When Matariki and Puanga rise in the dark hours of the morning, we not only turn our gaze upward to the sky but also look back to remember those who are no longer with us. For Māori, death is a transition from the physical world to the spiritual realm. The spirits depart to join the celestial map of ancestors, becoming a star in the sky. This year, during Matariki, as we look towards the pōhutukawa star in the Matariki constellation, we remember a King, a Knight, four Dames and many other notable and influential community members.
Dame Mabel June Hinekahukura Mariu DNZM QSM JP| 1932 – 2024
A long time before she chaired ministerial health taskforces, Dame June captained the first Silver Ferns side to beat Australia, teaching the nation that Māori women belonged wherever excellence was measured. Some will remember the former Silver Fern standing in supermarket carparks convincing whānau to get heart‑health checks, saving more lives with clipboards than any billboard ever could.
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII | 1955 –2024
“We need to focus on getting in the waka and working together”
Crowned at thirty‑one after the sudden passing of his mother, Kiingi Tuheitia spent nineteen years hauling the Kingitanga into a new century of settlements, tribal debt crises, and Crown protocol often while fighting private battles with diabetes that saw him in and out of hospital. Yet he refused to cancel a single poukai, insisting on walking among tents and caravans so kaumātua would not have to walk to him. He was the first Māori monarch to attend the Olympic Games.
Eddie Robert Low MNZM| 1943 – 2024
Born blind and orphaned young, Eddie Low taught himself guitar by mimicking a manu waiata, earning the moniker ‘Voice in a Million’ after bringing grown men to tears at the Gore Gold Guitar Awards. He toured prisons for free, convinced that music could crack concrete, and once played through a cancer flare because the hospice ward had lousy acoustics.
Cyril Tainui Chapman | 1954 – 2025
At the age of nineteen, Cyril carried the pou whenua for Dame Whina Cooper’s Land March, later founding Tautoko FM in a derelict pub after the station burned down, convinced Ngāpuhi stories were worth broadcasting in stereo. It was cancer that dimmed his baritone voice, but not his mischief and days before he died, he recorded a weather bulletin predicting ‘long‑term sovereignty with intermittent showers of political nonsense’. Thousands tuned in for the punchline, unaware it would be his last sign‑off.
Sir Robert Nairn ‘Bom’ Gillies KNZM | 1925 – 2024
“War is a waste of time. It solved nothing.”
Sir Bom enlisted underage, weathered Crete and Cassino, then spent half a lifetime avoiding medals because, he said, they belonged to the brothers he buried overseas. At the age of ninety‑seven, he finally accepted a knighthood, using the ceremony to lobby for the battalion’s oral history project. Sir Bom died two years later, with the first recordings funded and underway. Right to the end, he remained a steadfast symbol of humility and service, his presence at commemorations a reminder of the legacy carried by the last soldier of the 28th Māori Battalion.
Ricky Lee Tapuni Mitai | 1988 – 2024
Crowned Manukura Tāne at Te Matatini, Ricky Lee danced barefoot on stages worldwide yet never missed Friday fish‑and‑chips with his nan in Ōpōtiki. He died unexpectedly during Sir Bom’s tangi, and mourners say the night sky split with waiata as two great leaders crossed paths. In death, he still unites kapa haka rōpū who once sparred fiercely, and they now practice his signature double‑leap, promising to land it perfectly in his honour.
Te Rangikaiamokura Wirihana Hetet ONZM | 1937 – 2024
The grandson of legendary carver Tene Waitere, Rangi Hetet, devoted eight decades to coaxing ancestral forms from tōtara while gently reminding politicians that real culture cannot be hurried to meet election dates. When Hurricane Katrina destroyed a marae‑style meeting house he had carved for a Louisiana museum, he wept as if it were a whanaunga, then offered to rebuild it for free, “We carve for people, not for price.”
Kiwi Rina Campbell | 1981 – 2024
World champion Waka Ama paddler, coach and mother of two, Kiwi Campbell could silence a boat of teenagers with one raised eyebrow then hoot louder than them all once the finish line was crossed. She battled post‑natal depression between world titles, openly sharing her scars so other wāhine wouldn’t drown alone. After her sudden passing in November 2024, Gisborne-based paddlers stayed off the Tūranganui river where she trained, turning the awa into a mirror, a gesture as graceful as any gold medal.
Dame Tariana Turia DNZM MBE | 1944 – 2025
“It is our collective responsibility to advance the needs and aspirations of our people, and this should transcend any party-political affiliation”
She walked out of Cabinet over the Foreshore and Seabed Act in tears of fury and never looked back, founding a party that would swing MMP politics for a decade and pilot Whānau Ora into being. Opponents branded her divisive, yet thousands of coastal Māori credit her for keeping their urupā out of corporate hands. In later years, she chastised both Labour and National with equal impatience, proving that loyalty to your people sometimes means loyalty to no party at all.
Dame Iritana Te Rangi Tawhiwhirangi | 1929 – 2025
Dame Iritana’s revolution began with one simple vow, kia hoki te reo ki te kāinga, yet by the time cancer claimed her, more than 500 kōhanga reo had been established. She had stared down Treasury officials, slept on gym floors to open new centres, and, in her seventies, fronted an embarrassing corporate‑spending scandal that threatened to sink the Kōhanga Reo movement. Instead of hiding, she asked all kōhanga to publish their books online, a transparency unheard of in the sector. Her stubborn refusal to be shamed turned potential demise into renewed funding and, more importantly, hard‑won public trust.
Maata Wharehoka | 1950 - 2025
Maata was raised on Parihaka’s legacy of passive resistance and braided kete for museum displays while secretly teaching weavers to embed protest messages in their patterns. She was arrested twice for blocking oil trucks, yet insisted her greatest act of defiance was feeding the arresting officers her kānga waru (steam pudding made from kūmara) at dawn.
Robyn Fletcher Kahukiwa | 1938 – 2025
“We must look in our own hearts and know that we are a wonderful people”
Robyn painted goddesses with moko and protest banners in the same stroke, forcing New Zealand galleries to confront colonial narratives they had curated for a century. At book festivals, Kahukiwa often greeted young readers with open arms and lots of aroha, encouraging them with reminders of their tūpuna and belonging, although the exact words she uttered remain in the memories of those she met.
Frederick John Graham CNZM | 1928 – 2025
Fred Graham’s sculptures of towering steel birds can be seen in many city plazas now, but in the 1960s, he was told Māori art belonged only on the walls of marae. He answered by welding iron feathers the size of sails and planting them outside universities. Later, when he was asked to accept an Icon Award limited to twenty living artists, he replied, “Make it twenty‑one, we can’t leave Kuia Hiria out.”
Lady Arapera Sharples | 1957 – 2025
While Sir Pita stood beneath parliamentary spotlights, Lady Arapera occupied the margins, organising community hāngi to fund kōhanga reo, slipping pocket money to solo mums, and reminding high‑profile activists to eat before marching. Her whānau speak of the nights she shouldered the grief of strangers who turned up at her door, convinced she could fix whatever ailed them. It was that invisibility‑by‑choice which shocked the nation at her tangi: thousands arrived, suddenly aware that the ‘tea‑lady’ in the back row had been the quiet architect of many Māori victories.
