The first indigenous woman to ever study at Oxford University will receive a posthumous degree.
Mākereti Papakura, a pioneering Māori scholar, matrucalted in 1927 to read Anthropology at the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Society of Home Students. She explored the customs of her iwi (tribal group) from Te Arawa as seen from a female perspective but Mākereti died just before she was due to present her thesis. Her work was published posthumously as “The Old-Time Māori” by friend, Rhodes Scholar and fellow anthropologist T.K. Penniman, becoming the first ethnographic study published by a Māori author.
Later this year Mākereti will be awarded her degree at a ceremony In Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre.
During the COVID pandemic, body bags were sent to Seattle Indian Health Board instead of PPE that had been requested. The package of bags became a symbol of protest for public health researcher Abigail Echo-Hawk, a Pawnee who works with Washington’s Native population, as she fabricated a ribbon dress.