Activity 2: The Seven Sisters

In the middle of winter, a very special cluster (group) of stars appear in the sky over New Zealand. This cluster is called the ‘Matariki star cluster.’ It re-appears in the sky each May/June and signals the start of the Māori New Year. Many songs (waiata) and stories have been written about the cluster. One of these is called ‘The Seven Stars of Matariki.’ It was written by a New Zealander named Toni Rolleston-Cummins. She is from Maketu. Click here to listen to Toni read her story.

On your blog, write a short summary of the book. What was it about? Try to summarise the story in 6-8 sentences.

The story is about Metai and his seven brothers who one day find a group of patupaiarehe that bewitch all of them except Metai. The seven brothers then marry the patupaiarehe but because they're so far under their spell his brothers no longer cared about their looks, gardens or even eating. The only thing they cared about doing was getting food for their wives, who only ate seafood. One day one of his brothers came home early from fishing only to discover that his wife and his brother's wives had gone missing, when she returned he asked her where she'd been to which she responded by flying into a terrible rage. After Metai's brother told him about what had happened Metai went to visit the person who raised him who then confirmed that the wives had to be patupaiarehe. Metai's teacher told him to watch the wives to see where they went, he waited for hours and was going to give up when suddenly he saw 6 birds sitting on a branch, and then 1 more flew from within on of the houses to join them. He transformed himself into a kereru and watched as they changed back into women, whilst listening to their plan he discovered that the patupaiarehe wanted to starve his brothers to death. He quickly told his brothers who didn't believe him until he told them to look at each other. Metai then took his brothers to his teacher who gave each of his brothers a magic net that they needed to cast far from the earth after capturing their wives in them. Metai then transforms into an albatross and takes the patupaiarehe to Uru-Te-ngangana the god of the stars and asked him to take the women, Uru-Te-ngangana took them but fell for them like Metai's brothers so once a year he allows the beauty of the patupaiarehe to shine.