TE ARIKINUI DAME TE ATAIRANGIKAAHU was the first female, and longest-serving, monarch of the indigenous Maori people of New Zealand.

The Kingitanga (King Movement) was established in 1858 in response to the arrival of a large number of European settlers in New Zealand, which had led to the Musket Wars and, ultimately, the annexation of the country by Queen Victoria. Te Ata was directly descended from the first monarch, Potatau Te Wherowhero, an admired warrior and the leader of the Waikato tribe.

Though the role is titular — in that it has no legal power — it comes with great mana, or prestige. Te Ata, known affectionately as “The Lady”, was widely admired as a politically astute, dignified and benevolent cultural ambassador for the 500,000-strong Maori population. Through various initiatives she sought to ensure the welfare of the Maori people and protect their language, culture, arts and sports while also helping to unify Maori and Pakeha (non-Maori) people.

She had a particularly close relationship with the traditional leaders of the Pacific islands. She also received many diplomatic and royal visitors, and herself visited, among other notable figures, the Queen and the Pope.

Te Arikinui Te Atairangikaahu was born in 1931, the daughter of King Koroki Te Rata Mahuto Tawhiao and Te Atairangikaahu (King’s consort) Herangi. She was educated at Rakaumanga Primary School in Huntly and Hamilton Diocesan School for Girls, where she entered a Pakeha environment for the first time.

Te Puea Herangi, the niece of King Mahuta (who reigned from 1894 to 1912), prepared her for the role she knew she would have to fulfil, and she gained some experience representing her father on occasion when he was ill. In 1952 she married Whatumoana (consort of Te Arikinui) Paki, a farmer, in 1952. They had two sons and five daughters before she was crowned in May 1966, on the day of her father Kingi Koroki’s funeral.

She arrived at a time when the people of New Zealand were protesting against the Vietnam War. Auckland international airport had just opened and Keith Holyoake, of the National Party, was Prime Minister. From the Turangawaewae Marae “meeting place” — the Kingitanga headquarters a dozen miles northwest of Hamilton, built at Te Puea Herangi’s request in 1921 — Te Ata attended numerous Maori functions, including 28 regular poukai (formal assemblies).

Te Puea Herangi had recognised that Te Ata would need to recreate the role of monarch for the modern world, but one of the issues the Maori people were preoccupied with dated back to 1860, when the colonial government responded to the new Kingitanga by precipitating the Waikato War of 1863-64, the largest in the country’s history, during which more than a million acres of Maori land were confiscated.

In the early 1970s protests about breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi — signed by representatives of the British Crown and chiefs from North Island in 1840 — became increasingly frequent, and in 1975 a Waitangi tribunal was established by an Act of Parliament to investigate claims brought by Maori relating to actions of the Crown since 1840.

Te Ata exerted a quiet influence over the Tainui Waka confederation (which comprises four Maori iwi, or tribes) when it negotiated a settlement with the Crown over land grievances in 1995, and signed New Zealand’s first major land claim settlement of NZ$170 million (£55 million) on behalf of the Tainui people, who had had almost a million acres of land confiscated.

When she felt moved to, Te Ata spoke out about matters she deemed important — protests by radicals against visits by the Royal Family, for example, which she denounced, reminding the people that the Kingitanga was loyal to the British monarch.

She took no part in the Maori Party that came into being in 2004, and advised her niece, Taiui MP Nanaia Muhata, to continue to work for the Maori cause under the Labour Government. Te Ata was a patron of the Maori Women’s Welfare League, the National Kohanga Reo Trust and of Nga Puna Waihanga. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Waikato University in 1973, and an honorary doctor of laws from Victoria University in 1999. Appointed DBE in 1970, she was one of the first inductees, in 1987, to the Order of New Zealand, the country’s highest honour.

Since the 1850s the Tainui people have guarded the Kingitanga. At the end of each reign it is possible for the role to be passed to another tribe for guardianship — and to draw a new monarch from that tribe. It is up to each king or queen to decide their successor, but Te Ata had not yet named hers.

Te Ata was at ease with everyone, and perfectly suited to the Kingitanga which was, she said, “part of every moment, thought, dream and action” — though she also liked travelling, reading, swimming, cycling and canoeing.

Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, ONZ, DBE, Maori Queen since 1966, was born on July 23, 1931. She died on August 15, 2006, aged 75.