Dame Te Ata's son steps up as King

Maoridom has a new monarch _ a king after being ruled for more than 40 years by a woman.
As a grieving nation prepared to bury Dame Te Atairangikaahu, who died last week, her second eldest child, Tuheitia Paki, 51, has taken the throne beside her coffin on the Turangawaewae Marae at Ngaruawahia.
He was announced as successor to his mother by Tuwharetoa paramount chief Tumu te Heuheu after several days of deliberations by the country's tribal leaders.
The new king was the Tainui cultural adviser at Te Wananga o Aotearoa.
He was educated at Rakaumanga School, Huntly, and St Stephen's College in Bombay, south of Auckland.
He and his wife Te Atawhai have three children, Whatumoana, Korotangi and Naumai.
Those who know him describe him as very hard-working and humble, a man who would commit himself to Maori.
Meanwhile, A Katikati firefighter said today that he was "honoured" to escort Dame Te Atairangikaahu on her final journey along the Waikato River.
Chief Fire Officer Joe Manukau of the Katikati brigade is to be one of two men on a rescue boat to provide support for up to 12 waka carrying her body.
Speaking from his boat on the Waikato River this morning, Mr Manukau said he expected his boat would be "running alongside" the lead boat.
Mr Manukau said he was only eight years old when the previous Maori King died and he attended his funeral as well.
After crowning Dame Te Atairangikaahu's successor at Turangawaewae Marae in Ngaruawahia, about 12 waka would travel down the river, Mr Manukau said.
"I'm very privileged and honoured to do that."
Mr Manukau said he grew up as part of the Kingitangi and was part of the Tainui iwi.
Because of his experience as a firefighter, it was natural that he went ``home'' to do his part to farewell a woman he referred to as "The Lady".
"If I wasn't out on the water, I'd be in the kitchen," he said, referring to the huge amounts of preparation that have gone into feeding the thousands of people expected for the tangi.
Those travelling on waka and the boat had spent the last three days practising out on the water to make sure everyone knew what to do today.
Mr Manukau said he had driven to Ngaruawahia earlier this week with a trailer-load of puha, a Maori delicacy similar to watercress, used in soups or "boil-ups". It is a traditional koha or gift, which he had gathered with Katikati iwi from among the Western Bay orchards where it grows well.
"They wanted a truck-load but I ran out of time," he said.
Many thousands of other mourners, unable to get into the marae, waited on the river banks for the estimated hour-long waka journey from the marae to the foot of the sacred Taupiri Mountain, where Dame Te Ata was to be buried.
The mountain was shrouded in mist at first light, giving it a spiritual feeling.
As dawn broke, the mist thinned. But as the new monarch was announced and the pallbearers prepared to carry the casket to the river bank and its final journey by waka, tendrils of mist clung to the bottom of the sacred mountain where Dame Te Ata was to be buried alongside her ancestors.