Pacific Day marks the Maori New Year
For many of us, New Year's has receded into hazy memories of emptied champagne bottles and long-lapsed resolutions. But for performer and Maori culture expert Ataahua Papa, the holiday looms brightly ahead in the form of Matariki, the Maori New Year. The timing of that observance is hooked to the rising of the Pleiades in New Zealand, where the Maori are the indigenous people. "A lot of our culture was based on the s…