Matariki

Matariki is the traditional Maori New Year | by planeta

Matariki  is known as a Maori new year. There are heaps of versions of how matariki was stars in the sky but the version that interests me is the one about the seven sisters. The story started with seven brothers. One was called Metai one day metai took his brothers to a hill. There they saw seven beautiful ladies. Metai's brothers felt for their beauty and wanted to marry them. Metai's brothers were old and weak because they were always fishing for their wives, they would only eat seafood. One day the seven sisters went far away so no one could hear their terrible plan. Metai transformed as a bird and overheard their plan to starve his brothers to death metai quickly told his brothers. But they didn’t believe him then metai said you use to be beautiful then the brothers agreed with metai so they waited for the seven sisters to come back. Then when they came the brothers quickly trapped them in a net and Metai took them to the heavens to uru te nga ra nga. Like Metai's brothers he felt for their beauty and sent them far away but once a year they get to shine in the sky and show their beauty, their names are uru a rangi,matariki,waiti,waita,tupu a nuku,tupu a rangi,waipuna a rangi, the end.