“QUEENSHIP” IS A concept that is applied in a varying array of situations: situations that are as diverse as they are dynamic. A queen consort, a queen regnant, and a queen dowager are all said to be embodying, or expressing, queenship— but, as history demonstrates, the three distinct and differing roles can be held simultaneously, in succession, or intermittently. This problem is, of course, well known in the scholarship, and is reflected in the changing way that the exercise of power by European royal women is becoming increasingly nuanced— not to mention subjected to thorough and perceptive gendered analysis—by scholars. “Queenship” is also a distinctly European concept— more specifically, a medieval and early modern western European concept— that cannot be easily translated or transposed to other, extra-European cultures. The female pharaohs of ancient Egypt, the women who reigned as empresses and autocrats of Russia, and the women who sat on the Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan all exercised what would be termed “queenship” to European eyes; but a closer examination of their countries, their succession, and their reigns reminds us that we cannot simply fit the western European model of queenship onto theirs. This same issue is relevant to the female rangatira in Aotearoa New Zealand: female Māori chiefs who exercised political and social power from the time of Māori settlement in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This chapter presents a brief history of female chiefs in Māori society. However, it is important not to describe the female ariki and rangatira of the various iwi and hapū (terms that are explained below) across Aotearoa as “queens” in the European sense of the word. This chapter's purpose is not to argue the labels that could or should be applied to the exercise of female political and social power in Aotearoa but, rather, to both contextualize the existence of female rangatira against other royal societies across the world, and offer a survey that can bring this subject to a much wider audience.