Aotearoa New Zealand loses a leader with immense mana

Kua hinga te totara i te wao-nui-ā-Tāne. Te tangi o te ngākau, te hotuhotu o te manawa mō te ngarotanga nei. E noho mokemoke tātou te hunga mātauranga i raro i te kapua pouri.

A giant totara has fallen in the vast forest of Tane. This is the metaphor that resonates when attempting to offer an accolade a person who has contributed so much to so many.

Whakatōhea and iwi throughout the nation are mourning the loss of Dr Ranginui Walker, a pillar of the academic community spanning more than 50 years. Dr Walker manifested ways of thinking, feeling and acting that were accumulated through adroit scholarship coupled with a courageous sense of conviction to advance the development of Māori in all disciplines. These convictions had breadth and depth and consequently earned him a reputation as a human repository of Māori knowledge. While Dr Walker had a long association as a powerhouse academic with the University of Auckland, his writings are required or recommended texts for courses in all places of higher learning in this country. A notable link to the University of Canterbury is that Dr Walker was the biographer of He Tipua: The Life and Times of Sir Apirana Ngata. Sir Apirana completed a BA from Canterbury in 1893 to become the first Māori graduate.

Dr Walker was an educationalist and historian, but many psychologists referred to his thinking and theorizing so as to support good practice.

The loss of Dr Ranginui Walker is a great one, not only for his family but the wider community.

E te rangatira, whai atu rā i ngā tapuwae ā o tātou mātua tupuna ki te kainga whakamutunga.Ka whawhai tonu mātou.