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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with Titewhai Harawira, left, at the upper Treaty grounds Te Whare Runanga on 4 February, 2020 in Waitangi.
Photo: Getty Images / Fiona Goodall
Northland kuia Titewhai Harawira has died in Avondale, aged 90.
She was the proud matriarch of a close-knit family heavily involved in Māori activism.
Titewhai Harawira was a familiar face at Waitangi Day celebrations where she frequently accompanied prime ministers on to the local marae.
Her son, former MP Hone Harawira, said she would lay at her home in Avondale for a night before going to Hoani Waititi Marae in Henderson, where she would lie in state.
She would return to the north for burial.
Titewhai Te Hoia Hinewhare was born in 1932 in the Northland farming locality of Whakapara and was raised by her maternal grandparents. After training as a nurse, she married John Harawira in 1952, settling in Avondale in Auckland. They had nine children and adopted another three.
Titewhai Harawira holds hands with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as they are welcomed on to the Waitangi Treaty grounds in 2020
Photo: RNZ / Eden Fusituá
The couple were active in local schools and were founding members of the pioneering 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 and she brought up their extended family on her own.
She became a member of the protest group Ngā Tamatoa in the early 1970s and campaigned hard, often against bitter criticism, for the Māori language. She was one of the leaders of the 1975 land hikoi that marched from the Far North to Parliament.
More to come …
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