We are grateful to Mr Harry Dansey for the following information on this old ceremony of ‘feeding the stars’. Matariki The fact that the appearance of the Pleiades—Matariki—as a notable event in the Maori Year is not now well known, is proof of the fact that when old customs die, they die indeed. This beautiful star group, probably best known as ‘The Seven Sisters’, attracted the attention and excited the admiration of people in the ancient world from Greece to Polynesia. Whether the stars were said to be the seven daughters of Pleione and Atlas or whether they were Matariki and her six children, they were the same stars whose passage across the heavens, whose rising or whose setting, were used to measure time from Celtic Britain to Aotearoa. Rather than re-write that which has been written so well in the past about Matariki, let me refer those who are interested to Elsdon Best's observations. The principal source is the Dominion Museum Monograph No. 3. Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori published in Wellington in 1922. Most of the information can be found on pages 42, 43, 44 and 45, with other references at intervals through the publication— One paragraph describes the ancient ceremony. It reads:— ‘The appearance of the Plaiades was a notable event in Maoriland. It was greeted in two ways—by laments for those who had died recently, and by women with singing and posture dances. The event was marked by a festival, by feasting and universal joy. Parties of women faced the famous star group and greeted it with song and dance.’ It would appear from the writings of the Revd W. W. Gile that the new year in the Cook Islands was indicated by the rising of the Pleiades out of the Ocean, above the eastern horizon, just after sunset, about the middle of December. They would of course have been visible in earlier months, but rising later. The Maori however, marked the beginning of the year from the very first possible appearance of the group. From one of my star guides it would seem that the earliest time these stars would be seen after their absence from the southern skies is about 4 a.m. on July 15, from Wellington. But further north, at latitude 35°S, if the observer had a clear horizon—say from a hill—he might see the stars rise shortly before sunrise early in June. This would confirm the stories of waiting at night for the stars, that is, if they did wait, then it would be in the depths of the night. Not all my knowledge of this is drawn from books. The first evidence I can document is a note from the late Mr Rangihuna Pire, of South Taranaki, who told me in 1957—he was