Abstract

This is a biography written by Dr Ranginui Walker, a recently retired Māori (native to New Zealand) academic and a scholar of note, on Āpirana Ngata (1874−1950). Ngata was ‘one of the most illustrious New Zealanders of the 20th century’, a ‘student reformer, scholar, author, farmer, churchman, businessman, politician, developer of Māori farming, builder of meeting houses, father of the Māori Battalion, supporter of Māori sport, promoter of the Māori cultural revival, teacher, poet, pioneer of sound recording Māori music, promoter of Māori broadcasting, supporter of education and fund-raiser extraordinaire’. Ngata embodied a person who bridged the 19th and 20th century Māori experience of, first, colonial domination and, second, assimilation by a British settler society.