Matariki is the Māori name for the Pleiades star cluster.
According to Māori mythology, Matariki is the mother surrounded by her six daughters. However, there are nine stars in the cluster that represent different aspects of the natural world and are associated with various deities and guardians.
Matariki and her daughters travel across the sky each year to visit Papatūānuku, the Earth Mother. This journey signals it is time to celebrate the Māori New Year, a time to honour the past, celebrate the present, and plan for the future.
Matariki is the Māori name for the Pleiades star cluster.
According to Māori mythology, Matariki is the mother surrounded by her six daughters. However, there are nine stars in the cluster that represent different aspects of the natural world and are associated with various deities and guardians.
Matariki and her daughters travel across the sky each year to visit Papatūānuku, the Earth Mother. This journey signals it is time to celebrate the Māori New Year, a time to honour the past, celebrate the present, and plan for the future.
Dimensions: W79mm x L79mm x H64mm D10mm
Kuki Reka Kani: Kaumātua Inspired Cookie Cutters
The Kuki Reka Kani are unique cookie cutters, inspired, developed and named by our lovely Kaumātua at Rauawaawa Kaumātua Charitable Trust. The cutters were initiated to help Kaumātua with dementia, to engage in cooking therapy that promoted Te Ao Māori, cultural heritage, and whakapapa in a social and fun way. Cooking therapy stimulates smell, taste and touch senses in dementia patients which can bring back memories from decades ago.
Several hui were held with groups of Kaumātua to help identify the most appropriate Māori designs for use in kai. The chefs at Rauawaawa helped shape the development of the designs to ensure the cutters worked easily with people from Kaumātua engaged in cooking therapy, tamariki in schools, rangatahi in home economics classes, home cooks and their whānau and professional chefs.
The cutters are designed to cut through the dough and leave a pattern imprinted on the dough in one easy push. This makes them gentle on both elderly hands as well as providing a large grip for children to hold. The patterns reflect the look of a chiseled whakairo rākau (wood carving), an important aspect in Māori culture.
