Celebrating Matariki - Part II

Images courtesy of Bron Marshall.

Throughout June, many New Zealanders now celebrate Matariki, or Maori New Year, the date of which is determined by the arrival of a cluster of seven bright stars in the night sky often called the Seven Sisters, or Pleiades. For Maori it is the time to begin planting new crops. In North Canterbury, Bron Marshall and her family took time out to decorate their home to celebrate the occasion. “We’re a home-schooling family practising real world learning, therefore traditions, cultures and celebrations are a huge part of our ‘curriculum’,” says Bron. “To celebrate, we decorated our home with twinkling fairy lights. We also gathered flax to weave stars and the house was decorated with kete (baskets) and poi. We also indulged in a fine hangi in the backyard with succulent ginger pork strips and kumara; and we finished our celebrations by making and decorating gingerbread cookies in Maori-themed shapes of tiki, koru and more stars – because when I’m not wearing my home-schooling-Mum hat, I can usually be found wearing my chef’s hat over at www.bronmarshall.com – and in my opinion there isn’t a finer learning tool than a sweet spicy biscuit treat,” says Bron. Take a look at Bron’s amazing food photographs over at http://www.bronmarshall.com/ And you can find out more about Maori New Year by clicking on Matariki in the label line below this posting.