NGĀRUAWĀHIA, New Zealand — They arrived by the thousands in the frosty dawn, parking their cars far away and winding along country roads on foot, carrying children in their arms. They arrived in mourning black, crowns of ferns and kawakawa leaves, bone carvings or wedges of dark green pounamu — New Zealand jade — resting on their chests.

Mourners arrived in the North Island town of Ngāruawāhia on Thursday to pay their respects to New Zealand’s Māori king, Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII, who died six days earlier, and to witness the accession of his daughter, Ngā wai hono i te po. The new queen, 27, is only the second woman to become Māori monarch in a tradition that dates back to 1858.

As she was escorted to Tūrangawaewae marae – the gathering place of ancestors – where her father’s coffin lay draped in feathers, cheers rose from the thousands of people gathered around television screens outside and waiting along the wide, flat banks of the Waikato River to watch Kīngi Tūheitia’s funeral procession. After her ascension, Ngā wai hono i te po accompanied the deceased king in a flotilla of traditional boats along the river as Māori warriors carried him to his final resting place.

The events marked the end of a week-long tangihanga — a funeral service — for 69-year-old Kīngi Tūheitii, a leader who in recent months has united New Zealand’s indigenous people in the face of a more racially divided political culture than ever before. His daughter’s accession marks the rise of a new generation of Māori leaders in New Zealand — one who grew up steeped in the revival of a language that once nearly died out.

Kīngi Tūheitia died last Friday after heart surgery, just days after celebrating his 18th anniversary as king. He became king after his mother died in 2006, and on Thursday he was buried next to her in an unmarked grave on Taupiri Maunga, a mountain with spiritual significance to his iwi, or tribe.

The Kīngitanga, or Māori royal movement, is not a constitutional monarchy, and New Zealand’s head of state is King Charles III. It has a ceremonial, not legal, mandate and was established in the years after British colonisation of New Zealand to unite Māori tribes in resistance to the forced sale of indigenous lands and the loss of Māori language and culture.

Monarchs have traditionally used politics lightly, and Tūheitia was remembered this week as a quiet and unassuming man. But in recent months his voice has grown louder.

After a centre-right government took power in New Zealand last November and began enacting policies to withdraw recognition of the Māori language, people and customs, Tūheitia made the unusual decision in January to call a national meeting of tribes, attended by 10,000 people.

“The best protest we can do right now is to be Māori. Let’s be ourselves. Let’s live our values. Let’s speak our reo,” he told them, using the Māori word for language. “Just be Māori. Be Māori all day, every day. We are here. We are strong.”

Tūheitia called on New Zealanders to embrace the idea of ​​kotahitanga – unity of purpose – in an issue where, he said, “there is room for everyone”.

His words were repeated throughout the funeral, including by political leaders whose plans he opposed. Reflecting the place that Maori language and customs have taken in New Zealand public life in recent decades, his funeral was attended not only by representatives of Maori tribes but also by leaders of all political parties, former prime ministers, leaders of Pacific Island nations, diplomats and representatives of the British Crown.

Tens of thousands of ordinary people also came, many speaking Maori, a language that gradually disappeared after colonization until the 1970s, when activists sparked a renaissance. One of their initiatives was to establish Maori-language kindergartens, the first graduates of which are now young adults.

Tūheitia’s daughter was among them; while her father came from a generation where many were discouraged from speaking Māori, she was steeped in it, having attended Māori immersion schools. Ngā wai hono i te po has a degree in Māori customs and is an accomplished performer of kapa haka, an indigenous performing art.

The late king, a truck driver before he took the throne, was an unexpected choice for the monarchy, which is elected by a council and does not have to be hereditary. But the new queen had been groomed for the role and had accompanied her father on his work in recent years.

Her accession came at a tense political moment. Since 1858, the Kīngitanga has championed Māori sovereignty and other promises contained in the founding document of modern New Zealand, the Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840 between the Crown and Māori tribes. In subsequent years, translation problems and attempts to reinterpret the treaty have occasionally sparked conflict, which has flared up again in recent months.

“The Treaty is the basis for all of us to work together. Let’s not change it, that would harm us,” Tūheitia said at an event commemorating his coronation days before his death. While New Zealand was facing a storm as Māori rights were being rolled back, “there is no need to fear. In this storm, we are stronger together,” he said.

After the new queen was anointed with oils and a service was held for her father, mourners gathered behind the hearse as it made its way to the banks of a river sacred to his tribe. There, Tūheitia’s coffin was accompanied by traditional carved boats on its journey up the mountain, and the mourners, in some places as many as 10, fell silent and bowed as it passed.

As he was carried to the foot of the mountain under a clear afternoon sky, a thunderous haka, or ceremonial chant, rang out among mourners waiting around the tombstones dotting the steep hillside, and dozens of people helped carry the dead king to his burial site at the summit.

Many waited for hours to watch the procession pass, including a large number of young families. Commentators said the Queen’s accession to the throne marked a renewal of culture, as most Maori – almost 20% of New Zealand’s population – were under 40.

Among them on Thursday was 9-year-old Awa Tukiri, whose family drove almost two hours from Auckland to watch the boat carrying the late king sail past.

“It was amazing because on the boat they just do haka and waiata,” he said, using words from Māori songs and chants. Tukiri, who attends kura kaupapa — immersion schools that are becoming increasingly popular — said the best part of being Māori was “just hanging out and talking to each other in Māori.”