E oho! Ngā kitenga o te maramataka: Insights into the Māori calendar

Speakers

Rikki Solomon, Tanja Schubert-McArthur, Albert Steward, Nate Rowe

Rikki Solomon — Mihi

Rikki Solomon: Tēnei te mihi ki a koutou i tēnei wā, he tino māhaki ahau kia haere mai i waenganui i ō tātou whare.

Te mihi tuatahi ki ngā atua, huia I te timatatanga huia I te wmutunga o ngā mea katoa.

He hōnore, he korōria ki te Atua, he maungarongo ki te whenua, whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata kotoa.

I tēnei wā i whakamaumahara i ngā tini roimata ngā wheturangitia. E ngā mate o tēnei wā.

Haere, haere, haere atu rā. Haere ki a Hawaiki-nui, Hawaiki-roa, Hawaiki-papamao. Hononga ngā wairua, nō reira, haere ki te pō.

Kei te mihi ki te kaikarakia, kei te mihi ki a koe. He tino ataahua te timatanga o tēnei hui.

Kei te mihi te rangatira, ki a koe, Alby e te tuakana, me tō mihi whakatau. He ataahua tō kupu, he mihi aroha ki a koe, ki tō mihi whakatau I tēnei rā, I te timatanga o tenei hui.

Ki a koutou mā e matakitaki mai e noho kei waenganui i te puna, Te Puna Matauranga, noho ki runga I a tātou whare, i runga I te rorohiko ki te mātakitaki mai.

Aroha mai, he tino pōuri te ngākau, kāore i haere ki Pōneke i tenei ata, nā te pakaru tēnei waka rererangi, engari, kei te mihi ki a koutou i tēnei wā. Nō reira, tēna koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Just to acknowledge everyone here watching and now National Library in an online just technology, we need to acknowledge our kaikarakia for the beautiful karakia and to our rangatira Albie for welcoming us here into this whare.

Rikki’s personal journey; Maramataka: environmental calendar

And hopefully as I share my screen. This kōrero is Ngā Kitenga o te Maramataka. It's just an insight. Maramataka insights. We're not going to be able to cover a lot, but hopefully, we can do a nice broad scope. And around Maramataka, I grew up with my koroua and my kuia in a little place called Te Hauke. Grew up gardening. And grew up with big gardens. And that's how it was back in those days. And we think back to our grandparents and maybe our parents as well, where they would grow everything themselves in this art that's sort of disappearing, especially for those that live in the bigger cities, growing their own gardens.

And it's something that I'm passionate about. I've worked in tangihanga for many years, but Maramataka is something that has been revitalised and re-energised in our community today. So hopefully we'll just give an overview into our kōrero.

And let's start with the whakataukī which is a Māori proverb. And it goes Tuia te rangi, tuia ki te whenua, tuia ki te moana. E rongo te pō, e rongo te ao. And what this whakataukī sort of encapsulates everything about the maramataka, what is-- ultimately, what they're saying is whatever's in the heavens is in the lands, or whatever's in the heaven is bound to the land and the sea and standing balanced between the divisions of night and day.

And ultimately, what they're saying is whatever's heaven—tuia ki te rangi is anything in the heavens, when we talk about the Tamanui-te-rā the sun, Hinemarama the moon, ngā whetū the stars, the clouds, the winds. And that's everything to do to with Tuia te rangi. Tuia te whenua is anything to do with the land. Our rākau, our putiputi, our kai māra, our manu. All the different birds and insects is the next part of Tuia ki te whenua. And tuia meaning "to stitch or to bind."

So the heavens are bound to the land. And Tuia te moana is anything to do with our ika, our fish, our kaimoana, all the different varieties of kai and animals in the oceans, our dolphins, our whales. And ultimately, we call this whakatapatorutanga or "to triangulate." And it's triangulating the seasons. So if we're going to go into a little bit more kōrero as we get further into this presentation.

E rongo te pō, e rongo te ao. Pō representing the night, or te pō representing Hinemarama the moon. Te rā representing Tamanui-te-rā, the sun. And it's so-- it's balancing the ancestral knowledge in with our modern-day context today. And so this is the whole whakataukī that encapsulates maramataka.

Often, when we talk about maramataka, we're talking about calendars, lunar calendars. We talk about Gregorian calendar. Maramataka encapsulates all of that. It's bigger than just a lunar calendar. We call it an environmental calendar, the movement of the taiao at every phase of every day and every season.

Rataka: Gregorian calendar

So first, we're going to talk about the Rātaka. And the Rātaka is the Gregorian calendar which we follow today. Just a little brief history of this korero. And this Gregorian calendar goes all the way back to a pope by the name of Pope Gregory the 13th. In the year 1582, Pope Gregory designed this solar calendar that followed the movements of the sun. Prior to that, they followed a Julian calendar, which connects with Julius Caesar. And then that was a 10-month calendar.

Then they moved to this Gregorian calendar which we use today, which is, if we have a look at our calendar, it is July, August, September, October. And this calendar was taken from-- they're made up of Roman names. So if we have a look at the month of July, "July" is a connection to Julius Caesar. And that's one of the only human names in our calendar. All the others were named after Greek gods and Roman gods. And then we have a look at the months of September, "sept" meaning "seventh," the seventh month, October meaning "oct," the eighth month.

And these talk about different seasons. We go right back to March. We look at March and April and May, "March" meaning "to march." And that was the time that the armies would move. April was a time named after the god Api which means "to spring forth," and it's beginning to flourish. May is named after Maia.

And so we have all these names in our Gregorian calendar which describes the environment up in the Northern Hemisphere. And if we have a look in around December or March, or December and January, and that's when we celebrate New Year's. And it was about families coming together. And in the Northern Hemisphere, that's where we get the name-- or that's where they came together and we celebrate New Year's. And it's in the winter month.

Winter was such an important time because it was the easiest to distinguish of all the seasons. And often, they went into a time of going home. The battles-- the wars never went ahead, and they would be able to stay home because it was warmer. And nothing grew. So ultimately, when we look at our calendar, the Gregorian calendar is we have a look at the Earth, or Papatūānuku and we measure those that the-- we measure that. And that measurement is where, on the 1st of January every year, we celebrate this New Year's.

And this calendar that was written by Pope Gregory did an amazing job, that every-- we can go absolutely anywhere in the world. And almost-- everyone is following this calendar, if I was to go to China, if I was to go to Canada, and it keeps the world moving together. But one of the things that tragically got lost with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar into Aotearoa and into any Indigenous nation was this calendar overlaid the Indigenous knowledge.

Maramataka: moon calendar

And our maramaka when we look, is-- we will often refer to, is measuring and watching the moon. And it's a lunar calendar. And tīpuna would-- it was easier to identify the-- what we call ngā mata, the many faces of the moon. And they gave a name, an ingoa, a name. And they would have actions associated with it.

And most of the time that we look at-- we look at the maramataka, marama meaning the moon, taka meaning to fall or to repeat. So Maramataka means that the repeating cycles of the moon, but also the repeating cycles of the environment. And maramataka was often used for-- in the mai rā anō, in the times of our ancestors, was, at the time of growing gardens, gathering ka iand te hīika. And when we look at the name maramataka we have the word māra the first word, māra meaning garden.

We also have another word in there called rama, and rama tuna meaning-- or rama ika meaning under the lights, catching fish and catching eels. And so when we look at the kupu marama, it was often associated with kai,;gardening, fishing, eeling, and gathering of kai, and maramataka meaning those-- the gardening and fishing and everything moved in patterns as well. And there were specific times that we would harvest more. And so that's what Maramataka is about, moving with the environment on a daily basis.

Māori names of months

And when we introduced our-- we have our months. We have January, February, March, April, May, June. But now, in our maramataka,Oopsie I overshot there. But when we look at our maramataka we have-- on the side here, we have Hanuere, Pēpuere, Māehe, Āperira. Those are the transliterated names of January, February, March. And we use these names when we are using the Gregorian calendar. These Māori Hanuere, Pēpuere, Māehe, Āperira, Mei, , we use these when we're using the Gregorian calendar because these names align with the Gregorian calendar.

When we use the names of Pipiri, Hōngonui, Hereturikoka, Mahuru, these names are connected to themaramataka the lunar calendars. So when we have a look at these months, they don't actually quite fit. So if I were to look at Pipiri , it could rise-- that month could start in May and end in June. And then so we often-- it lives in this world of "ish." It's around June-ish. Hongonui is around July-ish. It could start in July or run into August. And we're going to learn when those start so that we can use these names correctly, Hereturikoka, Mahuru, Whiringa-a-nuku, Whiringa-a-rangi.

And each of these names have actions associated with it. So if we have a look at this time of the year, Pipiri, Hōngonui, Hereturikoka, these are months thaty describe our hōtoke or winter. And when with Pipiri, te piri mai, te here mai, te hōngona mai meaning "to come together, keep warm." And it's talking about-- the environment is-- this is the time of hōtoke. It's going to be cold. And we call this time many names. It could be known as takarua, And Takarua is a star that is a marker for winter. We also have Matariki, which is another tohu, which we've just celebrated, the rising of Matariki. . And there's the furthest north that Tamanui-te-rā is going to go. We have another one called-- in this month, or Hōngonui or July, we call it Te Rua or orTakarua. We're into the second stage of winter.

We have another-- and so there's all-- there's another name for winter, which is known as Hikumutu .And so different iwi had different ways of describing the environment at winter. And so-- but when we have a look at the actions, to Piri, to hono, and to here meaning to come together, keep each other nourished. And when we have a look about the time we celebrate Matariki, is that total relation to when the Northern Hemisphere celebrate their winter. And so we celebrate ours as well.

And it was a time that we had done all the work, we put all our kai into the pātaka, and that we were able to live off the resources of all the hard work that had been done that ran from koanga,, which is in spring, all the way to autumn, planting and preparing those gardens, gathering kai and putting it into a pātaka, so that during winter we could come together.

Moon phases

We have a look at our maramataka, I'll try and teach it so that you can leave here and go out this evening and have a look. And when we have a look at Rākaunui-- Rākaunui is the full moon. Now, I don't know what the weather's like where you are watching this. But last night, it was pretty wet up here in Tamaki, lots of rain, lots of clouds. But in the morning, we saw the full moon.

And Rākaunui is-- we use our hands. Rākaunui is the full moon. So if you go out this evening, and as the sun is setting, you'll see the full moon rising. And so Rākaunuiis the full moon, and it rises at the setting of the sun. And what we can do from there is we can use our hands. And if you see the right side of the moon is nice and smooth like a banana and the left side is the shadow, that means from the moon-- or Hinemarama is traveling from a full moon and down to a new moon.

And when she's about halfway-- or they call it a waning moon. But we—kei te moe a Hinemarama, she's going to sleep. And when she gets to about a half moon or a quarter moon and we know that she's in the Tangaroa phase. And Tangaroais often seen as one of the most productive times of the maramataka, meaningful planting and fishing. But when we have a look at these calendars, it says Tangaroa is a great time to plant. However, we have to take into consideration as well is that-- it's planting in the right season as well.

So we might-- and when we think back to our tīpuna, our ancestors, they didn't have the kai that we have here, which is like the broccoli, the spinach, all those greens that can grow in winter. The main source of their kai would have been kūmara, rīwai, peruperu, all the different varieties, taro. And they planted that, but they'd have to plant it in warmer weather.

And so we know that would be just after koanga. There's a month called Whiringa-a-nuku. Whiringa-a-nuku which is around October-ish, September or October. As Whiri-a-nukumeans to whiri, that the Papatūānuku's beginning to warm. And then as she's warming, we plant our seeds. And Whiringa-a-rangi is when they begin to sprout and the shoots begin to come through. But it all depends on where your maramataka is. So that we have many maramataka in Aotearoa. We have them from the Taitokerau which is known as the winterless north, or can be completely to Te Tai Tonga down in Otago or Dunedin. The way that they're planting would be at various times of the year.

So Tangaroa. And as we come down to the Whiro moon. Whiro moon is often seen as the beginning of the new month. So when there's a Whiro moon-- and that could happen on the 4th of-- let's say it was on the 4th of July. That's when the month of Hōngonui starts, and they'll run through to maybe the 3rd of August. And so-- that's when we're talking about different maramataka starting at different times. And most maramataka start on the Whiro moon.

And a Whiro moon is when the sun and the moon rise together during the daytime. And they travel through our day sky, or through the daytime. And they rise together. They set together. In our tīpuna of said. “He whirowhiro te marama he rā tino kino.” And they said on the Whiro moon, there's darkness in the night. And acutally really-- if you wanted to go stargazing-- I always say, if you want to see stars, wait for the new moon. And if weather's fine, you get an absolutely clear view of all of our whetū because there's no-- Hinemarama is not in the night sky blocking the light.

And then when we have a look at Hinemarama and she's nice and smooth on the left side, that tells us, smooth on the left side, shadow on the right side of her, that she's going from Whiro all the way back up to Rākaunui . And when it gets to about a half moon or a quarter moon, it's the Tamatea phase. And our tīpuna would often say it's an unpredictable time in the weather. But when you start studying the marmataka, those weather patterns start becoming predictable. We often-- there's a lot of-- it's associated with a lot of strong winds and rain.

And so this is just a real-- the four basic parts of the maramataka. Which is Rākaunui the full moon-- Tangaroa is the waning moon, quarter moon, waning, or Kei te moe a Hinemarama. Whiro is the new moon, which is the beginning of the calendar, the maramataka calendar, each month. And the Tamatea is the Kei te oho a Hinemarama, meaning she's beginning to awaken. And that would be known as the quarter moon waxing.

Interpreting moon phases: recommended activities

Often, when you're looking for maramataka, they often come like this. And they have all these names like Whiro, Tirea, Hoata, Uenuku, Okoro, . And they often say-- have a calendar where they say it's a good day for planting, good day for fishing, good day for planting. And often, when I would grew up in our little place of Te Hauke, raining was probably one of our favorite times of the year because, when it rained, our lake flooded.

And we didn't have to go into the lake, and the water would come right up to the railway tracks. And we could walk out and kei te rama ngā tuna. We'll make these fires and walk on these corrugated boats that we had made and push them through the water or use a torch, and we would gather tuna that would swim up to the edge. And so when most people saw wet weather, for us, it was an exciting time of the year.

And when we have a look at these maramataka, they vary between-- this one here is a 30-day maramataka from Ngāti Kahungunu But some will have 26 names. Some will live 27, 28, 29, 30, all the way up to 35. And some of these names are interchangeable. And it's very dependent on the area that you live in. So in terms of coming back to the whakataukī, “Tuia ki te rangi, tuia ki te whenua, tuia ki te moana. , we're just going to give a bit of a kōrero about that to about-- just as we begin to wind up.

Matariki and other stars

So in terms of Tuia ki te rangi, we're in the Hōtoke month, and we've just been celebrating Matariki. And this was taken just around the corner from our home. And we have, over here, Te waka a rangi, which is Matariki. Sitting over here wee have Te Kokotea. And then we have-- this here is Tautoru.

And the star here is Puanga. So in the mornings of winter, at the beginning of winter, Matariki and Puanga are the stars that symbolize-- this is the furthest north that the Tamanui-te-rā is going to go. And this is where we get to Takarua te rā o Hinetakurua, meaning the winter solstice is just near the rising of Matariki in-- and that was when we have our longest nights, or our longest-- the shortest day.

And over here to the right, there's a star called Takurua. And Takurua is known as Hinetakurua, but Takurua is also symbolizing winter. Te Rua o Takurua is the second phase of winter. And so Matariki-- and we've had lots of kōrero from Dr. Rangi Matamua, and absolutely exciting that we had a public holiday and were able to have this day off. And Matariki is all about being with your whānau.

It's all about honor and remembering those that have passed. And it's also about-- if we have kai and we have extra resources, then we look after those that may be--they may not have the resources that they need. So it's about sharing and watching out for our community because a lot of our whānau go hungry and they go cold at this time of the year or they don't have enough kai. This is what this is about, is around sharing our resources.

Another star that symbolises-- that rises in the morning is the star called Antares, also known as Rehua, who is on a part of a constellation called Scorpion's Tail. But we know this as the Te Matau a Māui, , the hook of Māui, and as the pūrākau that is shared throughout all Polynesia of Māui. And during the-- at night, if we go out in the night sky, and we'll see this hook, this is the story of Māui's hook chasing through the coldest nights and through winter trying to slow the sun down. And when we get to summer, this Te matau a Māui is there, over the top of the sun, which is known as Te Takinga o te Rā o Hineraumati , the longest day, known as the summer solstice.

And so in all of our —pūrākau, our pūrākau hold mātauranga. And the story of Māui slowing down the sun is talking about the stars and their positioning and the resources. So, in this time of year in Hōtoke , Tuia ki te rangi is Matariki, Takurua, Puanga and Rehua.

Plants and fish as markers of seasons

In terms of Tuia ki te whenua, what we might start to see-- and different plants flower at different-- and depending on where you are, but where we are, the kawakawa is starting to fruit. The whauwhaupaku is-- they're beginning to berry, and other plants like the mānuka. The mānuka around here are flowering. So it's about the rising of Matariki and the rising of Puanga. Plants and trees on the land begin to flower. And that's the connection between Tuia ki te rangi and Tuia ki te whenua.

In terms of Tuia ki te moana , Tuia ki te moana is that we have what we call a piharau. And a piharau is -- also, another name for piharau is a lamprey, also known as the korokoro,also known as the kamakama down in Te Waipounamu in the South Island. And at the rising of Matariki, the flowering of these plants, these lamprey to the right are making their way up our rivers. And so that's how we get whatever's-- that connection between Tuia ki te rangi , whatever's happening in the heavens with the rising of Matariki and the rising of Puanga.

Tui ki te whenua, we have the flowering of the kawakawa, the whauwhaupaku, puawānanga, the mānuka. And Tui ki te whenua is we have this kai which is known as the piharau or the korokoro begin to come up our waterways, and our tīpuna would gather this. The other cool thing at this time of the year, of the rising of matariki, the tohorā, also known as the right whale, is situated and sitting down at the bottom of Te Waipounamu in a place called the Auckland Islands. And there, they're gathering, they're giving birth, and they hang-- they come together at the rising of Matariki and they hang out there for winter, raising their whānau.

Summary: Maramataka to indigenise data and live in synch with environment

So this is just to give you an insight, this kōrero, in terms of Maramataka,, is to really share that it's more than just a lunar calendar. And one of the things that we're using this maramataka for is indigensing data. There's many ways. We can use it to grow kai. We can use it for fishing. We can use it to triangulate our environment.

And the stuff that we've been teaching, especially with different organisations-- they might do a study of the tuna], what star relates to that tuna, or an eel, and when they migrate and when they come back. And so it's more than just a calendar. It's getting a complete picture of the taio and its environment.

And I hope that you've enjoyed this poto kōrero, this kōrero. We want to leave a few minutes for some pātai, some questions. But hopefully, if you're wanting to begin this journey in maramataka, try and find a maramataka that's near you which is from your iwi. You might have it in your whānau.. And then just begin by studying your environment.

If I could put maramataka it in its simplest form, maramataka is to know where you're standing in the environment that you're in. And always start from home. Have a look around. What streams and rivers or creeks or oceans surround me? What trees surround me? Go outside and have a look at-- try and find the moon and Hinemarama. Go out and spend time in the evenings looking at stars. And our tīpuna would study and they would observe the patterns of the environment and triangulate them together. And nō reira, e te whānau he mihi ki a koutou. I'll conclude with that, and then give a bit of time if there's-- for any questions and answers.

Q1: Can you discuss the use of the Maramataka in relation to changing climate?

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: So Rikki, one person online is asking, can you discuss-- so it just disappeared. Can you discuss the use of the maramataka in relation to changing climate?

Rikki Solomon: Oh, that's a great pātai. The climate is constantly-- yeah, that's one of the things that the debates are going on, in terms of global warming, how do we adapt to that. Maramataka is about repositioning ourselves now. And when we follow maramataka, it's about living-- it reminds us that we are the, what we say, the taina, that we're the youngest of all the creations in this world, and that we should be looking after our environment that we're in. And there's going to be massive changes. But it's what we do with-- I always say, start with the known whare, start from home, and start expanding out.

But maramataka is all about adapting to the environment that you're in. And so our tīpuna, when they would-- when they would navigate from different island to island, the environment changed. When they came down there to Aotearoa, it's a lot different environment to that which is up in Moananui a Kiwa in the Pacific. And so it's about adapting. It's about caring for our environment, watching out for our environment.

And it's not just Maori. That's many Indigenous nations, many people, many of our people, and many find a passion about the environment. And it's about-- I think we've gone-- in my opinion, we've gone past just sustainability. We have to get into action now, in terms of protecting and looking after our environment, of our ocean-- we can't-- we used to be able to get kai and that anywhere.

Like if I think back to our lake, we don't have the numbers of eels that used to come through because of what they've been doing up on the rivers. So it's a collaborative work, working with fisheries, working with forestry. Everyone needs to be sitting around on this table and having a kōrero, not just the scientists. I hope that answers your question. Kia ora.

Q2: If a person doesn’t affiliate with an iwi, how can they find the right Maramataka? And how many different Maramataka are there in New Zealand?

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: Thank you, Rikki. Also, another question. For a person who does not affiliate with an iwi, how can I find a relevant maramataka? And additionally, do you have an idea of how many different maramataka there are in New Zealand?

Rikki Solomon: Oh, there's many maramataka. Ideally, what that would look like, there would be-- I would say there would be a different one every 50 kilometers in Aotearoa. There's hundreds of them. The big one is maybe just even have a research, because there's been a lot of research done about gathering different maramataka. There's some in the whānau, that whānau have. First is probably just have a look. Google maramataka in your area. If not, you can get a maramataka off Te Papa. They have one on their website, even though it's a Kahungunu one. But they're around. You just-- if you're looking for them, you'll find them. If you're on YouTube, you can watch YouTubes on maramataka now. There's people doing live feeds. There's absolutely so much more-- an abundance of mātauranga being shared now.

Q3: Where is Te Hauke (where Rikki grew up)?

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: Kia ora There's also a question, Kei whea a Te Hauke? where you grew up, where is it?

Rikki Solomon: Oh, OK, Te Hauke? Te Hauke is in-- it's a little place 20 kilometers south of Hastings near Te Aute College. Absolutely love-- it's a place, if you blink, you'll miss it. No one stops there. It's just got State Highway 2, so-- but it's a place I call home, and we used to grow a lot of our kai there.

Q4: Māori public servant tasks to support our organisations to work with Māori effectively and return to Maramataka; advice for effective engagement model?

Guest: Kia ora Rikki, Ko [INAUDIBLE] tēnei I thought you were going to say ko te pito o te ao. Te Hauke. Ka nui ngā pito o te ao. Ko Ruāktoki anō te pito o te ao.

[LAUGHTER]

I sit here as a Māori public servant tasked with many things to try and support our government agency, our government organisation, to find ways of effectively engaging with Maori. The impact of colonisation on whānau, hapū and iwi has been profound.

So when we are tasked as Māori public servants to support our organisation to engage with Māori effectively and the renaissance within Māori communities to return to those traditional ways of learning, like the maramataka, what would your advice be to us as public servants, especially Māori public servants, when we're trying to find an effective engagement model to engage with Māori, particularly in the context of maramataka]?

Rikki Solomon: Hmm. One of the things that-- well, what I've been working over over the years is about indigenising the data. Because often when we give reports and we give stats, it's often from the Gregorian calendar, a Western view, which there's nothing absolutely wrong with it. But there's a whakataukī that goes, Mā te tikanga kia ako, mā te pono kia mārama, mā te pūrākau kia maumahara.

And often when we do the data, it's to present the truth and the facts. And what we've realized is the truth and the facts often-- what the whakataukī says, teach me the facts and I'll learn, tell me the truth and I'll understand, but tell me a story and I'll remember that forever in my heart.

And maramatakaand indigenising the data is-- it's about presenting the truth and it's about presenting the facts. But it is about presenting it in a way that it's a story that Maori will connect to. And when we often give data and we often look at the data that we present to Maori, often, it's never from an-- or any Indigenous nation on the world because the impacts of colonization and the impacts of racism is huge.

And so when we present the data, all of our data says that we lead poverty. We lead incarcerations in prisons, in terms of health. And it's often-- it might present the truth and facts, but it's often painting this picture that things are dire.

What's missing is the voices of the people. And maramataka is about finding balance, not only in the Western world, but in the Indigenous world. And that's what I rongo i te pō, i rongo i te ao -- is how do we present this in a way and how can we maintain this balance with the Gregorian calendar, this calendar of time that the world is using, how can we use maramataka, which is an environmental calendar, and it's about working them both together. Because you need both the environmental calendar, we need our environment, but we also need our Gregorian calendar to live in this world.

And it could be little things that we can do within the organisation. Start small, then work big. What that looks like, that's a whole other wānanga , depending on the organisation that we work in, especially the government departments. I know that they're starting to roll it into-- to the well-being, because environmental and maramataka can be used in terms of the well-being of the staff, of the whānau in there, in helping them to maintain their balance.

Q5: Do you have a favourite phase of the Maramataka?

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: Another question from online, do you have a favorite moon of the maramataka?

Rikki Solomon: Oh, do I have a favorite? I love all of them. But especially this time of the year, the moon, which is the full moon. There's a lot of magic that happens. We're not talking about magic, but it's a great time to go and sit at the beach. You have bigger waves coming in. They're louder. And I just love watching a sunset and then the moonrise all in one time. I just sit on the sill.

You can watch the sun go down looking to the west. And then you look to the east, and you're watching the moon come up. It's quite a spectacular time, especially if you have all the different colours that happen in the sky, the reds, the purples. It's actually a real beautiful time of the month.

Q6: Can the Maramataka be used to support emotional wellbeing and health?

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: And can you use the maramataka to support emotional well-being and health? And if so, how can it be used?

Rikki Solomon: Because often we-- and I think-- and I'll say, we've got people-- when we talked about maramataka, people initially assumed we were saying that the moon causes this. And what we were saying is, no, we can measure, and we use the moon and we can gather the data. And with that data, it puts it into circles and it puts it into stories. So it can be used for emotional well-being.

But the big one is that our tīpuna gave all these name-- if I have a look at these names, Tangaroa and Tamatea-- and what we say is we can-- with these names, Tangaroa connects to an environmental element, which is the oceans and rivers. And we're saying, at this time of the year, if you're feeling-- or at this time of the maramataka, go and spend some time maybe swimming or sitting by the ocean. And in the Tamatea phase, go and spend some time sitting in the environments, in the ngahere, in the forest.

And this is one of the things that the doctors are doing. I was reading this paper-- I think it was up in, oh, was it Scotland or Ireland, where the doctors were prescribing people to go and spend time in the environment as part of the healing process, and because often they would-- and what I love about the maramataka is our tīpuna gave when to connect to the environment, so when to go into the forest, and when we start measuring by the maramataka and we start creating these patterns-- and there might be particular times of that maramataka that we might barely know, well, what's the environment that we can go and sit in and allow the space-- allow us to ponder, to heal, and to reconnect to the environment.

Now, what we're not saying is, don't use the-- don't go to the doctors, but of these points, different parts of our mental well-being in different stages of mental health. And one of the things that we've observed is with our whānau. When they connect to the environment and they do that consistently over a period of time at the right time, we have seen some amazing results where whānau have been able to self-heal.

They've been able to reconnect to the environment, whether it be through fishing, whether it be through kayaking, whether that be going mountain climbing and growing their own gardens. We have whānau in organisations that run gardening as part of the healing process for our youth, for our rangatahi.

Q7: Has Maramataka been used for research, e.g. in health?

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: Kia ora. . Another one from online is, to your knowledge, has the maramataka been used as a tool for research, for example, in health?

Rikki Solomon: We have been working on research in health. There's other organisations that have used it as well. And what we're saying-- and often, I use this quote by-- oh, trying to remember his name, but—Dr Sean Wilson said, it's not about pulling down the Eurocentric way of doing things, but elevating the Indigenous knowledge to the same level. And we absolutely need Western science. We need Western frameworks.

But we also have Indigenous Māori ways of doing things as well that are totally validated. And it's not about pulling one side down to elevate the other. What we're saying is the I rongo i te pō, i rongo i te ao. . What Western frameworks can we do, and what Maori frameworks?

And that's-- and if we put them both together, it's of benefit of our whānau. So they are implementing it into-- my whole research, really, is around whakamōmori and indigenising the data of the Coronial Office. And when we started putting that data together, we put it in a way that it told us stories when to watch out for whānau, what some of the-- how can we use the environment.

And these have been implemented into many youth organisations so they're moving with the environment. So there's times that they take them fishing, times that they'll go mountain climbing, times that you stay inside. In the maramataka , there's times that they say, this is not a good time to do anything. So it's about rebalancing and using a mix of both our Western world and our matauranga Māori..

Q8: Relation between Maramataka and menstrual cycle?

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: And another question that came online is, I'm not sure if this is too off topic, but do you have anything to speak to regarding maramataka and Ikura waiwhero, so I think relating to the menstrual cycle and the lunar calendar?

Rikki Solomon: Yeah. Oh, what was that pātai again? Sorry.

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: So the relation between the maramataka and the menstrual cycle.

Rikki Solomon: Oh, OK. Yup. Yeah, no, they're both-- when we talk about ikura or the menstrual cycle, it follows the same patterns, and we call it those, as the lunar cycle. And has it been researched? And I think-- if I remember correctly, is it Ngahuia Murphy coming to speak at the next kōrero? I think it's next month. She's an absolute-- that's her whole research, was on ikura in turning the menstrual cycles from a-- because we have our lunar cycles, our wāhine, our women, also have cycles there too. And they call them the moon cycles.

And so are they related? Yeah, they're both related. Because when we look at the maramatraka , we often say te pō is a female connection. And so when we look at the Hinemarama, that's, we say, the female connection. When we look at the sun, we say there is a male tāne or male connection. And so i ngā marama, the moon cycles and the tides, exactly the same bio-rhythms as our wāhine] when they have their menstrual cycles as well.

Q9: Does Maramataka have seasons?

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: Thank you. And I think that might be the final question, is about how the maramataka relates to seasons, and is it broken into sections, or does it have 12? So kind of months and maramataka in seasons.

Rikki Solomon: All these seasons-- seasons play a big part. So if I was to look at-- where we get-- when we have our lunar cycles, our maramataka ], and we have Whiro. We have-- there are 12 or 13 whiro in the calendar year. There's often a star associated with the-- so if we have a look at last month, it was Matariki, Matariki in the lunar calendar.

It's what we call a lunar-stellar calendar. And Matariki represents winter. Now, it's broken—different iwi have different way of it. So if I talk of it from a Ngāti Kahungunu view, we would say Ttakurua is the beginning of winter, Hōtoke is the middle of winter, Hikumutuv is the end of winter. But then we have different iwi that might say Wero-I-te-ninihi, Wero I te kokoto, Wero- I te whakataka.

So there's many different ways that they measured the environment. So they broke it down into seasons. And then when I have a look-- when there's this change between winter around September, we often call that Aroaromahana. And Aroaromahana is saying it's not quite spring, but there's this transition period between August and September where the environment is beginning to warm up.

So these names describe the environment. And if we have a short winter, for example, and it's dry, we will drop one of the middle-- we will drop Hikumutu , and we will go into Aroaromahana, meaning we're going to transition into spring. And then we go into koanga.

So everything just doesn't-- I think what we've become conditioned to, I suppose, is at school we learned that the 1st of September is Spring, and first of December is Summer, and the 1st of March is Autumn, and the 1st of June is winter. But as we study the environment, it doesn't quite happen that way. And so we would have these words, these kupu or kaupeka that we've described that will talk about transitioning times. And so aroromahana , then we go on to Koanga, spring. And then spring will lead us into Raumati. Raumati will lead us into Ngahuru.

So some-- we have six seasons in the Ngāti Kahungunu view, but then there's other iwi that have the 13 seasons-- seven phases are summer, six phases of winter. It's just not straight winter, spring, summer. But it will describe the environment. So for one-- like if I go to summer and we talk about Matatekura, or Matatemuramura], that is the third phase of summer, and that is when the Pōhutukawa trees are blooming.

And then the fourth phase of summer might be Matatekaiwai, and Kaiwai means "the thirst." And they'll be talking about when the ground begins to kapakapa mai, the ground begins to crack. And so that talks that-- we're in the fourth phase of summer. And so it will be describing the environmental as it's going through. And that's the way that our tīpuna-- it wasn't just summer, winter, spring. It would describe the environment and when that happened in. So all of our trees, all of our stars, all of our plants give us and describe the environment for us.

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: Rikki. Are there any more questions from the auditorium?

Q10: Mihi to Rikki from someone coming from Northern Hemisphere for insight into Maramataka

Guest: Tēnā koe matua, kei te whakamā ahau nō reira, kōrero English.
As someone who grew up in the Northern Hemisphere, I really appreciate what you've taught me because I find the sky very disorienting when I look up. So I really appreciate that you've walked us through the phases of the moon and also just that-- it really is Pipiri to Haratua, which is the month, I mean, the cycle of the year, and the encouragement you've given me to explore the environment and the guidance to know where to start. I just wanted to mihi to you for that because it's been really disorienting for me for many years, and I think I have a starting point now to feel at home here. So kia ora.

Rikki Solomon: Oh Kia ora. Talking of the Northern Hemisphere, I get disorientated whenever I go up there. It takes me a couple of days to get myself realigned, especially when I was up in Turtle Nation. I've been to the top of Canada and the US with our Indigenous nations there. But in terms of the hand signals that are talked about, they're the opposite in the Northern Hemisphere. And the stars are, for us, upside down, but they're the right way for you.

And yeah, so it's always-- we always take our reads in the morning. So we go out in the morning. We have a look at what stars are rising before just before the sun rises. And those stars are indicators for the seasons. So we often talk about Matariki-- Matariki is in the sky now for the rest of the year. Until next May. But during the summer months, Matriki goes through the night sky and Rehua, or Antares, rises in the morning in summer. In the winter months, Matariki rises in the morning and Rehua enters, goes through the night sky. So they're always opposite each other.

And so as you start to watch and observe the environment, you start to become in rhythm with it. Especially if you're watching the moon rising and setting, then you start watching the tides. And then you can start figuring out where the tides are just by the position of where the moon is. Is it an incoming tide? Is it an outgoing tide? Then you start to recognize-- you'll probably leave here and you'll start seeing plants and flowering of trees that you haven't seen before. You'll start hearing birds at particular times of the year. They sing louder. They're calling. And those are absolutely valuable in terms of knowing your environment. So I thank-- yeah, and I thank you for your kupu in terms of the Northern Hemisphere. Kia ora

Tanja Schubert-McArthur: I think we've come to the end of our session. So I would like to invite Alby to close us off.

Albert Steward: Closing

Albert Steward: Nā mātou te hōnore chief, te whakatakato ngā kōrero ataahua, ngā kōrero rangatira, ngā kōrero ā tātou mātua tūpuna mai I te tera pito o Ngāti Kahungunu.

Nā reira e te rangatira, tēnei ka mihi, tēnei ka mihi. Me te hōhunutanga o ngā kōrero. Ko ētahi o ngā kōrero, ngawari, ko ētahi o ngā kōrero, ā, ko te hohonu ka putu. Nā reira, ka mihi ake ki a koe, te rangatira, me ō pūkenga, me ngā taonga tuku iho. Kei runga i a koe, me ō tūpuna kei runga i a koe. Tēnei ka mihi, tēnei ka mihi, nā reira tēnā koe. Kei te hoatu te rākau kōrero ki te rangatira, ki taku whanaunga Nate, nāna i whakapuaki mai mā tātou, ko te īnoi atu māna ngoi ka whakakapi mā tatou.

Nō reira e ngā ranagatira i huri noa i te whare, tena tātou.

Nate Rowe: Karakia whakamutunga

Nate Rowe: Me karakia tātou.
Ka rere manu ki uta
Ka rere manu ki tae
Ka kī waiora e
Ka tutuā piopio i nuku
Ka tutuā piopio i rangi
Ka ruku kāpuia ka tautua
Kei mata nuku
Kei mata rangi
Kei te uru o Hawaikinui e tau ana
Whiti atu, kia whakamaua, kia tina, TINA
Haumi e, TAIKI e.

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