Episode summary:
I travelled to New Zealand’s South Island at Maori New Year to witness a dark-sky spectacle in the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve. These reserves are being established across the globe, which is good for astronomers but – more importantly – for animals and birds, as more and more human-created light is disrupting and threatening their migrations and survival.
I learned about Maori astronomy and looked for star patterns the local Maori people know and love such as ‘wakas’ or star canoes ploughing across the celestial ocean, reminiscent of the crafts their forebears used to traverse the vast expanses of the South Pacific and find New Zealand. It was mesmerising. If you’re wondering ‘where is the best place to stargaze in South Island, New Zealand’, ‘can I see the Milky Way in New Zealand’, or ‘what is the best month for stargazing in New Zealand’, this podcast might have some answers for you.
Listen to a podcast about witnessing a dark-sky spectacle in New Zealand.
Transcript – S2 E12: Maori stargazing in New Zealand
This week, we’re stargazing with a difference under breathtaking night skies in New Zealand.
I’ve seen some seriously dark skies in my travels, in places such as Australia’s Outback, Central Oregon and the Namib Desert in Southern Africa. But now, here I am, lying on my back on a grassy bank in Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve on New Zealand’s South Island and witnessing something truly breathtaking. I’m looking up, open-mouthed, at a cloudless, crystal-clear, jet-black sky with the gigantic central band of the Milky Way emblazoned across it.
A night sky experience like no other
It arcs from horizon to horizon, from the low hills in the east to the snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps in the west, like a multi-coloured trail left by a giant comet that just grazed our atmosphere. Each one of the several million – or maybe billion – stars in this stellar rainbow is pin-sharp. They range from cobalt blue to fire-engine red and every other colour in between. Some are about to explode and scatter stardust far across the heavens.
This is unlike anything I’ve seen before and so vast and vivid is this stunning vista that it’s barely believable. It’s more like an immersive projection in a full-dome planetarium. I’m expecting the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to appear any second in full evening dress and belt out the Star Wars theme. But instead, it’s silent. In the same way dramatic music might add to an immersive experience, so silence adds to this natural one. It allows me to put my other senses on sleep mode and focus on sight.
And what a sight. I don’t just see the odd shooting star, I see scores of them etching white lines across the sky in all directions. Some burn bright and fade fast. Others fall more slowly and gracefully. Among this cosmic kaleidoscope I’m looking for the curled tail of Scorpius. Not because I’m trying to tick off old Roman, Greek and scientifically named constellations and asterisms; I can do that any old night. I am trying to remember the lesson a Maori man called Tutepourangi Manihera–Thomson taught me last night when he gave me a masterclass in tātai aroraki or Maori astronomy.
Reading the Maori night sky
Thankfully Tutepourangi Manihera–Thomson allowed me to refer to him by his shorter nickname Tu. Tu, who works for the brilliant Dark Sky Project, a cultural and scientific astro-tourism centre in nearby Lake Tekapo, told me that Maori, like other cultures across the world, have for centuries used the sky for practical reasons. To navigate, for example, and to note the seasons and know when to plant or harvest.
More strikingly – more poetically – they also believe the stars connect the living here on earth with the gods and dead ancestors in the sky. Rather than a scorpion, Tu told me, Maori see a ‘waka’, a star canoe ploughing across a celestial ocean reminiscent of the craft their forebears used to traverse the vast expanses of the South Pacific in the 13th century and eventually find New Zealand.
The waka in Scorpius is one of the biggest – a chief’s waka no less. Another large one is found as part of what we know as the Pleiades star cluster, or the Seven Sisters. The Maori call this Matariki and believe this is where the souls of the dead go at Maori New Year in July. I am here just before New Year so Matariki is riding high in the sky but it still takes me a while to find it. When I do it’s a huge thrill, chiefly because it’s a brand new experience for me. I’m so used to seeking out Orion, Pegasus and other classics but this Maori astronomy I’m doing tonight – well, this is scrambling my brain, requiring a complete rethink of how I see and read the night sky.
I’m so excited I forget the fact that it’s freezing cold out here and a small creature is ferreting somewhere near my right ear. Speaking of Orion, where is it? It’s my anchor in the night sky, a constellation that always gives me my bearings. It’s like a reliable old friend but when I find it here something is terribly wrong. It’s upside down. Orion, poor chap, is standing on his head with the bright orange star of Betelgeuse bottom right instead of top left. Of course, to regular southern hemisphere astro-fans he is the right way up. Such are the topsy-turvy conditions of stargazing on a grassy bank, 43 degrees south of the equator. I think I’ll stick to finding wakas.
© copyright Matthew Brace
