Rangi Mātāmua

Rangiānehu Mātāmua is a New Zealand indigenous studies and Māori cultural astronomy academic and is Professor of Mātauranga Māori at Massey University. He is the first Māori person to win a Prime Minister's Science Prize, is a fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, and is the chief advisor to the New Zealand Government on the public holiday Matariki. He was named New Zealander of the Year in 2023.

Education

Mātāmua was educated at Hato Paora College.

Academic career

Mātāmua wrote his MA thesis on traditional Tūhoe weaponry. His 2006 PhD at Massey University was titled ''Te Reo Pāho: Māori radio and language revitalisation.'' Mātāmua moved to the University of Waikato, rising to full professor of Māori and Indigenous Studies. On 1 September 2021 he became Professor of Mātauranga Māori at Massey University's Te Pūtahi-a-Toi School of Māori Knowledge.

Astronomy

Mātāmua's career in traditional Māori astronomy began in 1995 when, as a university undergraduate, he asked his grandfather Jim Moses (Timi Rāwiri Mātāmua) about Matariki, the Māori New Year heralded by the rising of the Pleiades at dawn. Timi Rāwiri produced from a cupboard a 400-page manuscript written in Te Reo Māori. The manuscript had been written over many years in the 19th century by Timi Rāwiri's grandfather Rāwiri Te Kōkau and father Te Kōkau Himiona Te Pikikōtuku, who was a tohunga of Tūhoe and Ngāti Pikiao. It was an astronomical record containing the names of 1000 stars and 103 constellations, as well as instructions for setting up a traditional house of astronomical learning or whare kōkōrangi. Timi Rāwiri told Mātāmua to share the knowledge it contained: "Knowledge hidden, he said, wasn't knowledge at all."

Mātāmua has since written widely on Matariki, identifying the nine stars that Māori perceived in the cluster, in contrast to the seven associated with the Pleiades in European tradition. His research has revealed that some of the Māori astronomical lore recorded by ethnographer Elsdon Best is slated or incorrectly translated. The translation of the word Matariki to mean "little eyes" is one such error; the name in fact is derived from ''Ngā mata o te ariki o Tāwhirimātea'', the eyes of Tāwhirimātea, god of the winds. He has pointed out that the Matariki is often celebrated too early, when it is still below the horizon, as a result of a mismatch between the Gregorian solar calendar and the Māori lunar/stellar calendar, where the dates for Matariki change every year.

Mātāmua has been critical of the way Western scientific astronomy has ignored or belittled traditional Māori knowledge. He intends to establish a Māori observatory, based on a traditional observatory but incorporating modern knowledge and technology.

Mātāmua chairs the Matariki Advisory Group which has provided advice to the Government on the formation of New Zealand's newest public holiday, Matariki, which was first celebrated on Friday 24 June 2022. In October 2022 he was appointed to the newly-created position as chief advisor to the Government on Matariki.

Science communication

Mātāmua regularly posts videos and podcasts on Māori astronomy in both English and Te Reo Māori, and has a large social media following: his ''Living by the Stars'' Facebook posts have over 20,000 followers, and his web series accumulated over one million views in four months. In 2019 he gave 21 presentations to a total audience of over 10,000 in New Zealand and Australia.

Honours and awards

On 30 June 2020 Mātāmua was awarded the 2019 Prime Minister's Science Communication Prize for his work writing and speaking about Māori astronomy and Matariki. He is the first Māori scientist to be awarded the prize. He also won the 2020 Callaghan Medal for his work engaging the public at the boundary between science and traditional Māori knowledge. In March 2021, Mātāmua was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, in recognition that his work "has revolutionised understandings of Māori astronomy, and in particular Matariki".

In the 2023 New Year Honours, Mātāmua was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to Māori astronomy.

Mātāmua was named New Zealander of the Year in the 2023 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year awards.

In December 2023, he received an honorary doctorate of literature from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.

Selected works

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* Matamua, Rangi. (2012.)
Evaluation of Whakapiki i te Reo a professional development programme for kaiako in Level 1 and Level 2 Māori medium settings
'. New Zealand Ministry of Education.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Matamua, Rangi
Living people
People from Palmerston North
Year of birth missing (living people)
Massey University alumni
Victoria University of Wellington alumni
Academic staff of Massey University
Academic staff of the University of Waikato
21st-century New Zealand astronomers
New Zealand Māori academics
New Zealand Māori scientists
Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Ngāi Tūhoe people
Officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit
People educated at Hato Paora College