Tahu Potiki (23 December 1966 – 27 August 2019) was a New Zealand
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...
leader who served as chief executive of
Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu from 2002 to 2006.
Biography
Potiki was born in
Palmerston to Les and Rona Potiki, and grew up in
Karitane
The small town of Karitane is located within the limits of the city of Dunedin in New Zealand, 35 kilometres to the north of the city centre.
Set in rolling country near the mouth of the Waikouaiti River, the town is a popular holiday retreat f ...
,
becoming an authority on the history of his
iwi
Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori, roughly means or , and is often translated as "tribe". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, and is typically pluralised as such in English.
...
,
Ngāi Tahu
Ngāi Tahu, or Kāi Tahu, is the principal Māori people, Māori (tribe) of the South Island. Its (tribal area) is the largest in New Zealand, and extends from the White Bluffs / Te Parinui o Whiti (southeast of Blenheim, New Zealand, Blenhe ...
.
Potiki had been kaiarahi at the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, which became the
Ara Institute of Canterbury
Ara Institute of Canterbury, often simply referred to as Ara, is an institute of technology in Canterbury, New Zealand. It was formed in 2016 from the merger of Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) and Aoraki Polytechnic.
A ...
, and board chair of Ngāi Tahu Development Corporation. He also sat on the Canterbury and West Coast health boards. He died in
Auckland
Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...
on 27 August 2019, aged 52, having been diagnosed with
end-stage liver disease in 2014, and receiving a liver transplant in 2017.
On 14 May 2021, asteroid
101462 Tahupotiki, discovered by astronomer
Ian P. Griffin at the
Astronaut Memorial Planetarium and Observatory in 1998, was in Potiki's memory by the
Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature
In ancient times, only the Sun and Moon, a few stars, and the most easily visible planets had names. Over the last few hundred years, the number of identified astronomical objects has risen from hundreds to over a billion, and more are discovered e ...
.
References
1966 births
2019 deaths
Ngāi Tahu people
People from Palmerston, New Zealand
New Zealand chief executives
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