SYDNEY — New Zealand’s Maori crowned a new monarch on Thursday, selecting 27-year-old Nga Wai Hono i te Po Paki to succeed her late father as unifying leader of the country’s Indigenous people, a decision celebrated as the dawning of a new era for Maori.
But some Maori say the new queen’s blend of modernity and tradition — she is Gen Z but also has a traditional moko kauae, or face tattoo — will help, especially because most Maori are under 40.
“This is more than a generational shift,” Shane Jones, a member of Parliament who is Maori but is part of New Zealand First, one of the coalition partners rolling back policies that have benefited Indigenous people, told the New Zealand Herald. “She will be the face of renewal.”
As a former British colony and still a member of the British Commonwealth realm, New Zealand’s official monarch is King Charles III. But Maori, who make up about 17 percent of the population, have recognized their own monarch since 1858.
On Thursday, Nga Wai Hono i te Po was anointed with sacred oils and blessed with the same Bible used to crown the first Maori king.
She was chosen to become the eighth Maori monarch by a council of 12 male elders following the death last week of her father, Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII. The council overlooked her two older brothers, although the crown is not automatically inherited and could have passed outside the family. Her grandmother, Te Atairangikaahu, was the first Maori queen, until her death in 2006.
Thursday’s ascension capped a decade-long rise to prominence for the 27-year-old. She was a teenager when, in 2016, she received her traditional face tattoo along with her mother and another relative, former foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta, to celebrate Tuheitia’s 10th year on the throne, RNZ reported.
The queen taught kapa haka, or Maori performing arts, while attending the University of Waikato and has a master’s degree in Maori cultural studies from the same institution.
In 2020, she was appointed to the Waitangi National Trust, a body that advises on the signing place of the Treaty of Waitangi, the 1840 governance agreement between the British Crown and Maori that underpins claims of Maori sovereignty.
In a university interview, she described how shaped she was by her Maori identity.
“I walk around my house, and I see a taiaha,” or traditional Maori weapon, she said. “I go home to my parents’ house, and my little nephew is there, and he’s trying to do the haka [dance]. So it is just everywhere. I’ve been brought up in it, I am it.”
Former prime minister Chris Hipkins, leader of the main opposition Labour Party, praised the new monarch for having “an incredible wealth” of knowledge about her culture, adding the queen would be “committed to looking after her people.”
Her leadership could be tested by intense friction with the conservative government, however.
After paying his respects to Tuheitia earlier in the week, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon wrote on social media that he welcomed the new queen, “who carries forward the mantle of leadership left by her father.” He is on a visit to Asia and did not attend the burial.
As Kiingi Tuheitia makes his final journey from Turangawaewae, we reflect on his legacy and look to the future with hope and anticipation.
— Christopher Luxon (@chrisluxonmp) September 5, 2024
We welcome the Upoko Ariki, Ngawai hono i te po, who carries forward the mantle of leadership left by her father.
But Luxon’s coalition government is often accused of being “anti-Maori” and was booed and heckled during a February meeting with Maori leaders.
The government has said it wants to end “race-based” policies and minimize Maori language in the public service. It quickly scrapped a Maori health agency. And it has also pledged to review the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.
The libertarian ACT Party, a junior coalition partner, wants to go further, pushing for a referendum on the treaty and calling Maori co-governance undemocratic.
Maori have been disadvantaged ever since the treaty was signed, experts say, leading to their overrepresentation in unemployment, poverty and crime statistics and to worse health and education outcomes than the White population’s.
In January, Nga Wai Hono i te Po stood at her father’s side as the king summoned thousands of Maori to discuss the government’s plan.
“The best protest we can do right now is be Maori, be who we are, live our values,” Tuheitia said. “Just be Maori, Maori all day, every day, we are here, we are strong.”
On Thursday, thousands of Maori gathered once more, this time to watch warriors paddle the king’s coffin down the Waikato River to the sacred Taupiri mountain, where he would be buried.
The queen accompanied the coffin. And as the two monarchs passed — father and daughter, past and future — mourners gathered along the riverbanks to perform a haka.
