RIP Carmen Rupe, Queer Icon of Aotearoa-New Zealand

Legendary Maori performer Carmen Rupe has passed away after months of ill health at the age of 75.

Throughout the various articles published on her life and death, she is alternately referred to as “transgender” and “drag performer”, and occasionally by the Maori term “whakawahine” (fah-kah-wah-HEE-nay) which refers to ‘one who lives as a woman’ (compare to the Samoan “fa’afafine”).

However you define her, Carmen was a colourful boundary-breaking character, a former street worker turned dancer and entertainment entrepreneur, and once ran for Mayor of Wellington (a position later won by the world’s first openly trans MP Georgina Beyer, also of Maori descent), all during an era still marked by retrograde and phobic attitudes towards homosexuality and rigid gender roles.

A karakia (prayer) for the dead follows, in te reo Maori, the language of the indigenous people of Aotearoa-New Zealand. Phrased so that it is appropriate for pakeha (people not of Maori descent) to say:

Tena Koutou i o koutou tini mate
No reira, haere e nga mate
Haere ki te wa kainga
Haere, haere, haere.

Translated into English:
Greetings to your many dead
Therefore, farewell the dead
Go to the home of all time
Farewell, farewell, farewell.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 at 11:06 pm and is filed under Drag & Trans, Images, News & Rumors, People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.