Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku’s openness about being lesbian in the early 1970s was one catalyst for the gay liberation movement in Aotearoa New Zealand. She published the first openly lesbian fiction and has consistently broken barriers as a manu ngangahu: female warrior.

Her book Mau Moko: The World of Māori Tattoo (2007) won many awards, including the inaugural Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book of the Decade. A highly respected academic, her most recent publication E Ngā Uri Whakatupu: Weaving Legacies (2015) is about the exquisite textiles of Dame Rangimārie Hetet and Diggeress Te Kanawa.

Memoirist Aorewa McLeod facilitates an hour with a lively, charismatic pathfinder still showing the way.