Ranginui Walker walked in two worlds. A brave truth-teller, Dr Walker devoted his career to presenting historical events from a Maori perspective in a way that could be blunt and confronting but which unquestionably helped to change the views of many non-Maori New Zealanders.
At his Orakei Marae tangi this past few days, he was cherished as a courageous scholar who shone a light into areas that some preferred would remain buried.
An author, educator and activist, he forged a path that offered leadership and a public voice for Maori. He was a father and husband too, who married a Pakeha and who held the view that the relics of the country's colonial past were being laid to rest in the bedrooms of the nation.
It is illuminating to reread some of the columns he wrote over two decades for the Listener.
He could be blunt, persuasive and discomforting. He wrote of injustice, of the impact of a settler community on an indigenous people, and of the enduring influence of the Treaty of Waitangi.
