Local Avondale magazine pays tribute to long-time resident and Māori matriarch Titewhai Harawira

Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro is welcomed on to the Treaty Grounds carrying a photo of the late Queen Elizabeth II, while another member of the entourage carries a portrait of the late Ngāpuhi matriarch Titewhai Harawira.

Renowned Māori activist Titewhai Harawira died on January 25, 2023 in her Avondale home. She was 90 years old and sharp as a tack.

A polarising figure who didn’t bow to pressure from anyone, Māori or Pākehā, Harawira was unapologetic for using whatever means at her disposal to advance the interests of te ao Māori [the Māori world].

There’s no doubt that she was a driving force behind many of the social, political and cultural shifts in the Māori renaissance.

Former New Zealand First MP Shane Jones spoke of her as a fierce, determined campaigner who had a few controversial stoushes and was also a critic of her own people.

“She was no spectator. She constantly said to her own people, ‘If you want to boost your quality of life and get out of helplessness and hopelessness, don’t be a spectator, or you’ll get what you’ve got, which is pretty near zero’.”

Titewhai Te Hoia Hinewhare Hellier, a descendent of Ngāpuhi chiefs Patuone and Nene, who signed both the Declaration of Independence in 1835 and the Treaty of Waitangi, was born in 1932 in the Northland farming area of Whakapara.

The eldest of seven children, Harawira was raised by her maternal grandparents. She attended Whakapara Native School, followed by the Queen Victoria School for Māori Girls.

In her early career as a nurse, Harawira developed a strong understanding of the health and welfare needs of the Māori community. She saw first-hand the disparities in health and access to healthcare that existed between Māori and non-Māori, motivating her to become an advocate for improved access to healthcare for Māori.

In 1952, Titewhai married Māori Battalion veteran John Harawira, settling in Avondale, where the couple became active in local schools and were founding members of the pioneering Hoani Waititi urban marae in West Auckland. John Harawira died in 1977, leaving his wife to bring up their 12 children alone.

Harawira was active in the Māori Women’s Welfare League, in particular its campaign to improve Māori housing.

Growing up during Word War II, as she witnessed first-hand the alienation of Māori land, the seeds for Harawira’s dedication to land rights were sown.

“I saw the farms that belonged to my aunties and my cousins, and people in and around our districts - saw those farms being taken over by Māori Affairs and given out to other people, so that when our people came back from World War II, those farms were padlocked, and they were locked off those farms.”

Dame Whina Cooper and grandaughter Irenee in 1975. Photo / Michael Tubberty

Harawira was one of the organisers of the 1975 land hīkoi led by Whina Cooper that marched from the Far North to Parliament to protest the loss of Māori rights and land through the actions of Pākehā.

In the early 1970s as a member of the protest group Ngā Tamatoa, Harawira campaigned hard for the Māori language.

“We were determined to rescue our language because we felt and we believed, and we believe today, that a people without its language is a people that dies,” she said in a 2009 RNZ interview.

Harawira made it her business to visit the children’s schools to ensure their Māori names were being spelled and pronounced correctly: “It was necessary for me to enforce a safety barrier around my children so that they would feel comfortable about being Māori and having a language to be proud of.”

Prime Minister Helen Clark (left) and her Waitangi escort Titewhai Harawira, who said the incident which reduced Clark to tears on the Waitangi Marae in 1998 was caused by men thinking they could change Ngāpuhi rules which bar women from speaking on the taumata [orator's bench].

In the 1990s, Harawira appointed herself as escort for the many dignitaries who descended on Waitangi. Some she supported, others she challenged.

She famously reduced then-Opposition leader Helen Clark to tears, telling her to sit down when she tried to speak on the marae, something only men are permitted to do under tikanga Māori.

“On my marae, I am very firm about taking second place in men’s games,” Harawira said, calling out the Māori men willing to overlook tikanga at the detriment of their own Māori women.

“Titewhai reminded us that it should be Māori women first given that privilege, but all women should be listened to and respected,” commented solicitor and Māori advocate Annette Sykes recently.

Then-National Party leader Judith Collins sits with PM Jacinda Ardern and Titewhai Harawira (left) at Waitangi. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Harawira’s activism also took her beyond New Zealand shores in her determination to advance Māori interests. She travelled to South Africa where she met Nelson and Winnie Mandela; the Netherlands, where she requested the Dutch government reclaim the name ‘New Zealand’ to allow for reversion to a Māori name; and to the Privy Council in London, where she petitioned for the protection of the Māori language.

One may ponder how history will remember Harawira, given that her considerable achievements were constantly clouded by controversy.

Her acclaimed work with Māori health initiatives will forever be marked by her nine-month prison sentence in 1988 for beating a psychiatric patient and fracturing his skull.

The future King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla meet Ngāpuhi matriarch Titewhai Harawira at Waitangi in 2019. Photo / Peter de Graaf

The 1975 land march was divided by a two-month occupation of the Parliament grounds led by Harawira, from which Whina Cooper distanced herself and which was used by then-Prime Minister Robert Muldoon to quell the protest and its demands.

Her fight for women’s rights will best be remembered through the incident where Harawira made Helen Clark cry when she challenged the right of a Pākehā woman to speak on the marae.

Despite the controversies surrounding her, Titewhai Harawira remained a powerful and respected figure, and her death is a significant loss to the Māori community and to New Zealand as a whole. She will be remembered as a powerful voice for Māori rights and cultural identity.

“The country is much the better for her being here, even though she was a polarising figure. The likes of the Harawiras make the likes of Sir Dr Peta Sharples and the Tariana Turias look mainstream. And in any political discourse or in any national conversation, you need people that are on the polarities of the discussion and the debate. And so, in terms of our nationhood story, she played a significant role for us,” former Labour MP John Tamihere said in an interview.

“And the fact that she graunched with so many Pākehā and Māori is testimony to that polarisation - that made us a better people because she raised issues, and in a way, that forced us to confront them instead of hiding them under the carpet.”

And perhaps the final words should go to Harawira herself:

“We’ve got radio today, we’ve got television today, we’ve got fishing rights today, we’ve got land rights today, we’ve got a Māori Party today. Why? Because a few of us have had the courage to get up there and push the boundaries for the last 50 years, and I don’t apologise for that to anybody, then or now.”

This article was first published in the Rosebank Business Association Magazine and was compiled by Kerrie Subritzky, who has given Kahu permission to republish it.