We should keep Matariki free from commercialisation, matua says

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We’re celebrating our second Mataraki national holiday but questions remain about the understanding New Zealanders have of the significance of this time of year.

With that in mind, Stuff’s pou tiaki matua Carmen Parahi joins Newsable to explain the significance of Mataraki, and give her views on the commercialisation of the Māori New Year holiday.

Here’s a brief transcript of the conversation:

Imogen Wells: Carmen, you’ve just been away celebrating Matariki with your father, is it something you’ve done every year?

Carmen: I’m from Korongata Marae in Bridge Pā, Hastings, our whare kai is actually called Mataraki so we have a long history in relationship with Mataraki that actually goes back further beyond our hapu, Ngāti Poro and Ngāti Kahungunu land, which is Hawke’s Bay. Matariki goes back thousands of years actually across from the Pacific to Aotearoa and Matariki is a key as part of our maramataka, our lunar calendar, and that is the recognition of all things, our flora and fauna and Ngā Tāngata and people.

Emile Donovan: how do you celebrate it?

So when I went back to Hawke’s Bay last weekend, the theme for this year for Matariki is kinda hakea. So return home. That’s for all New Zealanders, particularly Māori to go home to their people and to celebrate and spend time with each other at home. So I decided I’m going to go home to Hastings and Hawke’s Bay and hang out with my whānau. We just spent time together and we talked about our loved ones, those who have passed, we talked about where we’re at now, our present, celebrating our present.

Imogen Wells: Do you think New Zealanders more generally have an understanding of what Matariki means yet?

We are on a journey. I think there are some that know all about Matariki and have never been disconnected from Matariki, Māori and non-Māori. Māori too have been disconnected from Matariki and our traditional practices. But we are all learning and so we’ve got the wonderful Professor Rangi Mātāmua and his role who are supporting and creating what Matariki looks like for all New Zealanders.

Emile Donovan: A lot of holidays are most visible in mainstream culture by virtue of the sales and the commercialisation and the 40% off Matariki weekend bonus. I noticed a few of these emails coming into my inbox. Did you notice that and how do you feel about that?

Carmen: I don’t really like the commercialisation of any holiday, Christmas, Easter, Anzac. So all of these holidays commemorate something special. Why do we actually need to commercialise any of them? And so I do have an issue around commercialisation of all of our public holidays. So if you thought about all of the public holidays, do we have what five of them, six of them? We have 365 days of the year. Could we possibly just leave those holidays alone, although it is a good time for people to go out.

I get that it’s a time when people will go and spend money and it’s really important for advertisers. And I do support our commercial entities because it’s really important going into this very difficult next couple of years, we’ve really come out of a very difficult three years with the pandemic. I get that we need these opportunities and commercial industries need these opportunities. Sometimes I just wonder whether we should or we shouldn’t actually use those particular holidays to sell our stuff. We do have school holidays, maybe they should use those school holidays instead.

Listen to the full interview in the player above or click here.

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