am actually quite thrilled to see the uptake in it, the interest."

But he said he hoped the public holiday would stay true to the essence of Matariki. That all of New Zealand would take part, no matter their background, and see it as a time of reflection, of whānau, of kai and togetherness.

"I've been saying to people don't buy presents for Matariki, let's not commercialise it. You be the present in people's lives, sit down and really get to know how people are feeling, what's going on with them."

Ko te tohu tēnā o te tau e.

The new year begins.