12 hours ago
Tā Māui Pōmare day: Sir Richard Faull pays heed to Māori health pioneers
Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa), Apirana Ngata, and Maui Pomare at Avondale camp on 20 October, 1914.
Photo:
public domain
Cars lined the streets leading to Ōwae Marae in Waitara on Saturday to celebrate Tā Māui Pōmare, a 20th century medical doctor and New Zealand's first Māori Health Minister.
Sir Māui Pōmare Annual Commemorations happen every third Saturday in June at Ōwae Marae, sometimes at Urenui Pā (Ngāti Mutunga).
"[He] was a local rangatira and a doctor who was concerned for our people and the infrastructure around how we lived," Manukorihi Pā Reserve trustee and Marae Kaitiaki Roina Graham said.
Pōmare (Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Toa) graduated the American Medical Missionary College in Chicago in 1899 and returned to Aotearoa the following year to give back to Māori.
In 1911, he was elected to Parliament representing Western Māori and in 1923 he became the Minister of Health.
Sir Māui Pōmare died in 1930 in Los Angeles, but was buried at Ōwae Marae.
Tā Māui Pōmare statue during the Ōwae Marae carving restorations in 2024. It is where Pōmare was buried
Photo:
RNZ / Emma Andrews
Surrounded by mana whenua, Māui Pōmare's great-grandaughter Miria Pōmare, and current Māori doctors, New Zealand's leading neuroscientist Sir Richard Faull (Te Atiawa) gave an impromptu speech paying homage to his heroes Tā Māui Pōmare and Te Rangi Hīroa (Sir Peter Buck).
Although Pōmare was New Zealand's first Māori doctor, Te Rangi Hīroa was the first Māori doctor to have graduated in Aotearoa.
Te Rangi Hīroa was a Māori medical officer under Pōmare, both came together to improve the sanitation of Māori settlements and the health of the tangata Māori.
Faull, a Waitara High School alumni of 1963, said he was a 'book nerd' and was awarded dux and received the Te Rangi Hīroa medal in his final year
"That medal is a beacon for me," Faull said.
It gave him a nudge into health care.
"You can only look after the health of your people by having your people as your leaders, your doctors."
Growing up, Faull knew he was Māori, but when he was doing medicine and brain research in the USA at Boston's MIT and Harvard, he needed more financial assistance to continue, so he asked for it in a letter to his dad.
His dad wrote back and said kaumātua from Te Atiawa wanted to give him $1000.
It was like gold to him, but he didn't "feel Māori" back then and didn't want to accept the offer.
Faull recalled the letter from his dad that read 'they have said that you will come home, and they want you to take this [koha]."
It stirred his Māori whakapapa.
Richard Faull
Photo:
University of Auckland / CBR
In 1986, Faull delivered a speech about Parkinson's and Huntington's disease to a group of people in Taranaki where he noticed a group of Māori from Te Atiawa.
The group asked Faull to help them with their
Huntington's disease
which is an inherited gradual decay of nerve cells in the brain affecting movement, thinking, and emotional problems.
"I didn't know how I was going to help them, but they were asking me home."
Every year he had met with the whānau from Te Atiawa, but it was during Friday's 'special' hui with them that he was able to deliver assurance.
Faull, and other researchers have been
working to find a way
to 'turn the gene off' that causes Huntington's.
"For the first time I gave them hope, for the first time it felt like Māori helping Māori.
"We have come home to help our whānau, nothing is going to stop us."
Faull had spent 50 years on brain research, and for the past five years he and Dr Makarena Dudley - a clinical neuropsychologist and 'expert' on dementia in kaumātua Māori - have been to 17 different marae to talk to iwi Māori about what they're finding in the neuro space.
"We're not there to tell them what to do. We're there to listen to what they need and then we help them," Faull said.
Faull was one of many who developed MAPAS (Māori and Pacific Admission Scheme) at the Auckland Medical School to support and increase the number of Māori and Pacific health professionals.
According to the Medical Council for New Zealand's most recent data from 31 March, 2025, it's a steady incline for Māori who now make up 5.11 percent of current practicing doctors in Aotearoa.
Faull was proud to say his son was a second-year health surgeon in Whangārei who aimed to form a general practice with Māori.
"We have to have our Māori doctors to look after our Māori people and that is non-negotiable."
"Māui Pōmare knew that. He went out and he turned health around for Māori. Māori were declining in population and Māui Pōmare, Te Rangi Hīroa, Apirana Ngata, they changed the horizon... and that horizon is still threatened."
Sir Māui Wiremu Piti Naera Pōmare while a student at Battle Creek College in Michigan, USA, in 1899.
Photo:
Supplied / Alexander Turnbull Library
Te tiriti is the 'goal standard' Faull pleaded to politicians.
"It's about partnership. Partnership is not about one partner being dominant over the other partner, it is about shared values, a shared vision, it is about equality for all.
"Never forget what partnership is about, it's not about dismantling te tiriti, we are here to honour the words of our ancestors, our tīpuna."
He said Māori look to their tīpuna to chart for their future.
"Their words, their actions, they did this to guide us. Māui Pōmare did it [and] Te Rangi Hīroa - Sir Peter Buck."
Although Faull said it's wonderful to see the number of Māori doctors celebrating the life of Tā Māui Pōmare, there was a big task ahead.
"It's not a task that's special or different for Māori, it's a task about giving equity to Māori. About self-expression helping them to determine their future. That is a partnership.
"We've come a long way, but we've got so much further to go."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero
,
a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
