{"id":5438,"date":"2017-11-20T14:29:43","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T14:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=5438"},"modified":"2018-06-06T16:40:32","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T16:40:32","slug":"a-maori-queen-in-bethnal-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=5438","title":{"rendered":"A Maori Queen in Bethnal Green"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was written by The Gentle Author<\/em> and appeared in Spitalfields Life. S<\/em>he has kindly agreed for us to reproduce it on dames<\/span>net<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Myra Love\/Patricia Niven<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMy mother was the Queen of Rarotonga, so I am a princess,\u201d revealed Myra Love, with a gentle grin. Yet her ancestry on her father\u2019s side was equally impressive; she was a Maori of the Te Ati Awa tribe of Petone, and her ancestors included two eighteenth century Scotsmen from Selkirk\u00a0– an explorer and a whaler \u2013 who married Maori princesses. \u201cI always say my legs are Scottish,\u201d Myra added, claiming the European part of her family with pride.<\/p>\n

Although Myra\u2019s residence was a one-bedroom flat in Bethnal Green \u2013 as far away as is possible from her ancestral land \u2013 she carried the weight of responsibility to her people. \u201cI never learnt Maori because my grandmother said \u2018English is the language of power, and you have to be fluent in English and get the land back\u2019 \u2013 and we have. We formed corporations and we\u2019re able to reclaim it today because the leases are coming up after a hundred years. There\u2019s loads of land that we gave away for beads and blankets, and we\u2019re getting it back,\u201d Myra told me, swelling with magnificence, adding, \u201cMost of Wellington belongs to us now, and we got the railway station back last month.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that moment, I was afforded a glimpse of the woman born to be Queen of Rarotonga, whose abiding concern was the stewardship of the land on behalf of her people. In another age, Myra might have led her tribe in battle, but in her time she fought at the High Court instead. \u201cWe are a warlike people!\u201d Myra informed me proudly. She knew that the success of her endeavour would define her legacy\u00a0when she was long gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a child, there was a feeling that we were second-class citizens.\u201d continued Myra. \u201cIf I was put down for being a Maori, my grandmother would say \u2018Remember they\u2019re walking on our land,\u2019 and she owned quite a lot of land. My father was going to change how land was owned in our part of the country but he went to war and got killed instead.\u00a0He\u00a0was a leader of men.\u00a0I was only five when he left. He went to Sandhurst and was the first Maori to command a battalion in World War II, but Maori leaders always fight alongside their men, and he was shot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Rangitira women of the Te Ati Awa tribe\/Patricia Niven<\/p><\/div>\n

“I was the youngest of three siblings so I didn\u2019t count for very much until they died, and then I became very important because now I own a lot of land. I\u2019m getting some of the land in New Zealand and some in Rarotonga. \u00a0Other siblings are fighting me for it and I am defending it in the High Court. I\u2019m partitioning it out because I don\u2019t want it for myself and I don\u2019t want them to sell it, and I intend to stay as healthy as possible because they all want me to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stepping into Myra\u2019s warm flat, painted in primary colours and crowded with paintings, plants, photographs, legal books, jewellery and musical equipment, contributing photographer Patricia Niven<\/a> and I entered the court of a woman of culture. She balanced her serious intent with an emotional generosity, which made it an honour to sit beside her as she opened her photo album. Myra became the author of her own destiny when she made the break at 21 and ran away to find a new life in the wider world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Myra\u2019s mother, Takau Upoko-o-nga Tinirau Makea Nui Ariki Love, Queen of Rarataonga\/Patrica Niven<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cOnce my grandmother died, the family disintegrated and I was moved out of the family house, so I decided to leave. Every Christmas we met together, but when she was gone there was a fight for the land, so because my family were all angry, I chose to go to America and become a jazz singer.<\/p>\n

I sold a piece of my land to my uncle for \u00a3300 and bought a P&O ticket to San Francisco. You think everywhere\u2019s going to be like New Zealand, so it was a bit of a shock when I got off the boat, because I was bit of a hokey girl. But it was exciting and, going through the Golden Gate Bridge, I thought, \u2018My dreams are coming true.\u2019 And some girls on the boat told me they knew Oscar Peterson, and they took me to the Black Hawk Club and there he was. But I thought, \u2018I\u2019m going to New York,\u2019 so I got on a train. It was 1958 and I had \u00a3100 left. In New York, I stayed on Bleecker St, just around the corner from Marlon Brando.<\/p>\n

“It was such a joy to visit places you\u2019d only read about in books. At school I learnt Wordsworth\u2019s Composed Upon Westminster Bridge<\/em> and when I came to London I had to go there at dawn. By then,\u00a0I had only about \u00a325 left, but money went a long way in those days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Myra told me it takes thirty years to learn to be a jazz singer, but she also filled those years with getting married, having three children and getting an Open University degree. \u201cI got divorced because he wouldn\u2019t let me go on singing,\u201d she confided, \u201cWhen we broke up, I did a teacher training course and my first job was in the East End. I\u2019ve always worked in underprivileged areas, and I\u2019ve sent more kids to university than I\u2019ve had hot dinners. I\u2019ve always believed that knowledge is power and that\u2019s what I\u2019ve tried to teach these kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Myra discovered a sense of camaraderie here which drew her to adopt Bethnal Green as her home from home. So it was that, Myra Love, the heroic Maori princess \u2013 devoted to fighting for the rights of her tribe \u2013 became a popular figure in the East End, renowned for singing jazz at the Palm Tree. \u201cI get my kicks from meetings with old East Enders,\u201d she confessed enthusiastically, \u201cThey\u2019re a tough breed. These people are just like me \u2013 they\u2019re Maoris!\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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