1895–1994
Maori leader who championed land rights and led the 1975 hikoi.
Dame Whina Cooper was a Māori leader of the Te Rarawa people, born in 1895 in the far north of New Zealand, honored as a kuia — a revered elder — and as Te Whaea o te Motu, the Mother of the Nation.
For six decades she led: organizing her community as a young woman, serving from 1951 as the first president of the Māori Women’s Welfare League, and working all her life for the health, housing, and dignity of her people.
In 1975, at the age of seventy-nine, she led the great Māori land march the length of the North Island — more than a thousand kilometres from Te Hāpua to Wellington — under the cry ‘not one more acre of Māori land.’ The image of her setting out, hand in hand with her granddaughter, became one of the nation’s most enduring.
She was made a Dame and appointed to the Order of New Zealand, and died in 1994. Honored among the Great Ones of every civilization; kept here so the memory is never lost.
Kept with honor.
References
Biography drawn from the public historical record, verifiable against the sources above.
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Submitted by the Honored Ancestors Editorial Committee.
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