The University of Oxford has honoured pioneering Māori scholar Mākereti Papakura with a posthumous degree almost 100 years after she began her studies in the English city.
Descendants of Te Arawa’s Papakura, believed to be the first indigenous woman to study at Oxford when she went there in 1927, werepresented with her Master of Philosophy degree certificate on Saturday, an Oxford University media statement said.
June Northcroft Grant - Mākareti Papakura's descendant - with Professor Irene Tracey, Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford after receiving Mākereti’s posthumous degree yesterday.
More than 100 people travelled from Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the occasion, it said.
Born in 1873 at Matatā, Papakura made her name as the pre-eminent guide at Whakarewarewa in the early 1900s and was known as Guide Maggie.
During her research at Oxford, she explored the customs of Te Arawa people from a female perspective.
Papakura died in 1930, just weeks before she was due to present her thesis.
Saturday’s graduation ceremony took place at the Sheldonian Theatre, where the university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey, presented Papakura’s degree certificate to her relative, June Northcroft Grant.
Mākareti Papakura. Photo / Whakaata Māori
This was followed by a ceremony at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History – the site of the inaugural Mākereti Papakura Lecture in 2022.
The ceremony featured a kāranga [welcome call] welcoming their spirits and whānau and a haka pōhiri, as well as speeches and musical performances from representatives of Papakura’s iwi, Tūhourangi.
Speaking on behalf of Papakura’s descendants, Grant said Papakura had been “a legend in our family” for more than 100 years.
“We learned about her prowess as a guide, an entrepreneur, an entertainer, an astute businesswoman and an academic scholar when our parents and grandparents talked about her and their memories of her,” Grant said in the statement.
Grant said their family had been telling Papakura’s story over many decades, and talking about her thesis, The Old-Time Māori.
“We never imagined that her work would be lauded and acknowledged.
“We, the Ihaia whanau of Ngāti Wāhiao, are humbled by the recognition and conferment of this great honour from Oxford University and all those individuals who were instrumental in making this happen.”
With the agreement of Papakura’s family, her friend – Rhodes Scholar and fellow Oxford anthropologist T.K. Penniman – posthumously published The Old-Time Māori as a book.
It became the first ethnographic study published by a Māori author and was recognised as such by the New Zealand Royal Society.
The graduation ceremony comes two days after a ceremony gifting a century-old pou originating in Rotorua and taken to Britain by Papakura in 1924.
Te Arawa delegates attended Thursday’s London ceremony gifting the pou to the British Council.
