February 07, 2019
Sir Hekenukumai a bridge builder supreme
Accolades for Sir Hekenukumai Busby, whose investiture by Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy in front of the Whare Rūnanga on the Treaty Grounds at Waitangi yesterday drew throngs of supporters not just from Aotearoa but around the Pacific.
The knighthood acknowledged the work he has done to revive the traditions of canoe building and celestial navigation, driven by his passion for the waka Ngātokimatawhaorua at Waitangi and by a challenge from the late Sir James Henare on the arrival in the north of the Hawaiian voyaging canoe Hokule’a.
MP and relative Shane Jones says it was a day of pride for the tribes of Muriwhenua and the motu.
"Hekenukumai, a man whose body has been formed by the tide, a man whose hands bear the callouses of all the bridge buiding and a man whose mind and imagination has brought all sorts of people together internationally, across the Pacific, across the tribes and across Aotearoa. i don't think we have had a personality like that since Te Rangi Hiroa," Mr Jones says.
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