Seven Stars

Seven Stars Of Matariki

There was an adventurous boy named Meti, who had seven brothers. The brothers were the most handsome and strong men in the village. They were not interested in marriage because they did not want to love someone other than themselves.

One day Meti and the brothers went hunting and all of a sudden they heard beautiful singing and they saw seven beautiful wahine’s (girl) they immediately fell in love with them ; they wanted to take them back to their village.

But Meti warned the brothers about the wahine by saying, ``They are fairies which are spirits.” but they did not listen and took them back to the village to get married.

But Meti did not like the brothers wives ; because they did not contribute to the village they just spent time on their golden hair. All they wanted to eat was seafood. The brothers became skinny and their appearance was horrifying.

Meti was getting suspicious on the wahine because the wives don’t come out their whare(home). One day Meti came home with fish and no wahine were at home. Meti got really suspicious and went to a wise man for advice.

The next morning Meti camped behind some bushes and waited for the wahine to come out of their whare. They came out and Meti transformed himself to a Kereru. He heard the wahine have a conversation that they would starve their husbands to death. Meti flew in fear back to the village to tell his brothers.

At first they did did not trust him but Meti explained, `` My brothers you used to be strong and broad now you are skin and bones”.

Now they believed him. They spent the whole night making a trap to capture the evil fairies; bright and early the brothers captured the bird wives and Meti turned into an albatross and carried them to the god of stars – Uru.

Uru gazed into their eyes and fell in love ; he took the bird wives up to the heavens. But on a specific date Uru lets their beauty shine on the sky. The seven sisters come out as seven shiny stars each year between May and June.

Story by: Priyanka Nand , Room 14