She was born in Ruapuke Island, Southland, New Zealand in 1870, to parents Arapetere Karaka (Albert Clark) and Mary (née Owen).
[2][3] Of Māori and Moriori descent, she identified with the Kāti Māmoe iwi.
Her first husband was Riwai Te Ropiha, a Moriori of the Chatham Islands, with whom she had nine children before divorcing in the early 1900s.
[4] She helped build the meeting house in Wairua in the 1890s.
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