Ngoi Pēwhairangi

Te Kumeroa "Ngoingoi" Pēwhairangi (29 December 1921 – 29 January 1985) was a prominent teacher of, and advocate for, Māori language and culture, and the composer of many songs, including Poi E. She spearheaded the Māori Renaissance in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Biography She was born Te Kumeroa Ngoingoi Ngāwai on 29 December 1921 at Tokomaru Bay, on New Zealand's East Coast. She was the eldest of five children of Hori Ngāwai, a labourer and minister in the Ringatū faith from the Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare hapū of the Ngāti Porou iwi of Tokomaru Bay, and his wife Wikitoria Karu of Ngāti Tara Tokanui in the Hauraki region. Tuini Ngāwai, a prominent composer and promoter of Māori language and culture, was her father's sister.

Ngoi attended Hukarere Girls’ School from 1938 to 1941. In 2016, she was posthumously conferred with the Nostalgia Award from the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand, an award presented to an artist deemed not to have received suitable honours during their career. In 2022 Pēwhairangi was inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame.