Manahi Nitama Paewai

Manahi (Doc) Nitama Paewai OBE OStJ (8 June 1920 – 10 October 1990) was a New Zealand doctor, rugby player, local politician and community leader. A Māori from the Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne iwi, he was born near Makirikiri Marae in Hawke's Bay.

A Mormon, his second name Nitama was the Māori translation of Needham, as in Needham Lambert, who was the president of the New Zealand Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). When he was four years old, Paewai's father Niki Paiwai was admitted to Utah State University, and so Paewai started school at the Woodruff School in Logan, Utah, and was baptized in Logan at age eight. They returned to New Zealand in 1929.

Paewai attended Dannevirke High School before being admitted to the University of Otago. However, at that time there was extreme prejudice against Māori at Otago and he gave up his studies shortly after starting there to return to Tahoraiti, near Dannevirke. Shortly after, the LDS Church mission president at the time, Matthew Cowley, visited that location. On learning that Paewai had quit school, Cowley called him as a missionary, and then gave him his missionary assignment of returning to Otago University and completing his training as a doctor. Paewai graduated from Otago with a degree in medicine in 1945.

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