Maramataka: Māori moon calendar, night by night

The maramataka is the Māori lunar calendar, which gives each night of the moon’s month a name, from Whiro ‘the new moon’ to Mutuwhenua ‘the night the moon has gone’, and each night was known as good or poor for fishing, eeling and planting. The names, their order and even the number of nights differ from iwi to iwi. Below is tonight’s night of the moon, the thirty nights of one published list with what each was said to be good for, the fishing and planting nights, where the accounts differ, and how the maramataka is used today.

Updated 20 October 2026 · 8 min read

Tap 🔊 to hear an example. Māori examples play Papa Reo, the te reo Māori voice made by Te Hiku Media from recordings of native speakers.

Maramataka today: tonight’s moon

The box works the night out on your device from the date; nothing is fetched. It uses the list of nights further down, so the name and the note it shows are the ones in the table. One consequence of counting from the astronomical new moon: the full moon comes out on the 15th night, Turu, where Te Ara’s list has Rākaunui on the 16th and Te Aka puts Rākaunui on the 15th. That is the kind of one-night difference the box can show.

What does maramataka mean?

Te Aka Māori Dictionary defines maramataka as an “almanac, Māori lunar calendar, calendar — a planting and fishing monthly almanac”. Te Papa says the word “literally means the turning of the moon”. Its first part is marama ‘moon, month’: as Te Ara puts it, the word means both the moon and the lunar month, the 29 and a half days from one new moon to the next.

Te Ara describes two layers. The year was divided into twelve lunar months, each with its own name and its own star; some iwi listed thirteen, to keep the lunar year, around eleven days shorter than the solar one, in step with the seasons. And within each month, rather than numbering days, “Māori spoke of nights, and each night had its own name”. Te Papa adds that each night “also typically marks a day”, so a name covers both.

The months are in the guide to Māori numbers, days and months, beside their English equivalents, and the Matariki guide explains the star whose rising opens the year for many iwi. This page is about the nights.

The nights of the moon, one list

There is no single maramataka, so a list of nights has to say whose it is. This one is the list Te Ara prints, “adapted from the names and observations made by members of Ngāti Kahungunu”, which goes back to Elsdon Best’s The Maori Division of Time (1922). It has thirty nights. Generally, says Te Ara, “Whiro was the first night of the new moon and Mutuwhenua was the last.” The names are spelt as Te Ara spells them; the notes are Te Ara’s, shortened, and the kūmara-planting nights are the ones Te Ara names on its page about planting and fishing.

The shape of the month shows through the notes. The nights after the new moon are mostly pleasant and good for eels; the full moon, Rākaunui, falls around the middle; the three Korekore nights after it are poor; the three Tangaroa nights, named for Tangaroa ‘atua of the sea’, are the fishing nights; and the month ends in the dark, with Mutuwhenua the worst of all. Te Ara gives the kūmara-planting nights as the 4th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 27th, and says no planting was done on the Korekore nights, the 20th to the 22nd.

The maramataka as a fishing and planting calendar

Te Ara calls the regulation of “planting and harvesting, fishing and hunting” the most important function of the calendar. Its story on Māori fishing says experts “used a calendar that listed favourable days” and that this calendar “is still in use today”.

Te Papa reproduces one such fishing calendar, from Best’s Fishing Methods and Devices of the Maori (1929), which Best was given by Rev. Metara Te Aomarere of Ōtaki and which credits Mita Te Tai. Beside each night are marks: straight lines for good line-fishing nights, black dots for fishing by torchlight, and Whiro has both. The night called Atua “is always condemned as unlucky for all forms of food-seeking”.

Te Papa also gives reasons that make sense of some of the rules. Eel fishing is poor at the full moon, Rākaunui, because eels see poorly and avoid bright conditions, hunting when the light does not give them away. Shellfish are easier to gather on the big low tides, and the tides follow the moon. For planting, Te Papa is careful: the moon’s pull “is thought by some” to affect the water in the soil, and the amount of moonlight may play a part.

Several of the words in the notes are the everyday names for the food itself: tuna ‘eel’, kōura ‘crayfish’, ika ‘fish’ and kūmara ‘sweet potato’. The Māori food words guide has more of them.

Where the accounts differ

Te Aka sums it up in its entry for maramataka: the names are similar for most tribes, “but the order may vary from tribe to tribe”. Even where the month starts is not fixed: “For most tribes the lunar months began with the new moon, but for some with the full moon (Rākaunui).” Te Aka’s entries for the nights name Te Whānau-ā-Apanui as one such iwi, whose maramataka is set out in Wiremu Tāwhai’s Living by the Moon (2013). Here are some nights as Te Ara’s list places them and as Te Aka describes them:

Te Ara itself shows the difference. Its summary page says the lunar months “begin and end when the moon is full”, while its page on the nights says the new moon “determined the start of the lunar month”: two traditions, both real. Te Aka also records the answer to a practical problem. A lunar month is about 29 and a half days, so a thirty-night list does not always fit; Te Whānau-ā-Apanui could add an extra night, Takatakapūtea, after Mutuwhenua. Te Papa notes that the Māori Language Commission, faced with lists that differ mainly in order, chose the names used by the majority of iwi.

The maramataka revived

The calendar never quite went away, and it has come back strongly. Te Ara records the stages: in 1990 Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, the Māori Language Commission, promoted the traditional month names in place of transliterations such as Hānuere, though fitted to the calendar months, so that Pipiri became June; by the early 2000s there was renewed interest, with some Māori using the maramataka for planting and fishing; a version printed by the fishing personality Bill Hohepa was popular with recreational fishermen; weather forecasts on Māori Television included maramataka information such as tides and when to plant; and researchers at Massey University planted 25 varieties of taewa ‘Māori potato’ by the lunar calendar.

It has since spread beyond the garden and the boat. Rereata Mākiha (Ngāpuhi, Te Arawa, Rangitāne), named Senior New Zealander of the Year in 2022, was recognised in part for building up “knowledge of and use of the Maramataka” in communities around the country. The Mental Health Foundation describes Healthy Families Rotorua using the maramataka to plan work around the high- and low-energy days of the month. Te Papa sums it up: fishing and planting by the moon, the tides and the elements “is still common today”.

The words for the natural world that run through the maramataka, the sea, the land and the sky, are gathered in Māori nature words. And if you want the language behind the calendar, Verbavia’s te reo Māori course teaches marama, maramataka and the numbers that count the nights.

Sources

1. Te Ara: Maramataka – the lunar calendar, story summary (months begin and end at the full moon; Whiro first, Mutuwhenua last)
2. Te Ara: Maramataka – Lunar months (marama; 12 or 13 months; the 1990 revival of the month names)
3. Te Ara: Maramataka – Nights of the month (the Ngāti Kahungunu list of thirty nights, after Best 1922)
4. Te Ara: Maramataka – Planting and fishing (kūmara nights; Korekore; Bill Hohepa; Māori Television; Massey taewa)
5. Te Ara: Te hī ika – Māori fishing, Tools, grounds and methods (a calendar of favourable days, still in use)
6. Te Papa: Nights in the Maramataka (“the turning of the moon”; Best 1929 fishing calendar; eels at Rākaunui; still common today)
7. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: maramataka
8. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Whiro (first night; 16th for Te Whānau-ā-Apanui)
9. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Ōuenuku
10. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Turu
11. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Ōturu
12. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Rākaunui
13. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Takirau
14. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Korekore (nights of the lunar month)
15. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Ōtāne
16. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Ōrongonui
17. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Mutuwhenua
18. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: Takatakapūtea (extra night, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui)
19. Huia Publishers: Living by the Moon – Te Maramataka a Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Wiremu Tāwhai (2013)
20. New Zealander of the Year Awards: Rereata Mākiha, 2022 Senior New Zealander of the Year
21. Mental Health Foundation: Finding wellbeing through Maramataka
22. NASA: Phases of the Moon 2001 to 2100 (used to test the tonight’s-moon arithmetic)