Ayla Hoeta: connecting Matariki and maramataka

“We’re in the phase of Whiro,” says Ayla Hoeta (Waikato), sitting in the University’s Tai Tonga Campus in Manukau.

It’s a quiet morning, with students moving softly through the space, and for Ayla the stillness is a tohu – a sign of guidance.

Whiro is the dark phase of the maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar, and marks the beginning of a new moon cycle. It is often associated with darkness, says Ayla, which should not be mistaken for negativity.

“Whiro is a time for rangahau [research], wānanga [meaningful discussions], grief and reflection,” she says.
Ayla is a maramataka practitioner, lecturer and first-year doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Engineering and Design. Her work helps to connect people with the rhythms of the moon, stars, tides and body, through design and mātauranga Māori.

“Some of those observations include planting, harvesting, training, rest, focusing on well-being and, for me, community design,” she says.

Maramataka has taken Ayla, who is from South Auckland, around the world, including to Antarctica. There she worked on a project exploring how mātauranga Māori could sit alongside Antarctic science and climate research.

She has met Indigenous women revitalising their lunar knowledge around the motu and in Hawai‘i, Ra’iātea and Canada. A common theme, she says, is the need for practical tools that help Indigenous communities understand ancestral knowledge.

One project that has recently kept her closer to home is the installation of a playground alongside the Puhinui stream in Manukau. Ayla has helped design the playground to reflect maramataka principles.

“The playground does two things: it immerses tamariki in maramataka knowledge, normalising it in their everyday play life, and it restores life to the area, which was previously polluted,” she says.

“It’s playful and it’s helping restore the mauri of the whenua, bringing new life to the place while revealing ancestral, tupuna knowledge that has long been hidden.”

Maramataka is often described as a calendar, but Ayla says it is a way of understanding the sacredness of wā (time) through te ao Māori. 

“Our tūpuna didn’t say ‘Wednesday’; they would say āpōpō [tomorrow, or sometime in future], or at the Rākaunui [full moon], or we’re preparing now to garden in the Tangaroa phase. It was their version of time.”

That way of seeing time sits at the heart of how Ayla understands Matariki, which she says is not separate from the maramataka but belongs within the same whānau – te whānau marama, or the family of light.

“Matariki is a key tohu of our maramataka,” she says. “It gets a lot of recognition because it’s our main celebratory event, and is embedded in policy.”

Across different iwi and rohe, other stars also carry significance. Ayla says Puanga (Rigel) is recognised in places including Waikato and Te Tai Tokerau, where it indicates the start of the year. In other places, Rehua (Antares) may be observed as the indicator of the new year.

The Matariki public holiday falls on a different date each year and is timed to align as closely as possible with the rising of Matariki and the Tangaroa phase of the maramataka, a period associated with abundance, flow and flourishing.

Ayla began learning about maramataka while gardening with her grandmothers. Watching cycles of planting, growth, harvest, rest and return gave her lived experience of the maramataka, she says, before she learned the language around it.

Her understanding later grew by learning alongside maramataka expert Rereata Mākiha, as well as through her own writing, gardening, exercising and tracking of tohu.

That practice eventually led her to contribute to the development of Ao Maarama, an interactive app designed by Māori health organisation Te Rau Ora.

The app uses the maramataka and Māori health frameworks Te Whare Tapa Whā and Mauri Ora Tai Pari to help users build awareness, knowledge and connection with the rhythms of well-being.

As Matariki rises again, Ayla says she is keen to explore more opportunities to make such knowledge accessible for different audiences, and highlight that the annual Matariki observance is one part of a much wider system of knowledge.

“Matariki invites us to look up; maramataka asks us to look around and within,” she says.

Te Rina Ruka-Triponel