Matariki opens pathway to stars, voyaging and remembrance
For Manihera Forbes, Matariki is more than a cluster of stars rising in the winter sky. It is a time to remember those who have passed, gather with those who are living and reconnect with a knowledge system that once guided Māori and Pacific voyagers across the ocean.
Manihera, of Poihākena Marae and the traditional waka navigation school Ngaa Mata a Karewa, says Matariki offers the community a chance to look up and reconnect with stories illustrated by the stars.
Learning to see the winter sky
“If you don’t know where to look, it can be so hard to find these different things,” says Manihera.
“All we’re doing is giving an opportunity for people to come and have these things shown to them. Once you see it, you’ll never forget it. You’ll always be able to find it on your own.”
At this time of year, he says Matariki can be seen above the eastern horizon, with other bright stars and constellations helping guide the eye.
“When you look east, you’ll see Tautoru, which is the three stars of Orion’s Belt, then you’ll move to the left, you’ll see Taumatakuku , which is the handle of the hoe, but it’s also Taurus, the bull,” he says.
“Then just slightly further left, you’ll see that faint star cluster, which is Matariki or Pleiades.”
Another important feature in the winter sky is Te Waka o Tamarēreti, a great waka of stars that Manihera says can only be seen at this time of year. It stretches across the sky from west to east, ending at Matariki.
“It’s a nice time of the year to see this beautiful waka, as it’s so large in our sky,” he says.
Stars as a living navigation system
For Manihera, those stars are not abstract points of light. They are part of a living navigational system, one that allowed people to cross vast stretches of the Pacific by reading the sky, sea, birds, swells and other signs in the natural world.
His own journey into traditional waka navigation began more than two decades ago. In 2011, after about 10 years of training, he navigated a waka from Aotearoa to Hawai‘i, travelling through Tahiti using only the stars.
“We used no GPS, and so that was a graduation, so to speak, of 10 years of training to learn how to navigate waka just by the stars,” he says.
“Now it’s really nice. You see so many friends when you look at the sky.”
Reviving Pacific voyaging knowledge
Manihera says the revival of traditional voyaging in Aotearoa is part of a wider Pacific story. Much of the knowledge was carried forward by Micronesian master navigator Mau Piailug, who lived on the island of Satawal.
Hawaiian voyagers connected with Mau Piailug through New Zealander David Lewis, who had researched traditional wayfinding in Micronesia. Mau Piailug went on to train Hawaiian navigators including Nainoa Thompson, helping prove that long-distance voyaging by traditional navigation was living knowledge.
That knowledge later came to Aotearoa through navigators including the late Piripi Evans and Jack Thatcher, who became Manihera’s mentor in the year 2000.
After a practice navigation to Norfolk Island, Manihera joined a collective of waka retracing ancient sailing pathways across the Pacific. The waka travelled from Aotearoa to Hawai‘i, then on to San Francisco, down the coast of South America, to the Galapagos Islands, back to Tahiti and through the Pacific to Aotearoa.
“It was an amazing two-year journey,” he says.
Reading the ocean and the environment
The experience taught Manihera to read the environment in a completely different way. On the waka, all crew members go without phones or watches, with only the captain having access to GPS and communication systems for safety.
“It’s a real nice way to sink back into the environment, and to listen and learn to what’s around you, and read all the signs, because there’s so many.”
Those signs include stars, swell patterns, birds and debris that can indicate land is near. Manihera says swells bouncing off land and smaller birds returning to shore in the evening can help navigators understand where land is.
Traditionalnavigation also asks people to shift how they see the world. Rather than thinking of the earth rotating, Manihera says navigators work from a Maori world view of being stationary while everything else moves around them.
“When we voyage, we’re not going to the island, we’re actually fishing the island out of the horizon,” he says.
The star compass at Wainui
That way of seeing the sky is taught through the star compass Te Ararau o Te Upoko built at Wainui Reserve in 2022, on the pā site Te Upoko of the local hapu Tainui o Tainui. Pou mark the houses where stars rise and set on the horizon, helping navigators learn which stars rise where, to then be used as direction markers.
As a star rises too high to be read accurately, navigators shift to another rising star.
“It’s a constant swapping in of different stars as your original star gets too high,” Manihera says.
“That’s the star path that it forms.”
Passing the knowledge on
Ngaa Mata a Karewa was formally established as a trust in 2020 and teaches celestial navigation and voyaging. The kaupapa now includes rangatahi and adult learners from Whāingaroa, Waikato and across the motu.
A couple of years ago, the school took a group of rangatahi from Whāingaroa around the North Island on the waka Ngahiraka Mai Tawhiti. Manihera has also been training a wider cohort from around the country and is now working with Ngātiwai tauira in the Tutukaka and Whangārei area.
He says there are still not many people in Aotearoa trained to a high level in traditional navigation, but the knowledge is growing.
“It’s so good that, as we develop, this knowledge is getting stronger, and we can broaden the teaching,” he says.
Navigation itself is demanding, requiring focus, resilience and the ability to make decisions with little sleep. But Manihera says there are many ways to be part of voyaging, from crew to captain, cook or fisher.
“Being part of that journey is quite a special and magical experience.”
Matariki gatherings in Whāingaroa
This week, Whāingaroa locals will have a chance to step into part of that world through two Matariki gatherings.
The first will be held at Poihākena Marae at 6am on Friday, with an acknowledgement of those who have passed in the last 12 months. Manihera says the ceremony will create space for whānau and the wider community to pause, reflect and remember.
“It’s a key part of that, acknowledging those that have passed away in the last 12 months,” he says.
Afterwards, people will be invited into the wharekai for hot soup.
“It’s just a small way of acknowledging those that have passed and those that are living,” Manihera says.
The second gathering will be held at the stone sculpture carpark at Wainui Reserve at 6am on Saturday, where the community can observe Matariki and learn to identify key constellations on the horizon.