The Māori people of New Zealand have crowned a new leader following the recent death of King Kiingi Tuheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII. The council of New Zealand’s Indigenous Māori chiefs chose the King’s daughter, 27-year-old Ngā Wai hono i te pō, as the new Queen and the youngest Māori leader ever crowned.
During a lavish ceremony, the new Queen sat close to her father’s coffin on a wood-carved throne and was blessed with the same Bible used to anoint the first Māori king in 1858. Meanwhile, the late King’s body was transported for burial on a flotilla of wooden canoes to his final resting place on the sacred Mount Taupiri, while the famous Māori haka was performed. Kiingi Tuheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII died while recovering from heart surgery at age 69.
The new Queen has a master’s degree in Māori studies and teaches traditional Indigenous art forms, including dancing. The community’s leaders describe her as “humble” and “mature” and the leader needed to modernize and direct the Māori people into a “new future.” Ngā Wai hono I te pō speaks Indigenous Māori fluently and describes her priorities as the community’s political, economic, and social well-being.
The Māori people comprise around 20% of New Zealand’s population, and the “King movement” that produced the royal lineage of the new Queen was founded in the mid-1800s in response to European colonization and its increasing advances into Māori land.
Recent elections in New Zealand brought a right-leaning government to power, causing tensions with the Māori population, who believe it intends to push back its cultural rights. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon opposed policies that favored and separated the Māori from the rest of the population. He argued that no individual in New Zealand should be prioritized over another on the basis of their skin color or ethnicity. While his stance prompted a storm of protest across the nation, Luxon said the criticisms were unfair and pledged that the Māori “are going to do better under our government than they have in the last six years.”
Māori leaders and groups promised to hold Luxon accountable and elected 33 Members of Parliament—the highest number in the country’s history.
