Matariki is the dull glowing star cluster known to Europeans as the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, or the Jewel Casket.

When it appeared in June in the winter sky of pre-European Aotearoa, it marked the beginning of a new year. The dead were remembered....

Tirohia ake ngā whetu, Me ko Matariki e ārau ana He tiki mai tāhau i ngā mahara e kohi nei Whakarerea ake e. Nā te roimata koua riringi He puna wai kai aku kama... Mihi-ki-te-kapua

As I look up at the stars to the cluster of Matariki I recall those who have passed on leaving me behind. Then tears well up like springs of water in my eyes... "Acknowledging-the-cloudworld"

.......and planning for a new planting season began.

Tirohi Matariki, Te whetu o te tau, E whakamoe mai ria E homai ana rongo Kia kōmai atu au.

Look at Pleiades Star of the year Preparing to sleep up there. It signals its news So I can rejoice.

The word 'Matariki' is an abbreviation of Ngā Mata o te Ariki Tāwhirimātea, The eyes of the chief Tāwhirimātea. When Ranginui the sky father. and Papatūānuku the earth mother, were separated by their offspring, one of their sons, the commander of the winds Tāwhirimātea, became angry, tearing out his eyes and hurling them into the heavens.

Other Maori legends say Matariki is a mother surrounded by her six daughters. One account explains that Matariki and her daughters appear to assist the sun, Te Ra, whose winter journey from the north has left him weakened. MORE

He'll Have to Go

The rangi tune that Tuini used is Jim Reeves' "He'll Have to Go," a hit song he released in September 1959 Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone, dear...

So Tuini probably wrote "Tō Aroha" a few months later, perhaps to commemorate the Maori New Year in June 1960.

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Published on this website March 2007, revised 2020 and 2021