Haka teacher with masters degree anointed new Maori queen

Only daughter of late King Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII ascends to throne in emotional ceremony

An accomplished haka dancer has been anointed the next Māori leader over her elder brothers in an emotional coronation attended by thousands.
Nga Wai Hono i te po Paki, 27, the only daughter of the late Māori King Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, holds a masters degree in Māori customs, was raised in Māori immersion schools and has been hailed by community chiefs as the “new dawn” of a younger generation of leaders emerging at a critical time for indigenous rights.
She is only the second queen in the royal tradition of the Kiingitanga movement, which dates back to the 1850s.
Since its founding in the years after British colonisation, the Kiingitanga movement has championed Māori unity and sovereignty and other protections in the Treaty of Waitangi – modern New Zealand’s founding document which was signed in 1840 between the Crown and Māori tribes.
Translation issues and attempts to reinterpret the agreement have since caused tensions.
A pledge by the New Zealand government to review the treaty and implement potential changes to how the document affects modern laws has triggered protests in recent months.
The former king, 69-year-old Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, who died peacefully in his sleep last week after heart surgery, had made a rallying call for Māori unity to counter any rollback of recognition for the community’s language, people and customs.
In January, he took the rare step of calling a national meeting of tribes, which was attended by 10,000 people.
“The best protest we can make right now is being Māori. Be who we are. Live our values. Speak our reo,” he told them, using the Māori word for language. “Just be Māori. Be Māori all day, every day. We are here. We are strong.”
Nga Wai Hono i te po Paki was revealed as the new queen on the sixth day of her father’s funeral in the northern New Zealand town of Ngāruawāhia.
After her ascension at the Tūrangawaewae marae -– an ancestral meeting place — she accompanied him in a flotilla of traditional canoes along the river as he was guided by Māori warriors to his final resting place.
The Kiingitanga has a ceremonial mandate and is not a constitutional monarchy. King Charles III is New Zealand’s head of state.