Look out! She’s behind you! That old pantomime trope didn’t need to be spelled out on Waitangi Day this year. Titewhai Harawira may have gone to the great marae in the sky, but her eagle eye was still on you politicians. So behave.
Waitangi Day without Titewhai is like Trooping the Colour without the Queen. But they both made an appearance. With the reverence due to their status, portraits of both departed regal ladies were paraded. Politics, meanwhile, was banned. Now that was funny. Titewhai was all about politics. She once told me: “The bigger picture for me is the mana of Ngāpuhi. The whole issue of the treaty is buried in the personality thing.”
She was a
