A Māori king who fought for racial unity in New Zealand is buried and a new queen is chosen

NGĀRUAWĀHIA, New Zealand – Thousands arrived in the freezing dawn, parking their cars far away and walking along country roads, children on their shoulders. They came dressed in mourning black, wearing wreaths of ferns and kawakawa leaves, carrying bone carvings or wedges of deep green pounamu – New Zealand jade – on their chests.

Mourners gathered in the northern island town of Ngāruawāhia on Thursday to pay their last respects to New Zealand's Māori King Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII, who died six days earlier, and to attend the accession to the throne of his daughter Ngā wai hono i te po. The new queen, 27, is the second woman to become Māori monarch, in a tradition dating back to 1858.

As she was escorted to the Tūrangawaewae marae – an ancestral gathering place – where her father's coffin lay draped in feather cloaks, cheers erupted among thousands who stood outside watching television screens and waiting on the wide, flat banks of the Waikato River to catch a glimpse of Kīngi Tūheitia's funeral procession. After her accession, Ngā wai hono i te po accompanied the late king along the river in a fleet of traditional canoes as he was led by Māori warriors to his final resting place.

The events marked the end of a week-long tangihanga – a funeral rite – for 69-year-old Kīngi Tūheitia, a leader who in recent months has mobilised New Zealand's indigenous people to unity in the face of a more racially divided political culture than before. His daughter's rise represents the rise of a new generation of Māori leaders in New Zealand – a generation that grew up speaking a resurgent language that was once nearly extinct.

Kīngi Tūheitia died last Friday following heart surgery, just days after celebrations to mark his 18th anniversary on the throne. He became king following the death of his mother in 2006 and was buried next to her on Thursday in an unmarked grave on Taupiri Maunga, a mountain with spiritual significance for his tribe.

The Kīngitanga, or Māori King Movement, is not a constitutional monarchy and the head of state of New Zealand is King Charles III of Great Britain. It has a ceremonial rather than legal mandate and was formed in the years following the British colonisation of New Zealand to unite Māori tribes in resistance to the forced sale of indigenous lands and the loss of Māori language and culture.

Monarchs traditionally keep a low profile in politics and Tūheitia was remembered this week as a quiet and modest man. But in recent months his voice has grown louder.

After a centre-right government took power in New Zealand last November and began taking measures to roll back recognition of Māori language, people and customs, Tūheitia took the unusual step of convening a national tribal assembly in January, attended by 10,000 people.

“The best protest we can do now is to be Māori. Be who we are. Live our values. Speak our reo,” he told them, using the Māori word for language. “Just be Māori. Be Māori, all day, every day. We are here. We are strong.”

Tūheitia urged New Zealanders to embrace the concept of kotahitanga (unity of purpose) because there is “room for everyone”.

His words were repeated on the days of his funeral, including by politicians whose plans he had opposed. Reflecting the place that Māori language and customs have come to occupy in New Zealand's public life over the past decades, his funeral was attended not only by Māori tribes, but also by leaders of all political parties, former prime ministers, leaders of Pacific island states, diplomats and representatives of the British Crown.

Tens of thousands of ordinary people also flocked there. Many spoke Māori to each other, a language that had steadily declined in importance after colonization until activists provoked its renaissance in the 1970s. Their initiatives included the establishment of Māori language preparatory schools, whose first graduates are now young adults.

Tūheitia's daughter was among them. Her father came from a generation where many were discouraged from speaking Māori, while she was rooted in the language and attended Māori immersion schools. Ngā wai hono i te po has a degree in Māori customs and is an accomplished performer of kapa haka, an indigenous performing art.

The late king, who was a truck driver before ascending to the throne, was a surprise appointment to the monarchy, chosen by a council and not necessarily hereditary. But the new queen was groomed for the role and had accompanied her father in his work over the past few years.

Her appointment comes at a politically sensitive moment. Since 1858, the Kīngitanga has represented Māori sovereignty and the other promises of modern New Zealand's founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, signed between the Crown and Māori tribes in 1840. In the years since, translation problems and attempts to reinterpret the treaty have sparked intermittent conflict, which has flared up again in recent months.

“The treaty provides a basis for our cooperation. Let us not change it, that would harm us,” said Tūheitia at the coronation ceremony a few days before his death. New Zealand is facing a storm as Māori rights are being pushed back, “but there is no reason to worry. In this storm, we are stronger together,” he said.

After the new queen was anointed with oils and a service was held for her father, mourners streamed behind the hearse as it drove to the banks of the river sacred to his tribe. There, Tūheitia's coffin was accompanied by traditionally carved canoes on its journey to the mountain, and the mourners, numbering as many as ten in some places, fell silent and bowed as it passed.

As he was carried to the base of the mountain under a clear afternoon sky, a blaring haka, a ceremonial chant, rang out from mourners waiting among the gravestones on the steep slope, and dozens helped carry the late king to his burial place at the summit.

Many had waited for hours to see the procession pass, including many young families. Commentators said the Queen's accession represented a cultural renewal, as the majority of Māori – who make up almost 20% of New Zealand's population – are under 40 years old.

Among them on Thursday was nine-year-old Awa Tukiri, whose family had driven nearly two hours from Auckland to watch the canoe carrying the late king pass by.

“It was pretty amazing because on the boat all they do is haka and waiata,” he said, using the words for Māori chants and songs. Tukiri, who attends a kura kaupapa – one of the increasingly popular immersion schools – said the best thing about being Māori was “just hanging out and speaking Māori to each other”.