Hīkoi to Parliament: Linda Munn talks Māori activism and her Tino Rangatiratanga flag

As Tino Rangatiratanga flags fly in the fierce winds of Te Kāo on Monday, the flag’s last living designer, Linda Munn, is there to fly it once again.

The first day of the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti kicked off on Monday as participants gathered for a dawn ceremony at Te Rerenga Wairua Cape Rēinga to begin their nine-day journey to Wellington.

The hīkoi convoy travelled through Northland, stopping at Kaitāia and Whangārei.

Linda Munn's Tino Rangatiratanga flag is flying high for Māori. Photo / Te Ao Māori News.

Munn, an activist of 45 years, says her first hīkoi was the anti-nuclear protest which happened when she had just left school, with aunties such as Hilda Halkyard-Harawira.

“I was a kiddo, like some of these kids here, when I did my first major hīkoi and had to do my first run from Kaitāia, I had no shoes.”

She arrived there at 1.30am, saying the inaugural day of Hīkoi mō te Tiriti is special.

“I think being here, this is our space, Te Rerenga Wairua, this is where all our tūpuna come before they leave our worldly plane,” she said.

She said it was special being there with everyone, with the younger generation, and some of the old warriors. Munn said she was in the middle of those generations.

Te Ao Māori News’ Tumamao Harawira commented on all the Tino Rangatiratanga flags there, along with the Māori fashion statements on kotahitanga and mana motuhake.

He asked when thinking back to the creation of the Tino Rangatiratanga flag, whether she expected it to become a pan-tribal symbol?

“Oh pan-tribal even, really?” she said.

“I freaked out when I heard someone use ‘icon’ and I went ‘really?’ cos you know Māori resistance, that’s what you do, kaupapa is everything, we live it we breathe it.”

“You know, you come from a kaupapa-driven whānau,” she said to Harawira. “We don’t even know how to have normal fun like other whānau.”

Munn said the movement for Māori is not only restoration by reclamation.