It kicked off at 4pm on Saturday, with groups quick to stake their spots and start their fires.<\/p>\n
Lanterns floating on the pool of the Spirit of Napier statue. Photo \/ Derek Rossiter<\/p>\n
Quickly, hundreds of fires were burning from the National Aquarium to Kinross White St.<\/p>\n
The Waka Maimai Aroha Procession \u2013 where people wrote messages on lanterns floated in batches on the Spirit of Napier\u2019s pool, with the smoke carrying the messages to the stars was a popular part of the growing tradition.<\/p>\n
James Murphy and his family had travelled from Taup\u014d for the event.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d easily managed to find a spot and an armful of wood to burn.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust keeping an eye on the little one so she doesn\u2019t get too close to the fire, but no, it\u2019s awesome,\u201d he said of the night.<\/p>\n
There was a family friendly vibe at the Matariki Mahuika fires. Photo \/ Derek Rossiter<\/p>\n
Near the National Aquarium, a stage adorned with the Matariki star cluster had kapa haka groups performing, stories being shared and songs being sung to a crowd devouring kai from an array of food trucks.<\/p>\n
On Friday night, Kahungunu held a Hastings event with similar attractions, plus a massive fireworks display, from the Hastings racecourse.<\/p>\n
Neill Gordon, who help found the event and continues to co-organise it, said he had asked people to share the warmth of their fires but they went much further.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been to festivals with a great atmosphere where you know anyone would help you out if you asked, but never to an event where it\u2019s the norm for strangers to be asking and offering to help each other, sharing their kindling, their marshmallows and matches, handing round hot drinks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vibe at Mahuika isn\u2019t just special, it\u2019s extraordinary. Everyone on the beach is wh\u0101nau at Mahuika.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gordon said a key component of Matariki was memory, not just remembering those who have passed but pausing and taking stock of where we are now, creating new memories. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what was happening last night, people loving sharing stories and creating lasting memories. People of all cultures and all ages were there, some of them from the heat-pump generation sitting around a fire for the first time in their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roughly 10,000 people attended the Napier event, organisers estimate. Photo \/ Derek Rossiter<\/p>\n
The key demographic who had always responded most strongly to Mahuika were grandmothers, Gordon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a generation of older folk with strong memories of sitting around a fire with their parents and grandparents who are passing that on – almost literally handing the torch – to a younger generation who will remember last night until the day they\u2019re sitting there with their own mokopuna.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gordon said he\u2019d spoken to people from around the world who were stunned by what they took part in in Napier, and travellers from other parts of Aotearoa who were equally thrilled.<\/p>\n
Napier City Council and Mana Ahuriri Trust collaborated to run a Matariki beach clean up on Sunday morning and Fire and Emergency NZ supported the event.<\/p>\n
Gordon said it was \u201centirely trouble-free\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cA light off-shore breeze carried the smoke from the fires out to sea on a chill but clear night after days of rain. A light shower about 6pm passed before people had the chance to put their coats on.<\/p>\n
\u201cLighting beach fires is what Hawke\u2019s Bay people have always done at Guy Fawkes and New Year but that\u2019s the wrong time of year to do it from a fire risk perspective and also because there are rare birds nesting on our beaches between August and March.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It kicked off at 4pm on Saturday, with groups quick to stake their spots and start their fires.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26590,7972,3246,41220,651,13982,8231,2079,63,2082,45787,302,120,258475,191513,130,3607,111,43,139,69,90,86269,5202,384,530,97540,131,1361,61,6382,32259],"class_list":["post-521587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-26590","tag-beach","tag-both","tag-capture","tag-close","tag-continues","tag-event","tag-fire","tag-fires","tag-for","tag-hearts","tag-its","tag-likely","tag-mahuika","tag-matariki","tag-more","tag-napier","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-organisers","tag-part","tag-people","tag-residents","tag-shoreline","tag-than","tag-that","tag-to","tag-took","tag-warm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}