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ABC News
04-07-2025
- General
- ABC News
Tahiti prepares for its first Matari'i public holiday
Tahiti will mark Matari'i as a national public holiday for the first time In November, following in the footsteps of Matariki in Aotearoa. Matari'i refers to the same star cluster as Matariki. And for Tahitians, November 20 will mark the start of Matari'i i ni'a, the season of abundance, which lasts six months to be followed by Matari'i i raro, the season of scarcity. Te Māreikura Whakataka-Brightwell is a New Zealand artist who was born in Tahiti and raised in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, Gisborne, with whakapapa links to both countries. He spoke to RNZ's Matariki program from the island of Moorea. In Tahiti, there's been a series of cultural revival practices, and with the support of the likes of Professor Rangi Mātāmua, there is hope to bring these practices out into the public arena, he said. The people of Tahiti have always lived in accordance with Matari'i i ni'a and Matari'i i raro, with six months of abundance and six months of scarcity, he said. "Bringing that back into the public space is good to sort of recognise the ancestral practice of not only Matariki in terms of the abundance but also giving more credence to our tūpuna kōrero and mātauranga tuku iho." Mr Whakataka-Brightwell said there has been a little controversy around the new holiday as it replaces another public holiday, Internal Autonomy Day, on June 29, which marks the French annexation of Tahiti. But he said a lot of people in Tahiti like the shift towards having local practices represented in a holiday. Te Mareikura Whakataka Brightwell. ( Image: Te Mareikura Whakataka Brightwell ) There will be several public celebrations organised for the inaugural public holiday but most people on the islands will be holding more intimate ceremonies at home, he said. "A lot of people already had practices of celebrating Matariki which was more about now marking the season of abundance, so I think at a whānau level people will continue to do that," he said. "I think this will be a little bit more of an incentive for everything else to align to those sorts of celebrations." Many of the traditions surrounding Matari'i relate to the Arioi clan, whose ranks included artists, priests, navigators and diplomats who would celebrate the rituals of Matari'i, he said. "[Tahiti] it's an island of artists, it's an island of rejuvenation, so I'm pretty sure they'll be doing a lot of that and basing some of those traditions on the Arioi traditions." Mr Whakataka-Brightwell encouraged anyone with Māori heritage to make the pilgrimage to Tahiti at some point in their lives, as the place where many of the waka that carried Māori ancestors were launched. "I've always been a firm believer of particular people with whakapapa Māori to come back, hoki mai ki te whenua o Tahiti roa, Tahiti pāmamao," he said. "Those connections still exist. I mean, people still have the same last names as people in Aotearoa, and it's not very far away, so I would encourage everybody to explore their own connections but also hoki mai ki te whenua (return to the land)." RNZ
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
I asked ChatGPT and Claude 4 to plan my vacation to Tahiti. Here's how they compared.
This post originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter. Sign up for the weekly BI Tech Memo newsletter here. For this special holiday edition of AI Playground, I asked ChatGPT and Anthropic's powerful new Claude 4 chatbot for recommendations for my Tahitian trip. I'm on vacation with my wife and a group of friends to celebrate the birthday of one of our oldest friends, Theresa. We're staying in Moorea for about seven days. There are four couples ranging in age between roughly 50 and 60 years old. I requested suggestions such as activities during the day and evenings, along with restaurant and bar recommendations. Finally, I asked what would be the best event and location to celebrate Theresa's birthday. Then, I asked Theresa and another friend, Lisa, to review the AI responses. My buddies had already spent a ton of time planning this vacation, so they immediately knew whether the chatbots had done a good job, or not. Here's what they thought: Theresa, the birthday girl: Both chatbots gave similar recommendations, such as a cultural tour, 4x4 rentals, a lagoon cruise plus snorkeling, and what I hadn't even thought about: a sunset cruise on my birthday. ChatGPT recommended three restaurants that we booked: Rudy's, Moorea Beach Cafe, and the Manava Polynesian show. Claude recommended one place we booked, Cocobeach. Both recommended Holy Steak House, but it's a 40-minute taxi ride from our hotel, which seems not worth it when there are so many other restaurants nearer. I preferred the ChatGPT format of a day-by-day itinerary. Claude's seemed like it was too heavily focused on marketing from the Cook's Bay hotel. Lisa: ChatGPT's answer was more comprehensive, listing a sample daily itinerary with pricing estimates and source/reference links. There was overlap, but ChatGPT offered more options and parsed its suggestions in an easy-to-read bullet format. The icons were a bit gimmicky, or maybe just overused. The response from Claude was easier to read, and I preferred its visual layout, but it proposed a smaller selection of activities, restaurants, and other things to do. Neither site mentioned scuba diving as a possibility, despite the fact that there's excellent diving around Moorea and many of us are doing this on the trip. (She gave ChatGPT 4.5 stars out of 5. Claude got 3.5 stars from her.) Read the original article on Business Insider
RNZ News
29-06-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Tahiti prepares for its first Matari'i public holiday
Te Mareikura Whakataka Brightwell. Photo: Te Mareikura Whakataka Brightwell In November, Tahiti will mark Matari'i as a national public holiday for the first time, following in the footsteps of Matariki in Aotearoa. Matari'i refers to the same star cluster as Matariki. And for Tahitians, 20 November will mark the start of Matari'i i ni'a, the season of abundance, which lasts for six months to be followed by Matari'i i raro, the season of scarcity. Te Māreikura Whakataka-Brightwell is a New Zealand artist who was born in Tahiti and raised in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, Gisborne, with whakapapa links to both countries. He spoke to RNZ's Matariki programme from the island of Moorea. His father was the master carver Matahi Whakataka-Brightwell, and his grandfather was the renowned Tahitian navigator Francis Puara Cowan. In Tahiti, there's been a series of cultural revival practices, and with the support of the likes of Professor Rangi Mātāmua, there is hope to bring these practices out into the public arena, he said. The people of Tahiti have always lived in accordance with Matari'i i ni'a and Matari'i i raro, with six months of abundance and six months of scarcity, he said. "Bringing that back into the public space is good to sort of recognise the ancestral practice of not only Matariki in terms of the abundance but also giving more credence to our tūpuna kōrero and mātauranga tuku iho." Whakataka-Brightwell said there has been a little controversy around the new holiday as it replaces another public holiday, Internal Autonomy Day, on 29 June, which marks the French annexation of Tahiti. But he said a lot of people in Tahiti like the shift towards having local practices represented in a holiday. There will be several public celebrations organised for the inaugural public holiday but most people on the islands will be holding more intimate ceremonies at home, he said. "A lot of people already had practices of celebrating Matariki which was more about now marking the season of abundance, so I think at a whānau level people will continue to do that, I think this will be a little bit more of an incentive for everything else to align to those sorts of celebrations." Many of the traditions surrounding Matari'i relate to the Arioi clan, whose ranks included artists, priests, navigators and diplomats who would celebrate the rituals of Matari'i, he said. "[Tahiti] it's an island of artists, it's an island of rejuvenation, so I'm pretty sure they'll be doing a lot of that and basing some of those traditions on the Arioi traditions." Whakataka-Brightwell encouraged anyone with Māori heritage to make the pilgrimage to Tahiti at some point in their lives, as the place where many of the waka that carried Māori ancestors were launched. "I've always been a firm believer of particular people with whakapapa Māori to come back, hoki mai ki te whenua o Tahiti roa, Tahiti pāmamao. "Those connections still exist, I mean, people still have the same last names as people in Aotearoa, and it's not very far away, so I would encourage everybody to explore their own connections but also hoki mai ki te whenua (return to the land)." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
