{"id":703,"date":"2023-10-31T10:53:35","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T21:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/?p=703"},"modified":"2023-11-06T14:37:49","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T01:37:49","slug":"rangi-matamuas-keynote-lianza-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/rangi-matamuas-keynote-lianza-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangi M\u0101t\u0101mua&#8217;s keynote &#8211; LIANZA 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Professor Rangi M\u0101t\u0101mua<\/strong> (professor of M\u0101tauranga M\u0101ori at Massey University) started talking about growing up with his mother as a M\u0101ori librarian and the family garage being so full of books his father couldn&#8217;t park the car there &#8211; but never about finding the book, rather about connecting people with information.<\/p>\n<p>His background is cultural astronomy &#8211; has travelled around the world including Greenwich &#8211; the knowledge base coming from Te Kokau. Te Kokau was resident expert in M\u0101ori astronomy and the key informant in Elsdon Best&#8217;s book &#8220;The astronomical knowledge of the M\u0101ori&#8221; though not named as such. He wrote a 400-page manuscript. 987 individual stars &#8211; 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 M\u0101t\u0101mua (where it&#8217;s currently in a wardrobe: he was told not to let the manuscript go, but to share the knowledge).<\/p>\n<p>Lots of recent books coming out:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Living by the moon<\/li>\n<li>Ng\u0101 mata o te marama<\/li>\n<li>The maramataka: the many faces of the moon<\/li>\n<li>Traditional Ecological knowledge of the maramataka<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Prof M\u0101t\u0101mua focusing on astronomy&#8217;s relationship with time:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sun = season.  (These days we&#8217;re severed from this into an industrial system where the clock rules everything.) Where it&#8217;s rising in the morning shows the season<\/li>\n<li>Star = month or activity. Stars in the morning sky change and indicate what activities you should be doing<\/li>\n<li>Moon = day.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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&#8217;s winter; when the stars indicate it&#8217;s Pipiri; and the moon is in the Tangaroa lunar phase &#8211;&gt; then you can look for Matariki. (It might have been visible earlier, but that was the incorrect period to celebrate it.)<br \/>\nMihi to the libraries who&#8217;ve taken a lead in celebrating Matariki.<br \/>\n&#8220;If you want to know what&#8217;s important to a society, look at what it celebrates.&#8221;<br \/>\n<strong>What is M\u0101tauranga M\u0101ori?<\/strong><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a modern term, less than 20 years old. &#8220;M\u0101tauranga&#8221; is a response to Western knowledge systems. (Traditionally more likely to see k\u014drero or w\u0101nanga.) &#8220;M\u0101ori&#8221; of course just means &#8220;normal&#8221; (eg waim\u0101ori = freshwater). M\u0101ori knowledge systems; can&#8217;t exist in isolation from practice. &#8220;The practice underpins the knowledge and the knowledge affirms the practice.&#8221; Culture lives by being practised &#8211; not set in a glass case in a museum.<br \/>\n<strong>What is librarians&#8217; role?<\/strong><br \/>\n&#8220;You are the aho between the knowledge and the people.&#8221;<br \/>\nThis year 51% of NZers did something to celebrate Matariki &#8211; especially at libraries and marae. People will continue to seek a deeper connection to our environment, and to M\u0101tauranga M\u0101ori about it. This has to be done in collaboration with M\u0101ori &#8211; communities still hold knowledge bases that haven&#8217;t been shared.<br \/>\nM\u0101tauranga M\u0101ori librarians are the go-to for everything M\u0101ori &#8211; this can be unfair &#8211; but this work is extremely influential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor Rangi M\u0101t\u0101mua (professor of M\u0101tauranga M\u0101ori at Massey University) started talking about growing up with his mother as a M\u0101ori librarian and the family garage being so full of books his father couldn&#8217;t park the car there &#8211; but never about finding the book, rather about connecting people with information. His background is cultural [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[319,32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":704,"href":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions\/704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deborahfitchett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}