"Of thousands of years
In her cycles of blood,
And the rhythms of her heart
She descends from the seeds of Rangiātea
The never-ending source of who we are, who we can be
Don’t mess with the Māori woman
Who stands beside you
As she walks with the power
Of thousands of years
In her blood and her bones."
These words speak to the enduring strength of wāhine Māori, grounded in whakapapa, time, and cosmological origin. I believe they align with a traditional understanding of the magnitude wāhine carry and express through tikanga and manaakitanga towards their people, their environment and the world.
Tikanga, as Ani Mikaere states in Matike Mai Aotearoa (2016), is "the first law of Aotearoa", existing for over a thousand years before the arrival of tauiwi. Tikanga was not abstract; it was a living system that maintained balance between tangata and te taiao, and tangata with each other. It functioned as safety, justice and guidance.
Yet across every hapū and iwi, the presence of māreikura, kuia, wāhine toa, and wāhine rangatira remains. Their stories endure as guidance, inspiration and memory. Prior to colonisation, as Mikaere notes, the status of Māori women was determined by the imperative to maintain the integrity of the collective. Wāhine were active in every sphere of life and their exercise of tino rangatiratanga was expected, not exceptional.
Our pūrākau, mōteatea, waiata, karakia, haka and oral traditions preserve the wisdom of these women. Ani Mikaere reminds us that resistance requires clarity, courage and a return to ancestral frameworks of justice still embedded in tikanga.
Te whare tangata, the sacred womb, symbolises the generative power of wāhine Māori as bearers of life and whakapapa. Wāhine were visionaries, tohunga, strategists, and kaitiaki of knowledge. As Mikaere notes, much evidence of this lies within waiata composed and preserved by women across generations.
Colonisation disrupted these systems. It imposed alternative legal, religious and social frameworks that did not recognise the authority of wāhine Māori in the same way. The result was a restructuring of gender relations that diminished their status and visibility. Indigenous women globally experienced similar patterns of disruption, as seen in Gitxsan accounts shared by Val Napoleon, where the breakdown of Indigenous law created conditions of violence and legal instability for women.
European narratives also contributed to this devaluation. As Mikaere highlights, wāhine Māori were often sexualised and misrepresented in colonial writings, constructed as exotic and available rather than authoritative and tapu. This perception was not isolated; it was part of a wider colonial mindset that justified control over both land and people.
Colonisation, as Andrea Smith argues, marked Indigenous women as inherently violable, linking violence against women to the broader project of land dispossession. These systems continue to have intergenerational impacts.
At the same time, wāhine Māori were central to political and social organisation, including engagements around He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Yet patriarchal colonial attitudes often excluded wāhine from formal recognition as signatories, despite their roles as protectors of whenua and whakapapa.
Despite these disruptions, wāhine Māori continue to hold and transmit tikanga. Their role as agents of transition — between life and death, tapu and noa, physical and metaphysical — is still active today. As Carwyn Jones describes, tikanga remains embedded in Māori legal traditions as "the right way of doing things".
When a wāhine is empowered, she uplifts her whānau. When she is disempowered, the effects are felt across generations. Contemporary legal and state systems often fail to reflect this holistic understanding, instead prioritising institutional authority over whakapapa-based wellbeing.
Yet tikanga persists. It is carried in stories, in whenua, in practice and in the lived realities of whānau. It is also reflected in leadership today, including wāhine Māori who continue to step into governance and cultural authority, reclaiming space for future generations.
We are the descendants of Rangiātea, carrying knowledge, memory and survival across oceans and generations. Our tūpuna brought with them systems of knowledge, ritual and relational responsibility that sustained them. These systems remain accessible to us through tikanga.
The whakataukī reminds us: "Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua" — we walk backwards into the future, guided by the past. Our ancestors are not distant; they are present in our whakapapa, our breath, and our being.
To restore wāhine Māori to their rightful place is to restore balance. It is to acknowledge that tikanga is not complete without them. It is to recognise that wāhine are not only participants in tikanga but foundational to its existence.
Kia whakamana ngā wāhine, kia whakamana te whānau.
Empower the women, empower the whānau.
"Don’t mess with the Māori woman
Who speaks her truth
Who walks with the power
Of thousands of years
In her blood and her bones
She carries the stories
Of peoples past
In her puku, her heart, her bones
And she continues forward
Unbroken, unwavering, alive."
