by Acting Associate Curator, Māori at Auckland Museum | Tāmaki Paenga Hira, Starr Ratapu
The whetū Pōhutukawa, the eldest child of Matariki, is connected to loss and remembrance. She encourages us to reflect, to remember, and to honour our past and those we’ve lost. Each of these actions can take many forms, just as the losses we mourn are many and varied.
Matariki brings up a lot of feelings for me, as an urbanised Māori who didn’t always grow up with the stories and celebrations of our people. In recent years, I feel gratitude - that my cultural understanding has expanded , and that I’m learning alongside the rest of Aotearoa. Alongside this I feel a certain grief - for the experiences my whānau faced for living and breathing their culture, and how that meant it wasn’t passed on. I feel regret - that I hadn’t sat with my nan before she passed to learn her stories.
These feelings aren’t unique. But for me, finding ways to honour them has helped guide me back to something I didn’t realise I was missing. A connection that’s given new depth and understanding to my identity.
Dr Alice Te Punga Somerville (Te Āti Awa, Taranaki) has spoken of the complexities of identity for urban Māori through the image of a manu aute soaring in the sky: the kite represents the strength and resilience of the urban Māori community in overcoming these challenges, and the string is our connection to our kāinga,anchored by our roots. This analogy struck a deep chord with me when I first heard it. I set out to find my own string - something that would help me feel closer to my tīpuna, my stories, and my sense of belonging. That journey led me to working closely with the taonga Māori collection at Tāmaki Paenga Hira. And it happened to be, fittingly, a manu aute that unlocked this connection for me.
This manu aute (eth. 204) was created by my tīpuna, Wiremu Kingi of the Ngāti Maru hapū of Rongowhakaata. It was accessioned into Auckland Museum’s collection in 1895. Manu aute (and manu tukutuku - both kites that utilise different materials) were traditionally used as a way to communicate with our tūpuna. While they were flown for many reasons, they hold a special significance during Matariki for their ability to connect us with our ancestors and the stories that live among the stars. Seeing this manu aute for the first time and learning its stories, helped tether me to my Māoritanga and whakapapa in a space where I didn’t feel completely at home. The string of the kite, the aho tukutuku, acts as both the anchor to our world and the pathway through which messages were sent upward. The latticework used to create these kites is similar to the weaving found in tukutuku panels, which line the walls of wharenui.
Learning these stories also led me to Te Whānau Mārama (the family of light), including Tangotango - the celestial god or goddess of the night, depending on your whānau’s kōrero. In some traditions, the very first wharenui, Hui-te-Rangiora, had a back wall adorned with the children of light, and its tukutuku panels became the blueprint for our constellations, and for Matariki.
Memory as Connection
While I wasn’t able to learn these stories from my nan before she passed, I often reflect on the memories we did share. Her sneaking me chocolate at night, infomercials playing on a TV that was always on. The mornings she spent raking my hair into a headache-inducing plait before school. The smell of kai always in the air, with a pot on the boil for the revolving door of whānau and visitors.
I remember going to the urupā with her every Christmas, placing flowers at the headstones of whānau I had never met. Attending tangi as a tamariki, and looking up at the framed photos of our tīpuna lining the back wall of the wharenui. I remember feeling scared - of the unknown, of loss, of death. Now, when I think back to those moments, something shifts. Just like the children of light, my tīpuna have been taken from those walls and into the cosmos. And while they may now be among the stars, I don’t feel so far away from them anymore.
Through these connections - taonga, stories, memory - I’ve come to understand that grief doesn’t just mark an end. It can also mark a beginning. Pōhutukawa reminds us to mourn, yes, but also to honour and reconnect. That what was lost can still be remembered. That the manu aute’s string can be tightened again, through the connections we form with our objects and stories.
While I didn’t grow up with these stories, I hold them now. And knowing that the next generation of tamariki in my whānau will learn them, weaving them into their everyday lives, brings me comfort.