Professor Rangi Mātāmua (professor of Mātauranga Māori at Massey University) started talking about growing up with his mother as a Māori librarian and the family garage being so full of books his father couldn’t park the car there – but never about finding the book, rather about connecting people with information.

His background is cultural astronomy – has travelled around the world including Greenwich – the knowledge base coming from Te Kokau. Te Kokau was resident expert in Māori astronomy and the key informant in Elsdon Best’s book “The astronomical knowledge of the Māori” though not named as such. He wrote a 400-page manuscript. 987 individual stars – what it is, when it rises/sent, what it means. 103 constellations (some change depending on the season). A curriculum for how to teach astronomy. Manuscript was passed to his son, who handed it to his grandson and so on down to Rangi Mātāmua (where it’s currently in a wardrobe: he was told not to let the manuscript go, but to share the knowledge).

Lots of recent books coming out:

• Living by the moon
• Ngā mata o te marama
• The maramataka: the many faces of the moon
• Traditional Ecological knowledge of the maramataka

Prof Mātāmua focusing on astronomy’s relationship with time:

• Sun = season. (These days we’re severed from this into an industrial system where the clock rules everything.) Where it’s rising in the morning shows the season
• Star = month or activity. Stars in the morning sky change and indicate what activities you should be doing
• Moon = day.

Triangulate these three things just like a clock with its hour/minute/second hand. Eg Matariki shifts depending on the moon (just like Easter). When the sun rises in the northeast it’s winter; when the stars indicate it’s Pipiri; and the moon is in the Tangaroa lunar phase –> then you can look for Matariki. (It might have been visible earlier, but that was the incorrect period to celebrate it.)
Mihi to the libraries who’ve taken a lead in celebrating Matariki.
“If you want to know what’s important to a society, look at what it celebrates.”
What is Mātauranga Māori?
It’s a modern term, less than 20 years old. “Mātauranga” is a response to Western knowledge systems. (Traditionally more likely to see kōrero or wānanga.) “Māori” of course just means “normal” (eg waimāori = freshwater). Māori knowledge systems; can’t exist in isolation from practice. “The practice underpins the knowledge and the knowledge affirms the practice.” Culture lives by being practised – not set in a glass case in a museum.
What is librarians’ role?
“You are the aho between the knowledge and the people.”
This year 51% of NZers did something to celebrate Matariki – especially at libraries and marae. People will continue to seek a deeper connection to our environment, and to Mātauranga Māori about it. This has to be done in collaboration with Māori – communities still hold knowledge bases that haven’t been shared.
Mātauranga Māori librarians are the go-to for everything Māori – this can be unfair – but this work is extremely influential.