Ngahuia Te Awekotuku

Ngahuia Te Awekotuku (born 1949) is a New Zealand academic specialising in Māori cultural issues and a lesbian activist.

This may have been related to a TV interview she gave in 1971, in which she described herself as a 'sapphic woman'.

Te Awekotuku has researched and written extensively on the traditional and contemporary practices of tā moko (tattoo) in New Zealand.

In 1972, she was famously denied a visa to visit the United States on the basis of her sexuality.

Te Awekotuku is descended from Te Arawa, Tūhoe and Waikato iwi.

As a student she was a member of Ngā Tamatoa at the University of Auckland.

Her Master of Arts thesis was on Janet Frame and her PhD on the effects of tourism on the Te Arawa people.

Te Awekotuku has worked across the heritage, culture and academic sectors as a curator, lecturer, researcher and activist.

Her areas of research interest include gender issues, museums, body modification, power and powerlessness, spirituality and ritual.

She has been curator of ethnology at the Waikato Museum; lecturer in art history at Auckland University, and professor of Māori studies at Victoria University of Wellington.

She was Professor of Research and Development at Waikato University.

In 1972, Te Awekotuku was denied a visitor's permit to the USA on the grounds that she was a homosexual.

Publicity around the incident was a catalyst in the formation of gay liberation groups in New Zealand.

She and Marilyn Waring contributed the piece "Foreigners in our own land" to the 1984 anthology Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology, edited by Robin Morgan.

Although now retired, she continues to write and mentor students.

Notable students include Mere Whaanga.

Te Awekotuku took a moko kauae (facial moko) to mark the death of Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu in 2006.

Her 2007 (re-published in 2011) book Mau Moko: the world of Maori tattoo, co-authored with Linda Waimarie Nikora, was the product of a five-year long research project conducted by the Māori and Psychology Research Unit at Waikato University, funded by a Marsden Fund grant.

In 2009 Te Awekotuku and Linda Waimarie Nikora received a $950,000 Marsden Fund grant as lead researchers in the Māori and Psychology Research Unit at Waikato University for the research project 'Apakura: the Maori way of death'.

A further $250,000 was received from the Nga Pae o te Maramatanga National Institute of Research Excellence to explore past and present practices around tangihanga.

In the 2010 New Year Honours, Te Awekotuku was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori culture.

In 2017, she won an Auckland Museum Medal.

Also in 2017, Te Awekotuku was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.