Lunar Months
Lunar Months By Kay LeatherKay's links are to Atainga a Mahaki iwi and Mangatu Marae through her paternal grandfather. Her Maori family name is Te Puru. The maramataka divided the traditional Māori year into 12 lunar months. The word marama means both the moon and the lunar month – a lunar month is the 29 and a half days between successive new moons, and normally straddles two calendar months. Māori needed a system that matched lunar
months with the solar year – a lunar year is around 11 days shorter. Some tribes
listed 13 months in their lunar year, indicating that one month was occasionally
added to account for the extra period of time. Those tribes which had only 12
months would have used a different system to account for the extra time. |
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