Mana wahine Maori: Selected writings on Maori women's art, culture, and politics
(Obviously of significance to Maori women, Mana Whine Maor...)
Obviously of significance to Maori women, Mana Whine Maori is essential reading for students of women's studies and Maoritanga, and also holds considerable interest for the general reader.
Hinemoa, Mahinaarangi, Muriwai, Wairaka, Huritini, Kakara, Rona, Haumapuhia and Kurungaituku are women of mana in Maori myths and histories. Their traditional stories are presented here alongside beautiful and fresh retellings.
Ngahuia Te Awekotuku is a New Zealand academic specialising in Māori cultural issues, writer and lesbian activist. She also was at the forefront of the women’s liberation movement in New Zealand.
Background
Ethnicity:
Te Awekotuku is descended from Te Arawa, Tūhoe and Waikato iwi.
Ngahuia Te Awekotuku was born in 1949 in Rotorua, New Zealand. She grew up surrounded by a community of the most ferociously feminist women.
Te Awekotuku is descended from Te Arawa, Tūhoe and Waikato iwi. In addition, her paternal great grandfather was Norwegian Sami, the indigenous people of the Arctic Circle. This gave her the birth name Loevli, anglicised to Loffley, but she grew up carrying the Gordon surname. Today she shuns it, favouring Te Awekotuku.
Education
Ngahuia Te Awekotuku received from Auckland University her Master of Arts with honours in 1974. Her Master of Arts thesis was on Janet Fram.
She also attended East-West Centre of the University of Hawaii in 1975 and from 1978 to 1980.
Te Awekotuku earned her Ph.D. on the effects of tourism on the Te Arawa people from Waikato University.
Ngahuia Te Awekotuku has worked across the heritage, culture and academic sectors as a curator, lecturer, researcher and activist. Her areas of research interest include gender issues, museums, body modification, power and powerlessness, spirituality and ritual. She was a curator of ethnology at the Waikato Museum of Art and History from 1985 to 1987; lecturer in art history at the University of Auckland from 1987 to 1996, and professor of Maori studies at Victoria University of Wellington from 1997. Te Awekotuku was also Professor of Research and Development at Waikato University. She and Marilyn Waring contributed the piece "Foreigners in our own land" to the 1984 anthology "Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology", edited by Robin Morgan. Although now retired, she continues to write.
Ngahuia Te Awekotuku is the author of "Mana Wahine Maori: Selected Writings on Maori Women’s Art, Culture, and Politics". In addition to "Mana Wahine Maori" and contributions to several anthologies, Te Awekotuku is also the author of the 1989 short story collection "Tahuri", autobiographical in nature.
Besides, Te Awekotuku has researched and written extensively on the traditional and contemporary practices of tā moko in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her 2007 (re-published in 2011) book "Mau Moko: the world of Maori tattoo", co-authored with Linda Waimarie Nikora, was the product of a five-year long research project conducted by the Māori and Psychology Research Unit at Waikato University, funded by a Marsden Fund grant.
Today Ngahuia is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Waikato. She is the first Maori female Emeritus in Aotearoa. She remains a leading feminist writer, lesbian rights activist and advocate for Māori issues. She has published award-winning books, seven of which are sole authorship, including fiction and non-fiction.
She continues to work in the culture and heritage sector as a curator and consultant.
Ngahuia Te Awekotuku is a life-time non-conformist.
Views
Ngahuia te Awekotuku was at the forefront of the women’s liberation movement in New Zealand. Her feminist principles were firmly rooted in a long-standing Māori women’s movement. She grew up surrounded by a community of the most ferociously feminist women.
In 1971, while at Auckland University, Ngahuia and other students banded together to protest against the lack of progress since women won the vote in 1893. The group staged a mock funeral procession in Albert Park. This attracted widespread media attention but the Auckland Star trivialised their efforts, labelling them "attractive young things from women’s lib"; other media focused on the "bra-burning" myth.
As a Māori lesbian, Ngahuia was at the forefront of a call to focus on reaching Māori and Pacific women, as well as lesbian rights. In a 1971 interview, she discussed the involvement of lesbians in the women’s liberation movement, shocking those unaccustomed to such openness. Connie Purdue, a conservative feminist, accused Ngahuia of putting the movement back 50 years.
Membership
After a trip to the United States was prohibited due to her sexual orientation, Te Awekotuku became more militant and helped to found New Zealand’s first gay liberation group in 1972. She also became involved in Nga Tamatoa, a Maori Rights group.
In 2010 Ngāhuia Te Awekotuku was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori culture.
She has also been a member of Haerwea (Maori consultant committee to the Auckland City Art Gallery), and the National Film Archive Trust Board in New Zealand. Te Awekotuku has also been a member of New Zealand Qualification Authority Art, Craft, and Design Advisory Group, Auckland Museum Advisory Panel, Council of the National Art Gallery.
Personality
"I don't want to be vain but I was always different, pale skin, pretty, had chronic asthma, hated sport, preferred books, so I was considered peculiar, off, a brain box. I was a wild child when I was 10, even then I knew I preferred girls. I ran away with a Pakeha girl when I was 12, we had a fling, became juvenile delinquents."
Ngahuia te Awekotuku was a Māori lesbian. In 1972, she was denied to visit the USA on the grounds that she was a homosexual.
Physical Characteristics:
Te Awekotuku took a moko kauae (facial moko) to mark the death of Te Arikinui Dame te Atairangikaahu in 2006.
Interests
Writers
Janet Fram
Connections
Te Awekotuku is not married as she is openly lesbian.