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View Full Version : Matariki? Can ANYONE help me? Pleease...


Hans
18th June 2009, 23:39
So I'm told that It's Matariki - the Maori new year. This implies they had a calendar. Can ANYONE please tell me what Maori year it is then? I.E. ours is 2009, what's theirs? No seriously....:slap:
skidMark
18th June 2009, 23:44
i dunno... 1850? they think a smashed window for your tv is a fair barter.
merv
19th June 2009, 08:32
Te Papa celebrates Matariki and there is a bit of guff on the website here http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/TePapa/English/Learning/OnlineResources/Matariki/

The bro's calendar was based on when it gets cold they say - pretty smart really and they didn't bother wasting time printing stuff back then eh and I don't think they cared what year it was!
MisterD
19th June 2009, 09:08
Why does it imply they had a calendar? It just says they knew that there was an annual cycle and had a point in it which they decided was the start.

Did ancient Britons have a "calendar" when they built Stonehenge? (aside from arguing that Stonehenge is a calendar. HTH.
davereid
19th June 2009, 09:22
Why does it imply they had a calendar? It just says they knew that there was an annual cycle and had a point in it which they decided was the start.

Did ancient Britons have a "calendar" when they built Stonehenge? (aside from arguing that Stonehenge is a calendar. HTH.

Most ancient people had a very good knowledge of the earths cycle, it being absolutely essential to agriculture.

While it can't be proven that the purpose of stonehenge was to track the summer and winters longest and shortest days, stonehenge is very effective at doing it !

Many ancient cultures feared that if they had offended the gods, that the days would just keep on geting shorter and shorter. So they built structures as observatories, killed virgins, and sacrificed crops to the gods to ensure the calamity did not occur.

Civilised societies also love to do this doomsday stuff.

We havent been able to find a virgin to stop the global warming, although we have built lots of observatories, and sacrificed a lot of crops to its honour.

No doubt we will pass the food tax laws in the next few years as our next homage.
Headbanger
19th June 2009, 09:25
Madness.

They should have killed their wives, and replaced them with the virgins.

Then the Gods would have looked down, Thought bugger me those bastards know what they are doing, here have some sunshine to grow your grain.
Hitcher
19th June 2009, 09:30
So I'm told that It's Matariki - the Maori new year. This implies they had a calendar. Can ANYONE please tell me what Maori year it is then? I.E. ours is 2009, what's theirs? No seriously...

Having a calendar and keeping count of the years are entirely different and quite unrelated concepts.

"Ours" is only 2009 depending on who "us" is. It's not 2009 in China, nor India, nor in the Islamic world or Jewish world. Add all of those people up, sunshine, and see who's in the majority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_calendars