Nga Wai hono i te po Paki was welcomed by thousands of people as she stepped onto a high-backed wooden throne during a lavish ceremony on North Paki Island.

She is the youngest daughter of King Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, who died on Friday following heart surgery.

After being elected by a council of chiefs, Nga Wai was ushered to the throne by a phalanx of bare-chested, tattooed men armed with ceremonial weapons who chanted, shouted, and applauded.

The Queen, wearing a wreath of leaves, a cloak, and a whalebone necklace, sat next to her father’s coffin while emotional ceremonies, prayers, and songs were sung.

After six days on public display, the body of the deceased king was brought down the Waikato River in a flotilla of four war boats, each powered by a dozen or so rowers.

His funeral procession passed crowds of onlookers camped on the banks of the river before stopping at the foot of the sacred Mount Taupiri.

From there, three rugby teams acted as pallbearers, carrying the coffin up the steep slopes to the summit where the Maori royal family was laid to rest.

– Passing the Torch –

The Maori monarch has a largely ceremonial role and no legal status. However, he has enormous cultural and sometimes political significance as a powerful symbol of identity and kinship.

As the king’s only daughter and youngest child, Queen Nga Wai was considered outside the royal family and was considered a candidate to succeed him.

One of her two older brothers had taken on many of the ceremonial duties while their father was ill, and it was widely expected that he would take over these responsibilities.

“It’s certainly a departure from the traditional Maori leadership system, which typically involves the eldest child, usually a boy,” Karaitiana Taiuru, a Maori cultural adviser, told AFP.

Taiuru said it was an “honour” to witness the young Māori woman take the throne, particularly given the ageing leadership and increasing challenges facing the community.

“The Māori world has longed for younger leaders to lead us in a new world of artificial intelligence, genetic modification, global warming and in a time of many other societal changes that pose challenges and threats to us and to the indigenous people of New Zealand,” he said.

“These challenges require a new and younger generation to lead us.”

Māori in New Zealand make up about 17 per cent of the population, or about 900,000 people.

Māori citizens are significantly more likely than other New Zealand citizens to be unemployed, live in poverty, suffer from cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and have higher suicide rates.

The average life expectancy of Māori is seven years shorter than other New Zealanders.

The Kiingitanga, or Maori King, movement was founded in 1858 to unite the tribes of New Zealand and create a single counterpart to the colonial ruler, Britain’s Queen Victoria.

“People think Māori are one nation – we’re not. We’re many tribes, many iwi. We have different ways of expressing ourselves,” said Joanne Teina, who travelled from Auckland to attend the ceremony.

“Kiingitanga was created to create unity – between people who had been fighting each other for thousands of years, before the Pakeha (Europeans) came along.”

-The Second Queen-

Queen Nga Wai is the eighth Māori monarch and second queen.

Her grandmother, Queen Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, held the position for four decades until 2006.

The new queen studied Māori and customary law at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. She also taught children the performing arts, kapa haka.

To celebrate the anniversary of the King’s coronation in 2016, she had a traditional Maori “moko” tattooed on her chin.

King Tuheitia, a 69-year-old truck driver turned royal, died on Friday, just days after heart surgery and celebrations to mark the 18th anniversary of his coronation.

Tens of thousands of Indigenous people and “Pakeha” – people of European descent – ​​came to pay tribute, mourn and celebrate New Zealand’s rich Maori heritage.

Among them was Aucklander Darrio Penetito-Hemara, who told AFP the king had united “a lot of people in Aotearoa (New Zealand) who often disagree with each other”.

As Penetito-Hemara said, the king left behind a legacy shaped “by respect, by aroha (love)”.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon welcomed Queen Nga Wai in a statement, saying she “continues the leadership legacy left to her by her father.”

“The path ahead is lit by the great legacy of Kiingi Tuheitia,” he said.