Mourners react outside Turangawaewae marae for the funeral of New Zealand's Maori King, Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Ngaruawahia, New Zealand. (AP Photo/Alan Gibson)

NGARUAWAHIA, New Zealand (AP) — They came in their thousands in the freezing dawn, parking cars far away and winding down rural roads on foot, children riding on their shoulders. They arrived in mourning black with crowns of ferns and kawakawa leaves, bone carvings or wedges of deep green pounamu -– New Zealand jade -– resting on their chests.

The mourners came to the North Island town of Ngaruawahia on Thursday to pay final respects to New Zealand’s Maori king, Tuheitia Potatau Te Wherowhero VII, who died six days earlier, and witness the ascension to the throne of his daughter, Nga wai hono i te po. The new queen, 27, is the second woman to become Maori monarch in a tradition dating back to 1858.

As she was escorted onto Turangawaewae marae -– an ancestral meeting place — where her father’s casket lay draped in feathered cloaks, cheers rang out among thousands crowded around TV screens outside and waiting along the wide, flat banks of the Waikato River to glimpse Kingi Tuheitia’s funeral procession. After her ascension, Nga wai hono i te po accompanied the late king in a flotilla of traditional canoes along the river as he was guided by Maori warriors to his final resting place.

The events marked the end of a weeklong tangihanga -- funeral rite -– for Kingi Tuheitia, 69, a leader who had in recent months rallied New Zealand’s Indigenous people to unity in the face of a more racially divisive political culture than before. His daughter’s ascension represents the rise of a new generation of Maori leaders in New Zealand -– one which grew up steeped in a resurging language that had once almost died out.

Kingi Tuheitia died last Friday after undergoing heart surgery, just days after celebrations marking his 18th anniversary on the throne. He became king after his mother’s death in 2006 and on Thursday was buried alongside her in an unmarked grave on Taupiri Maunga, a mountain of spiritual significance to his iwi, or tribe.

The Kingitanga, or Maori royalty movement, is not a constitutional monarchy and King Charles III of Britain is New Zealand’s head of state. It has a ceremonial mandate rather than a legal one and was formed in the years after British colonization of New Zealand to unite Maori tribes in resistance to forced sales of Indigenous land and the loss of the Maori language and culture.

Monarchs have traditionally wielded politics lightly and Tuheitia was remembered this week as a quiet and humble man. But in recent months, his voice had become louder.

After a center-right government took power in New Zealand last November and began to enact policies reversing recognition of Maori language, people and customs, Tuheitia took the unusual step in January of calling a national meeting of tribes which was attended by 10,000 people.

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

Tuheitia urged New Zealanders to embrace the concept of kotahitanga -– unity of purpose -– in a cause that he said had “room for everyone.”

His words were echoed throughout the days of his funeral, including by political leaders whose plans he had rallied to oppose. In a reflection of the place that Maori language and customs have grown to hold in New Zealand's public life in recent decades, his funeral was attended not only by Maori tribes but by leaders of all political parties, past prime ministers, leaders of Pacific Island nations, diplomats and representatives of the British crown.

Tens of thousands of ordinary people also flocked there. Many spoke to each other in Maori, a language which had steadily waned after colonization until activists in the 1970s provoked its renaissance. Among their initiatives was the establishment of Maori language pre-schools, the first graduates of which are now young adults.

Tuheitia’s daughter was among them; while her father hailed from a generation in which many were discouraged from speaking Maori, she was steeped in it, attending Maori immersion schools. Nga wai hono i te po holds a degree in Maori customs and is an accomplished performer of kapa haka, an Indigenous performance art.

The late king, a truck driver before he took the throne, was a surprise appointment to the monarchy, which is chosen by a council and is not required to be hereditary. But the new queen was groomed for the role and had accompanied her father in his work during recent years.

Her ascension comes at a fraught political moment. Since 1858, the Kingitanga has championed Maori sovereignty and the other promises of modern New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840 between the Crown and Maori tribes. In the years since, translation issues and attempts to reinterpret the treaty have at times provoked conflict, which has in recent months flared again.

“The treaty provides a foundation for us all to work together. Let’s not change it, that would harm us,” Tuheitia said at the event marking his coronation days before his death. While New Zealand was facing a storm as Maori rights were rolled back, “there's no need to worry. In this storm, we are stronger together,” he said.

After the new queen was anointed with oils and a service for her father held, mourners flocked behind the hearse as it drove to the banks of the river sacred to his tribe. There, Tuheitia's casket was accompanied by traditional carved canoes on his journey to the mountain, with mourners, in some places 10 people deep, falling silent and bowing as he passed.

As he was carried to the foot of the mountain under a clear afternoon sky, a roaring haka, or ceremonial chant, rang out from mourners waiting among gravestones dotted up the steep hillside and dozens helped to carry the late king to his burial place at the top.

Many had waited for hours to see the procession pass, including a large number of young families. Commentators said the queen's ascension represented the culture's renewal, with the majority of Maori — who account for almost 20% of New Zealand's population — aged under 40.

Among them on Thursday was Awa Tukiri, 9, whose family had driven nearly two hours from Auckland to watch the canoe carrying the late king pass by.

“It was pretty amazing because all they do on the boat is do haka and waiata on it,” he said, using the words for Maori chants and songs. Tukiri, who attends a kura kaupapa — the immersion schools that are growing in popularity — said the best part of being Maori was “just hanging out and speaking Maori to each other.”

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Graham-McLay reported from Wellington, New Zealand.

News from © The Associated Press, 2024