Matariki mā Puanga last week marked the beginning of te tau hōu Māori (The Māori New Year).
According to te ao Māori tradition, the occasion is an opportunity for whānau to gather, reflect on the past year, plan for the year ahead and to remember loved ones who passed away in recent months.
On Sunday 22 June, the congregation at Hēmi Tapu in Te Takiwā o Manukau (Te Pīhopatanga o Te Tai Tokerau) took the opportunity to remember their departed during their regular Sunday service to mark the rising of the new year.
“Leading up to the week, I’d invited people to bring pictures of loved ones that they wanted to remember during the service who had passed. And we had a little table up the front of the church, [with] some cards that people could write the names of loved ones who had passed so during the service, either at the beginning or as people came up for Eucharist, people added names to that table,” Archdeacon Mark Barnard says.
This is the third year that Hēmi Tapu has marked Matariki. Barnard likens the occasion to All Souls Day.
“As we have at the end of the year with all souls now, we do it in the middle of the year, or beginning of the year in terms of Matariki. But, marking that twice a year for that remembrance time, which is becoming, I think, quite special.”
Matariki has been welcomed by traditional Māori customs and karakia reflecting the special relationship between Māori and the star cluster. While it might seem unusual to some to have Christian prayers acknowledge the Māori New Year, Barnard says the two don’t need to be mutually exclusive.
“I think it’s the work of the Church to figure how we weave and how we integrate, which things we weave in a bit more.
“I think the three movements for me, of Matariki, of remembering, giving thanks and looking ahead, in particular this year, have become key rhythms of life.
He adds there are similarities between the customs observed during Matariki and those observed in the practise of Christian ministry.
“I was reading one of the Psalms the other morning in my daily prayers, and the Psalm was about what God really wants. He doesn’t want all the sacrifices he wants, gratitude and thanksgiving. And I just thought, oh, that’s such a Matariki posture.”
Archdeacon Barnard is encouraging other pāriha and takiwā throughout Te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa, and indeed the wider Church to consider marking the beginning of the Māori new year.
“There’s ways to do our own simple things, and ways to partner with what other folk are already doing in our communities.”