Traditional navigators encourage more people to 'look up' at Matariki

A third generation of waka navigators came together at Te Papa in Wellington on Wednesday, sharing their knowledge and experience of navigating a waka guided only by traditional navigation methods - no GPS, no technology, not even a watch.

Tamahau Tangitu, Hinerapa Rupuha and Manihera Forbes were all part of a crew who made a roundtrip between Aotearoa and Samoa last year, aboard the waka hourua Ngahiraka Mai Tawhiti.

Forbes (Tainui, Ngāti Hikairo) runs Ngaa Mata a Karewa based in Whaingaroa Raglan, which mentors emerging navigators on the traditional knowledge of Pacific voyaging.

He began waka voyaging in the year 2000, taught by the likes of Sir Hekenukumai Busby and Jack Thatcher, who themselves learned from the Micronesian navigator Mau Piailug.

"We have quite a rich whakapapa in our waka genealogy that takes us back through the Pacific, back to Micronesia as well."

Forbes said he was taught how to observe and interpret Matariki, particularly around the Māori New Year. He said Matariki is a very unique cluster of stars with no others quite like it in our night sky.

"While Matariki is less practical for navigation, it does hold a strong place in our kōrero tuku iho."

Matariki is a small, faint cluster among more prominent stars, he said, and navigators are more likely to rely on brighter stars and constellations to track course.

But when it comes to the pūrākau and understanding the stories behind the stars, Matariki comes to the fore, Forbes said.

"It goes hand in hand with us as waka voyagers to pull those pūrākau to the forefront of how we actually practice our knowledge out on the moana."

Forbes has now established his own school of traditional waka voyaging and navigation, based in Whaingaroa. However, he is still running wānanga around the country, including monthly wānanga with Ngātiwai in Northland.

"We teach a basic level of navigation, but one of the key things is navigation's not actually for everyone. When I was selected as a navigator, it was a one percent success rate from Jack Thatcher. He trained 300 students and he managed to get three of us."

And while being a navigator might seem romantic, Forbes said it's not for everyone.

"The navigator, for some reason, gets the most romantic description or aspiration, but in reality, man, sleeping 30 minutes every night, it's not that desirable."

"But there's other aspects where you can get involved and help or learn about waka voyaging. You know, we always need crew, we always need captains, watch captains, cooks, fishers, fishermen. So there's a whole lot of opportunities."

Despite the tough reality of navigating, Forbes said it is really nice to be able to share the mātauranga of waka hourua and experiences they have had aboard waka hourua.

"We all live in a day-to-day sort of lifestyle of the grind, but then when we're out on the waka, out on the moana, it's like a portal where we can be transposed into te ao tāwhito and to witness the night skies and even witness different tohu of our tūpuna of the moana or the night sky - what they choose to show us with meteors and all sorts of the most amazing things that are just so life-changing," he said.

"I really encourage people just to get out there amongst the taiao.... It's just nice to be able to share our stories, to be able to encourage others."

Hinerapa Rupuha (Ngāti Kahungunu, Te Whānau a Apanui, Rangitāne) told RNZ the significance of Matariki to her is purely getting Māori people to "look up" at the stars and remember who they are.

"A majority of us don't really do that anymore," she said, "and it's kind of like a very romanticised ideology or idea, but when I think about it [the stars are] there every night. Sometimes you may not see them because of the cloud cover but it's actually free to go and have a look at them.

"It just seems like we have to have a big celebration to be able to look up at our stars, which is crazy to me."

Thanks to Professor Rangi Mātāmua and others in establishing Matariki as a public holiday, Rupuha is hopeful it might encourage more people to learn about navigation.

"If you're keen, just come. A lot of people might think that you have to be very qualified, or you have to know all of these stars, or you have to know how to put a sail up, or even sail to even become a part of waka. But showing up is enough, and if you're a cool person, I'm pretty sure no one's going to say no.

"Maybe a kaupapa like navigation will be something that may be on the cards for others. So hopefully that's something that's spoken about more widely, this Matariki coming, and that we have more kids wishing to Hiwa [the wishing star] that they can become navigators like Moana. That'll be so cool."

Rupuha will be back at Te Papa on Thursday, 2 July, for a kōrero on 'Te Reo o te Waka' with Mahara Nicholas, as part of the Matariki After Dark event.