Ngahuia Te Awekotuku. Photo/Ben Fraser
If we were being politically correct we'd call Ngahuia Te Awekotuku a life-time non-conformist.
But with few in Aotearoa less "PC" than this professor of matters Maori we'll echo the stark words she uses to label her younger self as a "wild child from the pa."
That pa was Ohinemutu where she was raised after being whangied (adopted) into a whanau which was, and again we borrow her description, "a complex organism".
She talks with palpable love for her Ohinemutu mother, Julie Paparoa Gordon, who she habitually calls "mummy" and her "magical being" kuia (grandmother), master weaver Hera Tawhai Rogers.
"I was wrapped in the korowai [cloak] of their belief in me."
Between them they nurtured a brilliant academic brain, not that that's what these relatively uneducated women set out to achieve.
Ngahuia attributes her scholastic gifts to the genes inherited from her French-German maternal grandfather, the holder of a double degree and graduate diploma from Oxford.
"My Maori side were thinkers, composers, fighters, my Pakeha side educated people."
The two combined when her grandfather "fell inappropriately in love with my grandmother when he came here [Ohinemutu] on the grand tour".
To add further spice to her ethnic whakapapa (genealogy) 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, the accolade passed to her by her maternal whanau, homage to her MA with honours, secured in 1974.
"My grandmother was the last to be called that, having her name still awes me."
But all that's a long way down the track from our starting point of that 'wild pa child" we introduced her as.
Realistically, Ngahuia was a young rebel seeking to pursue causes, to the forefront of the battle for Maori, gay and women's rights and an early member of Nga Tamatoa (activist group).
Her protesting made headlines in 1974 when she was shot at while manning an Ohinemutu barricade as residents protested against council attempts to zone the pa public land.
"I was called 'hori b ****' . . . the guy who pulled the trigger got a piddling fine."
She has no illusions why, from childhood, she was considered out of kilter with other pa kids.
"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."
By 16 she was more mainstream, becoming one of the town's korowai-wearing meter maids and promoting Rotorua tourism in Surfers; the antithesis of the academic she was to become.
Dr Te Awekotuku's early education wasn't covered in glory. Despite winning a Ngarimu essay competition at St Michael's and gaining an A in Latin in her first year at Girls' High, it expelled her.
"I challenged the teachers, thought they were unfair, racist, a maths teacher called me a 'black abomination'.
"She said 'you're rubbish, what are you doing here?' so I became exactly what they wanted me to be; bad, unteachable."
Western Heights High principal, Derek Lake, was more perceptive.
"He saw beyond my veneer of arrogance, defiance. I said 'I'm just a Maori, bad' he said 'no, you're very clever' and shook my hand. Other teachers said I had a responsibility to my people."
At Heights she secured a Ngarimu Scholarship.
In 1967 she enrolled in Auckland University's law school, its sole female Maori student.
"It was the summer of love, getting stoned, it was easy to be peculiar in that city."
Maori land law fascinated the pa girl but her 40-page essay on the Treaty of Waitangi didn't cut it with "Pakeha conservatives". With 14 of her required 21 units secured she quit. "I realised I belonged in the Arts and Humanities".
Her BA and Masters were followed by a PhD, her doctorate conferred at Tamatekapua.
"Because I was dying from cancer of the cervix, uterus, somehow I recovered; amazing things have happened to my body, including breaking my pelvis in four places."
Despite becoming Te Arawa, and the country's, first Maori female PhD (her doctorate's dissertation centred on the socio-cultural impact of tourism on Te Arawa), her only job offer was kiwifruit picking.
"No one took it [her doctorate] seriously because I was a bolshie lesbian, had attitude."
'Real' work came her way with a post-graduate fellowship to Oxford University's Pitt Rivers Museum, followed by the University of Honolulu's East West Centre.
Yet when she applied to work at Rotorua Museum those outstanding credentials failed to impress its male powers-that-be.
"They said the job wasn't suitable for a woman so it was back to the kiwifruit with my Mongrel Mob cousins."
Rotorua's loss became Waikato Museum's gain. Encouraged to apply by the Maori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu, Ngahuia was appointed Curator of Ethnology. Over the years she worked closely with the late queen, Ngahuia's chin moko salutes her.
She's lectured at Auckland and held professorships at Victoria and Waikato Universities; presently as Waikato's Professor of Maori Research and Development.
It would take an Our People omnibus to chronicle her other achievements -including the books and academic papers she's written, the multi awards and grants won, a Fulbright included.
This month the Royal Society recognised her outstanding service to humanities, describing them as "blazing a path for indigenous culture, heritage and feminist scholarship".
In 2010 she became a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to Maori culture.
The pa remains her turangawaewae, the place she belongs; next year she plans to return.
"I'll be almost 70, I want to come back, celebrate living, serve my whanau, whenua and relish the magic of Ohinemutu because Ohinemutu and its people are magic."
NGAHUIA TE AWEKOTUKU NZOM
Born: Pukeroa Hill (Rotorua Hospital), 1949.
Education: St Michael's Primary, Mt Carmel Wellington, Rotorua Girls' High, Western Heights High, Waikato, Auckland Universities, Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Hawaii (where studied jointly with Waikato for doctorate).
Family: Partner Linda Waimarie Nikora. "A massive extended whanau from Maketu to Tongariro."
Iwi Affiliations: Ngati Whakaue, (Te Arawa), Tamakaimoana (Tuhoe), Ngati Mahuta (Waikato), Norwegian Saami, French-German.
Interests: Social justice, Maoritanga, travel, all the arts." I'm an absolutely passionate ailurophile - the crazy cat lady."
On her life: "Gratitude for the people who loved, nurtured and believed in me."
On Rotorua: "It still has so much unrealised potential like the energy that lies beneath it."
Personal philosophy: "Never give up."
He'll perform in 13 centres, including Rotorua on November 21.