New Zealand’s Maori Appoint New Queen

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New Zealand’s Maori chiefs anointed the 27-year-old queen as their new monarch on Thursday, a surprise choice seen as a symbol of change for the country’s indigenous community.

During a lavish ceremony held on the country’s North Island, Nga Wai hono i te po Paki was greeted enthusiastically by thousands as he sat on a high-backed wooden throne.

She is the youngest daughter of King Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, who underwent heart surgery on Friday.

Nga Wai, chosen by a council of chiefs, was led to the throne by a group of bare-chested, tattooed men carrying ceremonial weapons, who greeted him with cheers, shouts and shouts.

Wearing a wreath of leaves, a cape and a whalebone necklace, the young girl sat at her father’s coffin as emotional rituals, prayers and hymns were sung.

The late king was laid to rest ceremoniously for six days before being lowered down the Waikato River by a flotilla of four war canoes, each powered by more than a dozen rowers.

The funeral procession passed large crowds of onlookers camped on the riverbank before stopping at the foot of the sacred Mount Taupiri.

From there, three rugby teams took on the role of pallbearers, carrying the coffin up the steep slopes to the summit and the final resting place of past Maori royalty.

The Maori monarchy serves a mostly ceremonial role, with no legal status.

But it has enormous cultural and sometimes political significance as a powerful symbol of Māori identity and kinship.

Queen Nga Wai, the king’s only daughter and youngest child, was likely considered an outside choice to succeed him.

One of his two older brothers had undertaken many ceremonial duties during their father’s health problems and was asked to take over this duty.

“This is definitely a break from the traditional Maori leadership system, where usually the eldest child, the son, is the one who is assigned leadership,” Maori cultural advisor Karaitiana Taiuru told AFP.

Taiuru said it was a “privilege” to witness a young Maori woman become queen, especially given the community’s ageing leadership and the increasing challenges it faces.

“The Maori world was yearning for younger leaders to guide us through the new world of artificial intelligence, genetic modification, global warming and many other social changes that challenge and threaten New Zealand’s Indigenous Peoples and us,” he said.

“These challenges require a new, younger generation to lead us.”

New Zealand’s Maori people make up about 17 percent of the population, or about 900,000 people.

Māori people are more likely than other New Zealanders to be unemployed, to live in poverty, to suffer from diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and have higher suicide rates.

Maori have a life expectancy seven years less than other New Zealanders.

The Kiingitanga or Maori King movement was founded in 1858 with the aim of uniting the tribes of New Zealand and providing a single interlocutor for the colonial ruler, Queen Victoria of England.

“People think of Maori people as one nation, we are not. We are many tribes, many iwi. We have different ways of speaking,” said Joanne Teina, who travelled from Auckland for the ceremony.

“Kiingitanga was created to create unity among people who had been fighting each other for thousands of years before the Pakeha (Europeans) came. Now we are just fighting them.”

Queen Nga Wai is the eighth Maori monarch and second queen.

His grandmother, Queen Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, held the position for forty years until 2006.

The new queen studied Maori language and customary law at New Zealand’s University of Waikato and also taught children the performing arts of kapa haka.

To mark the anniversary of the King’s coronation in 2016, he had a traditional Maori “moko” tattooed on his chin.

King Tuheitia, 69, who rose to the throne from a truck driver’s job, died on Friday after undergoing heart surgery and just days after celebrating the 18th anniversary of his coronation.

Tens of thousands of Indigenous people and “Pakeha” (people of European descent) visited to pay their respects, mourn and celebrate New Zealand’s rich Maori heritage.

Among them was Darrio Penetito-Hemara from Auckland. Penetito-Hemara told AFP that the king “united many people in Aotearoa (New Zealand) who often did not get along.”

Penetito-Hemara said the king left a legacy built “through respect and aroha (love).”