Farewell to the beloved Titewhai

Published date26 January 2023
Titewhai Harawira was a familiar face at Waitangi Day celebrations where she frequently accompanied prime ministers on to the local marae

The proud matriarch of a close-knit family, she was heavily involved in Māori activism.

“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 push the boundaries for the last 50 years and I don’t apologise for that to anybody then or now,” she said in an interview with RNZ in 2009.

Her son, former MP Hone Harawira, said she would lay at her home in Avondale before going to Hoani Waititi Marae in Henderson to lie in state. She would return to the north for burial.

Crown Relations Minister and Te Tai Tokerau MP Kelvin Davis said he was saddened to learn of the death of the “great Ngāpuhi leader and activist”.

“Kua ngū te reo o te piki kōtuku o Ngāpuhi, o Titewhai Harawira.”

I want to acknowledge her for her life-long dedication and advocacy for Māori rights.

“We will no doubt hear more of her achievements, but I want to acknowledge her as a mother, a grandmother and a great-grandmother.”

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson paid tribute to Harawira’s decades of “feisty, staunch activism”.

“Massive mihi to her lifelong dedication to advancing te ao Māori interests,” she said, while Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson rated Harawira as a “warrior woman”.

He said told Harawira “became one of our most important leaders, particularly for urban Māori and challengers to the establishment of the last 50 years”.

Titewhai Te Hoia Hinewhare was born in 1932 in the Northland farming area of Whakapara. After training as a nurse, she married John Harawira in 1952, settling in Avondale in Auckland. They had nine children and adopted another three.

The couple were active in local schools and were founding members of the Hoani Waititi urban marae in West Auckland. Titewhai Harawira was also active in the Māori Women’s Welfare League, especially its campaign to improve Maori housing. John Harawira died in 1977.

She became a member of the protest group Ngā Tamatoa in the early 1970s and 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...

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