Matariki 2023: Waka exponents head off to Netherlands for celebration

The waka is made out of kauri and seats about 14 paddlers.

Matariki celebrations have gone global with an international festival to be held in the Netherlands. A group of waka experts will travel to Leiden to partake in the celebrations with Te Hono Ki Aotearoa, a waka carved by the late Sir Hekenukumai Busby, the star attraction.

It’s the second time Matariki has been celebrated at the Netherlands’ Volkenkunde National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, home of the waka Te Hono ki Aotearoa.

Waka tauā experts from Te Taitokerau, Joe Conrad, Robert Gabel and Billy Harrison, are part of a 10-strong delegation heading to the Netherlands for the two-day celebration, along with kapa haka Ngāti Rānana, the New Zealand ambassador, as well as expatriate Kiwis.

Billy Harrison says it’s been four years since the team last visited Te Hono ki Aotearoa, and says it’s great that other countries want to celebrate the Māori new year.

“So the waka was built in Aurere by Tā Hekenuimai Puhipi, it’s made out of kauri, and it seats about 14 paddlers.

“It’s cool to go and share our perspective on Matariki with other cultures and other people.”

Master waka-builder Busby was hired to build the waka tauā in 2010, in response to a request from Holland’s National Museum of Ethnology to obtain one as a permanent exhibition.

Gabel says it will be a case of seeing familiar faces for the crew from Aotearoa, with local paddlers from the Netherlands taught the art of the waka tauā.

“I’m excited to return there and to see our friends in Leiden, the Dutch paddlers.”

He says the sharing of knowledge of waka tauā and Matariki would be something that Busby would have approved.

“He was a big supporter of sharing Māori, mātauranga Māori, to the world.”