11th Month of the Māori Year - April/May (2nd Year)

Te Marama o Matariki He Maramataka Māori - Paenga-whāwhā

11th Month of the Māori Year - April/May

E puāwai ana te Maire Tawake. E tipu ana te Harore ki runga ki ngā rākau i ngā wāhi māku. Ka whānau hēki hoki ngā Wētā. Kei te kohikohia ngā Kūmara ki ngā taha o ngā māra hei mau ki ngā whata, ngā pātaka me ngā hāpuke. He iti noa te kaha o Tama nui te Rā. Kei te āhua kōpeke a Paptūānuku.
Swamp Maire are now in flower. Turkey Tails grow on trees in damp places. Weta begin laying eggs. Sweet Potato are stacked by the edge of the field in preparation for storage. Day light is shorter and Earth is much cooler.

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Te Tohu o Kaupeka - Tītī

Sign of the Season - Mutton Bird (Puffinus griseus)

‘Manawa tītī.’

‘The heart of a muttonbird.’

This whakatauākī (proverb) refers to the tenacity of the muttonbird to stay aloft for long 

periods of time while out at sea. A reflection that resolve such as this will be rewarded.

When the young chicks of Tïtï are ready for harvest during Paenga-whäwhä (11th Matariki month) kümara are being cured on the edge of the fields in preparation for storing, daylight is shorter and earth is much cooler. 

Tītī, known also as Sooty Shearwater and part of the petrel family, is an impressive medium-large chocolate-brown seabird found throughout the worlds oceans. They grow to 50cm in length and have a wingspans between 90-110cm. They have silver-grey strips on their underwings and webbed lilac feet with brown markings. Their upper bill is curved with a sharp hook on the end.

Although they belong to a huge global migrating community of around 60 million members, they lay only one egg in a season and return to the same burrows each year. Tītī will only breed  in the temperate and subantartic regions of the southern oceans. The largest known colony, estimated at 2 million breeding pairs, lies 100 km to the south of Rakiura (Stewart Is.).

They depart on a solitary long-distance migration at the end of the nesting season. Muttonbirding (harvesting of young chicks) takes place over two consecutive stages, Nano, where chicks are taken by day from their underground burrows and Rama, where chicks are captured above ground on windy dark wet moonless nights. Birds were traditionally preserved in their own fat and stored in tītī-poha, inflated blades of hollowed bull kelp.