Tangi and tributes for Awhina Waaka

Awhina Waaka, an MNZM recipient in 2006, with husband Ted when he matched the achievement in the 2008 New Year Honours. PHOTO/FILE

Awhina Evelyn Waaka MNZM
January 5, 1927 — September 23, 2018

A tangi ended on Wednesday at Mohaka's Waipapa-a-Iwi Marae for Ngati Pahauwera kuia and prominent educationalist Evelyn Waaka, who died on Sunday, aged 91.

She and late husband Ted Waaka, who died in 2012, leave some significant legacies, notably the Ngati Kahungunu primary schools kapa haka festival held annually for almost 50 years and which will be held this year at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Ngati Kahungunu ki Heretaunga on November 12-15.

Awhina Waaka also helped reopen Hukarere College at Eskdale after the closure of its Napier hills site, and it was symbolic that she was taken to the school en route to Mohaka on Monday.

Each was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to education.

Of Ngāti Pāhauwera, Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Rakaipaaka, Tuwharetoa and Ngāti Raukawa descent, she was born Awhina Evelyn Pokia (also known as Awhina Evelyn Joe) in 1927 to Ketia Paratene and Pokia Ropotini, both of Mohaka.

Her father died when she was 3 and for a while she was raised by her uncle.

Aged 4 at the time of the 1931 Hawke's Bay Earthquake, she went to Ruakituri, Frasertown, Waihua, Ratana and Mohaka as the family moved about the district.

Her secondary schooling was at Hukarere, after which she went into teacher training in Wellington. There she reconnected with Ted Waaka who had just returned from the war, and decided to follow her into the teaching profession, both returning to Hawke's Bay to teach in their own Ngati Pahauwera rohe.

They married on August 21, 1948, and ultimately had seven children, including Toro Waaka who joined them in the battle to win a Treaty settlement and who now chairs Ngāti Pahauwera Development Trust, the post-settlement entity charged with rebuilding the mainly farming resources of a people left near landless after the tribulations of European arrival in the mid-1800s.

The couple worked tirelessly in ensuing better education for Māori, Awhina Waaka being awarded the MNZM in 2006, her husband matching the honour 18 months later as she continued working in education. The Education Review Office continued to use her services until she was 85.

Having lived much of their retirements in Napier, they had 15 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and 3 great-great grandchildren.

The tangi ends with a final service today (Wednesday).