Mourning the passing of a great nursing leader: nursing pioneer Irihapeti Ramsden, mourned by thousands throughout New Zealand, was controversial in her death as she had been throughout her life.

FIERCELY INDEPENDENT yet searching for consistency all her life. A woman of quiet strength, grace, charm and goodness. The giver of kawa whakaruruhau, the namer of names, the reclaimer of the hongi for Maori women. Truth teller. A critic, conscience and leader within nursing and Maoridom. These were just some of the descriptions of Irihapeti Ramsden offered during the celebration of her life at Wellington's Pipitea Marae last month.

According to Ramsden's specific instructions, the two-and-a-half hour celebration on April 8 was non-religious, and designed by her to be filled with love and laugher. The many hundreds present, who had gathered from all over the country and from the many different facets of her life, filled every available seat. Others pressed around the walls or sat on the floor before her open coffin, which was draped with her family's korowai (made from the uniforms of family members who had served and died during the First and Second World Wars) and surrounded by a sea of flowers.

During the two days Ramsden was at Pipitea, around 1000 people came to pay their respects. And more than 2000 others did so as she journeyed south to her ancestral home at Koukourarata/Port Levy, firstly at Rapaki Marae near Lyttleton, then at Tutehuarewa Marae, her final resting place. Mourners included politicians Tariana Turia, Georgina Te Heu Heu and Parekura Horomia, directors of nursing and midwifery, academic nursing leaders and leaders from nursing organisations, government department officials, writers and artists. Writer Kerr Hulme and relative Maire Kipa gave the final tributes at the graveside at Koukourarata.

Speakers at all three gatherings paid tribute to her as a nurse, anthropologist, publisher, educator and change agent. She will be remembered primarily as the principal architect of cultural safety in nursing education, which was written into the nursing curriculum in 1992. Cultural safety, she continued to explain, was not about ethnicity but about nurses understanding how their own cultural identity affected their patients who did not share the same up bringing or background. Understanding the power dynamics in the nurse/patient relationship was key to a nurse being able to create trust. Last year she gained her PhD with a doctoral thesis entitled Kawa Whakaruruhau: Cultural Safety in Aotearoa and Te War Pounamu. She was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in this year's New Years Honours, and received her insignia at a special ceremony at Government House only two weeks before her death.

The celebration in Wellington was opened by her tungane Riki Te Mairaki Pitama and jointly facilitated by long-trine friends Rocky Douche and historian Michael King. Her brother Rangi Collins described his sister as "controversial in death even as she was in life", referring to her wish thai the normally rigid protocols and conventions of the tangihanga should be broken in accordance with her final wishes. Although this caused some difficulty at times among members of her family and marae elders, it was a measure of her mana that her wishes were honoured. Women were able to speak on the paepae at all three marae (a separate paepae for women was established at Tutehuarewa Marae), there was no religious content, and speakers spoke briefly and to the point, avoiding repetition, as she had requested.

Her son Peter Burger described Irihapeti's last 15 years as "bonus life", as she survived the twin onslaughts of breast cancer and asthma. Her great characteristic was "strength delivered smoothly", he said. This enabled her to get her point of view across strongly but quietly. Husband Paul Stannard referred to the fact that the celebration was taking place 40 years to the day since Ramsden began her nursing training at Wellington Hospital. She chose nursing as this was a way of gaining accommodation and meals while being close to her brother Peter who was at Wellington College. Stannard described some of the early challenges and tragedies Ramsden had to face during her early years: the death of her mother Merenia from tuberculosis when she was seven, the death of her father, historian and journalist Eric Ramsden when she was 16, coping with Tb and asthma, and being committed to Porirua Hospital when she was 12 due to her unruly behaviour. Daughter Pirimia Burger described her mother as parent, mentor and best friend. Although Ramsden had lived long enough to see the birth of her grandchild, nine-month old Billie Burger, she would not be a long term part of her mokopuna's life as she had dearly wished.

Senior lecturer at Victoria University's Graduate School of Nursing and Midwifery and Ramsden's PhD superviser, Pamela Wood, said Ramsden had come into nursing at a time when she was really needed. However, her pioneering work in cultural safety was at the cost of her own health. "Irihapeti challenged us to think about the Treaty of Waitangi and what that meant in terms of nursing education and the health of New Zealanders. As a leader, she nudged and prodded us to ensure cultural safety became an integral part of nursing education and she did this with grace and gentleness."

Other speakers were lawyer and friend Moana Jackson, and a group of close women friends led by Arawhetu Peretini. Director of the Eru Pomare Centre at the Wellington School of Medicine, Paparangi Reid, said Ramsden had gathered people at her celebration "to teach us something. She is challenging us to do something about the Treaty and the distribution of power and privilege in New Zealand society."

Michael King gave the final address, re ferring in particular to Ramsden's contribution as an author, most recently as joint editor along with writer Patricia Grace and colleague (now deceased) Jonathan Dennis of The Silent Migration, the history of Ngati Poneke. "Irihapeti wrote as she spoke: with lucidity and clarity and a strong narrative element. Her especial contribution in this sphere was to use her own life experience to help Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders understand the affects and the costs to Maori of colonisation. Her history was never strident. It was composed of arguments based on evidence, building up to quiet but forcefully compelling conclusions. I don't know of anyone who heard her speak publicly, or who read thoroughly something she had written, who wasn't persuaded by the logic and the integrity of her argument."

Describing her death as akin to a powerful light going out, King said her vividness as a person would ensure her life continued in the minds and hearts of those who knew and loved her.

The celebration featured two songs--Save the Last Dance for Me by the Drifters and Dream a Little Dream by the Mamas and Papas. It concluded with a visual tribute, a short video put together by her son Peter that captured the essence of Ramsden in earlier and healthier times.

Chairperson of Te Runanga o Aotearoa NZNO Sharon Morunga was one of the many mourners who accompanied Ramsden on her journey south. At both Rapaki and Tutehuarewa marae, women were the final speakers and teams of women pall bearers carried her coffin at various points on her journey, a fitting way to farewell a great woman, said Morunga. "Our women conducted themselves with great dignity and mana. I do not believe I will witness a tangi quite like Irihapeti's in iny lifetime again."