by Judy Gill

Matariki, an unpublished manuscript, and the abandonment of “peer review”

New Zealand has built a national holiday, government policy, public ceremony and classroom teaching around claims drawn from a family manuscript that the public has never been allowed to read. The claims are treated as authoritative. The source itself remains unpublished and unexamined by independent scholars.

Before this account is taught as history or astronomy, the evidence must be produced. No printed or published edition, e-book, PDF, transcription, translation, list of the alleged 1,000 star names, or list of the alleged 103 constellations has been released. We have been given Rangi Mātāmua’s interpretation of the manuscript, but not the manuscript itself.

The foundation story

The modern account frequently begins with the claim that East Polynesian people deliberately migrated to New Zealand and navigated here using the stars. That is presented as history, but there is no contemporary evidence identifying a planned migration, an intended New Zealand destination, the route taken, or a documented navigational description of the heavens used to reach New Zealand.

Archaeological evidence places people of East Polynesian origin in New Zealand by around 1300 CE. That proves presence. It does not prove the modern story constructed around how they arrived.

Where is the physical evidence?

Māori did not have a written language before European contact. But an extensive and distinct description of the heavens could still have left physical traces in carvings, rock markings, woven designs, clay objects or repeated visual patterns. No securely dated pre-European star chart, constellation map, navigational diagram or identifiable representation of the claimed 1,000 stars and 103 constellations has been produced.

Where are the carvings of identifiable star groups? Where are the rock drawings of constellations? Where are the woven star maps? Where is the physical representation of the claimed navigational knowledge?

A documented chronology

1642 — Abel Tasman reaches New Zealand

In December 1642 Abel Tasman led the first European expedition known to have reached New Zealand. His voyage left a written journal, recorded dates, observations, geographical descriptions and a cartographic record. The alleged Matariki manuscript was reportedly begun 256 years later.

1769–1770 — James Cook charts New Zealand

James Cook reached New Zealand in October 1769, circumnavigated the principal islands and produced extensive charts, journals, observations and measurements. His expedition used documented European navigational and surveying methods, including astronomical observations, sextants, quadrants, the Nautical Almanac, lunar-distance calculations, dead reckoning and coastal bearings. The alleged manuscript was reportedly begun 129 years later.

Nineteenth century — navigation, surveying and shipping

Throughout the nineteenth century, naval, migrant and commercial vessels travelled regularly to New Zealand using compasses, sextants, chronometers, nautical almanacs, astronomical observations, charts and latitude and longitude calculations. Surveyors, teachers, missionaries, engineers and scientists brought books, instruments and scientific knowledge into the country.

Circa 1867 — Carkeek Observatory

Stephen Carkeek built a private astronomical observatory near Featherston around 1867. Heritage New Zealand describes it as New Zealand’s earliest surviving astronomical observatory. It was built approximately 31 years before the alleged manuscript was begun.

1868–1869 — standard time and the Colonial Observatory

Astronomical observation was used to establish and distribute accurate time in New Zealand. The Government’s Colonial Observatory operated in Wellington from 1869. Astronomy had become part of official infrastructure for timekeeping, navigation, surveying and mapping.

1874 — university science

University-level science teaching was established at Canterbury College in the 1870s. Alexander Bickerton became its founding professor of chemistry and physics and taught physics from 1874. His later work included stars, novae, celestial collisions and the formation of solar systems. The cautious and defensible claim is that physics, mathematics and astronomical theory were being taught and discussed in New Zealand’s university system from the 1870s.

1874 and 1882 — transits of Venus

New Zealand hosted or participated in international observations of the transits of Venus in 1874 and 1882. These programmes required telescopes, precision timing, trained observers, astronomical calculation and international scientific cooperation.

1898 — the family manuscript is reportedly begun

Public accounts say Te Kōkau Himiona Te Pikikōtuku and his son Rāwiri Te Kōkau began compiling the manuscript in 1898. Rangi Mātāmua has described it as “400 pages of longhand written in te reo Māori.” Longhand means handwriting. The manuscript was therefore reportedly begun after observatories, government astronomical timekeeping, university science, transit-of-Venus observations, surveying, shipping and generations of celestial navigation were already established in New Zealand.

1898–1933 — thirty-five years of compilation

The manuscript was reportedly compiled over approximately 35 years. Four hundred pages of longhand handwriting equate, on the estimate used here, to approximately 100 pages of modern typed script. Claims associated with those approximately 100 typed pages include around 1,000 star names, 103 constellations, narratives, seasonal knowledge, ecological knowledge and ritual or spiritual material. Without publication, nobody outside the custodial circle can determine how much is list, explanation, repetition, interpretation, borrowing, translation or later addition.

The claim of around 1,000 Māori star names becomes even more remarkable when compared with the nineteenth-century written record. Across the Williams dictionaries examined, the identifiable celestial names found were Matariki, Kōpū, Meremere, Puanga and Takurua. Yet we are now expected to believe that a vast catalogue of roughly 1,000 named stars existed alongside those dictionaries without leaving any comparable published record. Where are the other 995 names?

1933 — the manuscript is reportedly completed

A document written between 1898 and 1933 may contain older oral material, but the date on which a claim was written down does not establish the age of that claim. Paper, ink, handwriting, terminology, corrections, insertions and identifiable borrowings could all be examined if the manuscript were made available.

1995 — Mātāmua reportedly receives the manuscript

Mātāmua says his grandfather retrieved the manuscript from a cupboard and gave it to him in 1995 while he was an undergraduate. No printed or published edition, e-book, PDF, transcription, translation, provenance report or complete catalogue of the alleged stars and constellations has been made publicly available.

2014 — Marsden Fund grant

A Marsden Fund grant of $710,000 supported the project Te Mauria Whiritoi: The Sky as a Cultural Resource — Māori Astronomy, Ritual and Ecological Knowledge. The grant was administered as a university research project and should not be described as a personal payment, but it establishes substantial public support for the research program.

2017 — THE “EXPERT” BEGINS TO REPLACE “PEER REVIEW”

Huia Publishers released Mātāmua’s book Matariki: The Star of the Year. The public received his interpretation of the family manuscript, but not the manuscript itself. The same year also marked the beginning of the Ardern Government. From this period onward, New Zealand public life increasingly elevated the approved “expert” above the older discipline of open challenge, independent verification and “peer review.” By 2020, Jacinda Ardern was publicly using the expression ““single source of truth”.”

2020 — Prime Minister’s Science Communication Prize

Mātāmua received the Prime Minister’s Science Communication Prize, valued at $100,000.

2021–2022 — Matariki Advisory Group

Mātāmua chaired the Government’s Matariki Advisory Group, which advised on the establishment, timing, themes and official presentation of the public holiday.

2022 — Matariki becomes a public holiday

The Ardern Government established Matariki as a national public holiday. Educational resources were distributed to early-learning services, schools and kura, embedding the modern narrative in education.

2022–2023 — Chief Adviser, Mātauranga Matariki

Official government material identified Mātāmua as Chief Adviser — Mātauranga Matariki. By this stage his interpretation had received university support, public research funding, commercial publication, a Prime Minister’s prize, government advisory influence and nationwide educational distribution, while the complete manuscript remained unpublished.

WHERE IS THE “PEER REVIEW” OF THE SOURCE?

There may be academic articles that discuss Mātāmua’s work, cite his book or repeat claims attributed to the family manuscript. That is not “peer review” of the source. A review of Mātāmua’s published book is not an examination of the manuscript. A paper that cites Mātāmua is not independent verification of the manuscript. Repetition is not corroboration.

• Who outside the custodial circle has read the complete manuscript?
• Where is the independent transcription?
• Where is the second translation?
• Where is the examination of its authorship, handwriting, paper, ink, dates and provenance?
• Where is the comparison with astronomical books, charts and terminology already circulating in New Zealand between 1898 and 1933?
• Where is the independent astronomer who checked the alleged 1,000 star names and 103 constellations against the sky?
• Where is the published “peer review” establishing that the manuscript contains what is claimed for it?

TWO “SINGLE SOURCES OF TRUTH”

Rangi Mātāmua has effectively been installed as the cultural “single source of truth” for the new state-sponsored civic religion of Matariki. His interpretation is cited by government, repeated by universities, embedded in school resources and promoted through publicly funded institutions, while the manuscript said to support that authority remains unavailable for independent examination.

Jacinda Ardern became the political “single source of truth” for the Government’s state orthodoxy. Mātāmua became the cultural “single source of truth” for Matariki. In both cases, the approved “expert” displaced “peer review”: institutional authority became a substitute for evidence being openly examined, tested and challenged by other qualified people.

This is a closed circle. Mātāmua interprets an unpublished manuscript; institutions endorse Mātāmua; and that institutional endorsement is then treated as confirmation of his interpretation. That is not “peer review.” It is institutional repetition.

Are we replacing astronomy with a national myth?

The danger is not that New Zealand has physically burned its astronomical record. The danger is quieter: established astronomy can be pushed aside, culturally repackaged, or confused with religious and spiritual stories in the curriculum.

Matariki is the Pleiades, an open star cluster observed and studied by many civilisations. The stars are not gods and do not control food, weather, health, death or human wishes. Those claims belong to religion or cultural story, not empirical astronomy.

Children should be taught what stars are, why they appear to move, how seasons arise, how gravity governs orbits, how distance is measured, and how conclusions are tested. Cultural stories may be discussed, but they should be identified as stories and beliefs rather than presented as equivalent to measured science.

Is this how knowledge is erased?

History can be altered not only by destroying books and buildings, but by deciding which evidence is recognised, which questions may be asked, and which account is repeated through schools, universities, museums and government institutions.

The author sees a parallel with disputes surrounding Tartaria: historic maps, books, photographs and monumental structures are treated by many researchers as evidence that the conventional account is incomplete. Whether readers accept that interpretation or not, the broader question remains legitimate: what happens when institutions dismiss inconvenient evidence while promoting an officially preferred story?

In New Zealand, a modern Matariki account is now repeated through government and education while the central manuscript remains unavailable for independent examination. This is how an interpretation can harden into public history: one classroom resource, one government programme and one Matariki book at a time.

What publication would allow

Publication would allow independent linguists, historians, astronomers and manuscript specialists to examine the actual source rather than merely review claims made about it.

• Publish the manuscript as a printed edition, e-book and downloadable PDF.
• Publish a diplomatic transcription preserving spelling and page order.
• Publish a complete English translation.
• Identify each handwriting hand and each later insertion.
• Provide paper, ink and provenance analysis.
• Publish the complete star and constellation catalogue.
• Identify parallels with European and Pacific astronomical sources.
• Distinguish original wording from modern interpretation.

CONCLUSION: THIS IS NOT “PEER REVIEW”

The manuscript was reportedly compiled between 1898 and 1933, long after European navigation, observatory-based astronomy, surveying, scientific publishing and university science were established in New Zealand. Yet claims drawn from it have been granted national authority without publication of the source and without any publicly demonstrated independent examination of its contents.

One would have to abandon ordinary standards of evidence to accept this arrangement as scholarship. An unpublished family manuscript, interpreted by the person whose career and public authority rest upon it, cannot become established history merely because government departments, universities and schools repeat the interpretation. The “expert” is not a replacement for “peer review,” and institutional endorsement is not evidence.

Until the manuscript is published as a printed edition, e-book and PDF, independently transcribed, independently translated and subjected to genuine “peer review,” its claims must not be taught to children as established history or presented as science. A national civic religion has been built around a “single source of truth” whose central source has never been opened to public scrutiny.

* SHOW US THE MANUSCRIPT.
* SHOW US THE TRANSCRIPTION.
* SHOW US THE TRANSLATION.
* SHOW US THE “PEER REVIEW.”
* SHOW US THE SOURCES.

References and source links

1. Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga — Carkeek Observatory, List No. 9808
https://www.heritage.org.nz/list-details/9808/Carkeek%20Observatory

2. Te Ara — Astronomy (historical overview)
https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/astronomy

3. New Zealand History — Early meetings between peoples / Abel Tasman
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/early-meetings-between-peoples

4. New Zealand History — European voyaging and discovery
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/european-voyaging-and-discovery

5. University of Canterbury archival material — Alexander Bickerton
https://archives.canterburystories.nz/agents/people/226

6. Royal Society Te Apārangi / Marsden Fund — project and public material relating to Māori astronomy
https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/what-we-do/funds-and-opportunities/marsden/

7. Huia Publishers — Matariki: The Star of the Year
https://huia.co.nz/products/matariki-the-star-of-the-year

8. Prime Minister’s Science Prizes — Rangi Mātāmua
https://www.pmscienceprizes.org.nz/

9. Beehive — Prime Minister’s Matariki speech, 2022
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/prime-minister%E2%80%99s-matariki-speech-2022

10. Beehive — New Matariki resources available for schools and kura
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-matariki-resources-available-schools-and-kura

11. Beehive — Matariki legislation and advisory-group material
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/te-pire-m%C5%8D-te-hararei-t%C5%ABmatanui-o-te-k%C4%81hui-o-matariki

12. Ministry for Culture and Heritage briefing material referring to Chief Adviser — Mātauranga Matariki
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2023-03/BIM%20-%20Assoc.%20Minister%20for%20Arts%2C%20Culture%20and%20Heritage.pdf

13. NZQA — Earth and Space Science
https://www2.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/subjects/select-subject/earth-and-space-science/

14. Papers Past — historical discussion of purapura-whetū / star-related tukutuku motifs
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/

15. Te Ara — Māori star compass (modern explanatory diagram)
https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/2222/maori-star-compass

16. Te Ara — Māori carving
https://teara.govt.nz/en/whakairo-maori-carving

17. Te Ara — When was New Zealand first settled?
https://teara.govt.nz/en/when-was-new-zealand-first-settled/print

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By Penny Marie

Every time the debate flares up in New Zealand over puberty blockers, school policies, or who competes in girls’ sport, it gets dragged away from the one group it’s actually about: children. Not the ideology, not the activism. Children, and the parents legally and morally responsible for protecting them.

Increasingly, those parents are being told to be quiet. Questioning a medical pathway is branded “hateful.” Raising concerns about what a child is taught at school is branded “extremist.” But here is something most New Zealanders haven’t been told: none of the pressure campaign built to silence them is grassroots. It’s funded, coordinated, and in part financed by our own government.

A taxpayer-funded “extremism” label
In 2024, Wellington group Gender Minorities Aotearoa published a booklet titled Anti-Transgender Extremism, which explicitly credits funding from the Community Matters Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE) Fund – a government program set up after the Christchurch mosque attacks to counter genuine violent extremism. The booklet instead labels gender-critical views, including the belief that biological sex is real, as extremism linked to genocide.

That funding sits inside a much larger web: Lottery Grants Board grants of $40,000 and $70,000 to the same organisation across 2023–25, a Rule Foundation / Rainbow Wellbeing Legacy Fund seeded with $1 million in government money in 2019 and topped up repeatedly since, InternetNZ grants for “transphobia and counter-speech” content, and international money from the US-based International Trans Fund, financed by the Arcus and Ford Foundations.

The puberty blocker court case and why the phrase “Trumpian” was used
In November 2025, New Zealand’s government moved to stop new puberty blocker prescriptions for gender dysphoria in minors, citing the UK’s independent Cass Review. The Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa (PATHA) took the government to court, and its legal team has publicly called the pause “Trumpian” — a slur, not an argument.

What PATHA doesn’t emphasise: its entire clinical position rests on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the same body whose own leaked internal files show clinicians discussing irreversible interventions on minors with serious psychiatric conditions, the same body an independent UK review found lacked “developmental rigour,” and the same body the US Federal Trade Commission sued in June 2026 for allegedly deceiving parents about the strength of its own evidence. A US federal judge declined to block that lawsuit on 10 July 2026.

A 410-page US Department of Health and Human Services review found WPATH suppressed systematic reviews its own leaders believed would undermine its preferred treatment approach, and removed nearly all age minimums under political pressure rather than new science.

Why it matters

This is a funded campaign relying on public silence to work. The full investigation — with primary-source documentation links — is published in full here: Why New Zealand Parents Are Afraid to Speak — And Who’s Profiting From Their Silence. 

New Zealand rotary phones had a famously unique feature: the numbering was reversed. Instead of the standard 1 through 0 clockwise layout seen in most of the world, NZ dials featured a reversed, counter-clockwise sequence where 9 was at the top right (closest to the metal finger stop) and numbers descended backwards to 0.

The Waikanae Museum in Elizabeth Street has some examples.

This was how they looked in America, an instruction sheet from 1951.

TV1 News were obviously delighted about one bird allegedly found with Bird Flu in Petone a day or so back — something for them to harp on about every day. We’ve posted several pieces on the subject — just type ‘Bird Flu’ in the search box above.

Meanwhile in Oz —

Note this was before the FIFA World Cup semi-final.

In Waikanae a house in Belvedere Ave had four English flags on its external street fence — if this was Starmerland you can guess how long they would have stayed there.

Zelensky is killing the elderly!

A defenseless old grandfather was sitting peacefully on a bench when Zelensky’s commissars brutally beat him and dragged him off to die in war.

His granddaughter couldn’t fight back against the armed gang – and now she’s left an orphan.… pic.twitter.com/jztlUqwviU

— Diana Panchenko 🇺🇦 (@Panchenko_X) July 15, 2026

from the NZ Herald

New Zealand will be represented at a meeting of foreign officials in Washington DC this week, which the US State Department intends to have a focus on addressing Far-Left terrorism.

The summit, to be hosted by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has raised the eyebrows of several foreign representatives, who anonymously told the Washington Postthey were unsure why they had been invited, as left-wing terrorism wasn’t considered a high-priority threat in their countries.

Following reporting in the US of about 60 countries being invited to the meeting, the Heraldthis week asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) whether New Zealand would be in attendance and the purpose of being there.

A spokesperson today confirmed New Zealand had been invited and would be represented by Daniel Mellsop, the deputy head of mission at the country’s embassy in Washington DC.

Read the Rest

from Rebel News (Canada)

Embalmers with decades of experience say they’ve been pulling something out of bodies they’ve never seen before…

Tough, white, rubbery, fibrous masses resembling strips of calamari. They’re turning up in body after body across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

I spoke with retired U.S. Air Force Major Tom Haviland, who has spent the past four years surveying embalmers to determine just how widespread this phenomenon is. His newly published, peer-reviewed paper reports that, of 808 embalmers surveyed, 75% say they’ve encountered these unusual clots.

What’s especially troubling is when they began appearing. This phenomenon exploded right after the Covid ‘vaccine’ rollout.

But the most unsettling part isn’t what’s being found in the dead. It’s what happened to a doctor who says he found the same clots in living patients.

Click here to watch my full report.

Tom told me about a cardiologist in Jacksonville, Florida, who had reportedly been removing these same clots from living patients for years. He called them “devious clots.” He shared photographs, angiograms, and case details with Tom.

Then, one day without warning, he sent a cryptic email: “Tom, I’ve been instructed to terminate communications immediately.”

Who instructed him? Why? Tom has his suspicions. And he says this doctor isn’t the only person who’s suddenly stopped talking.

He believes the evidence increasingly points to the spike protein and says the dramatic increase after the COVID vaccine rollout is too significant to ignore.

Yet, despite years of surveys, published research, and laboratory testing, he says major public health institutions have shown little interest in examining the samples or conducting independent research.

Three out of four embalmers surveyed say they’re seeing these bizarre, rubbery clots in about one-quarter of the bodies they embalm.

If that’s true, why isn’t every public health agency racing to investigate?

Yours,

Tamara Ugolini
Rebel News

P.S. A retired military officer, hundreds of embalmers, and a cardiologist told to stay quiet — all pointing to the same conclusion, while every major health agency looks away. Watch my full report and decide for yourself, then add your name at NoMoreShots.ca.