Te Marama o Matariki He Maramataka Māori - Mahuru
4th Month of the Māori Year - September/October
Ka hoki mai te Pīpīwharauroa i tōnā rerenga ki tawhiti nui ki tawhitiroa. Kua hoki mai ki tōna wähi whānautanga, ki te whānau i ōna hēki. E pūāwai ana te Kōwhai, te Puawānanga me te Rangiora. Kua aata ara mai a Papatūānuku i tōnā moenga roa o te Hōtoke. Ka tīmata ngā mahi ki te whakatikatika i ngā māra kai.
Shining Cuckoo return from their migration to lay eggs in the place of their birth. Kōwhai, Clematis and Bushmans Friend are now in flower. Earth slowly wakes from a long winter sleep and the ground is prepared for gardens.
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Te Tohu o Kaupeka - Puawānanga
Sign of the Season - Clematis, Clematis paniculata
‘Tama tū, tama ora; tama moe, tama mate kai.’
‘He who works survives; he who is idle perishes.’
This whakatauākī (proverb) is a reference to the message brought by the arrival of Puawānanga (Clematis) and the Koekoeä (Shining Cuckoo) in the forests ‘Kia mataara! Awake!’
When the beautiful star shaped flowers of Puawānanga open in Mahuru (4th Matariki month), spring has arrived and it is time to prepare for planting.
Puawānanga, part of the ranunculaceae family is endemic to New Zealand and naturalized on Chatham Island. It can be found growing wild in both coastal and mountainous regions of the North, South and Stewart Islands. Flowers growing on vines further inland are usually larger than those on the coast and the male flowers are found on different plants and are larger in size than female flowers. The distinguished six-sepaled white unisexual flowers tumble over the tops of their host trees in clusters of 100 or more blossoms on vigorous evergreen woody vines. The broad oblong shaped leathery leaves of Puawānanga are quite smooth and dark green on top, with paler green undersides that are thinly coated in a layer of tiny white hairs.
Puawānanga, known also as Pōānanga, is an extremely sacred flower and as all beautiful flowers was borne of Rehua (Antares in Scorpio) and Puanga (Rigel in Orion), two eminent stars of the heavens.
The flowering of Puawānanga in spring also signals the upstream migration of tuna, elvers or young eels who are also the children of Rehua.
