About
Beau MacKey is a New Zealand author, historian, philosopher, and genealogical (whakapapa) researcher. His work explores identity, ancestry, Māori history, spirituality, wisdom, and personal transformation.
Born in Gisborne, on the east coast of Aotearoa New Zealand, Beau’s life and writing have been shaped by ancestry, hardship, fatherhood, sport, philosophy, and the search for deeper meaning. His work brings together historical research, family history, cultural memory, personal experience, and philosophical reflection.
In Māori culture, whakapapa means genealogy, ancestry, and the living connection between people, land, history, and identity. For Beau, whakapapa is not only about tracing family lines. It is about understanding who we are, where we come from, and what responsibilities we carry for future generations.
Books and Research
Beau is the author of works spanning Māori history, biography, philosophy, spirituality, and personal transformation. His books include 9 Lives of Wisdom, The British Monarch, Māori Chiefs & Sub-Tribes of New Zealand, Ancient and Modern Philosophers and Great Thinkers: Wisdom and Quotes Book 1 & Book 2, and Māori Life: A Century in New Zealand Society.
His historical research focuses on Māori leadership, tribal identity, Te Tiriti o Waitangi / the Treaty of Waitangi, He Whakaputanga / the Declaration of Independence of New Zealand, colonial history, and the relationship between Māori people and the British Crown.
His book The British Monarch, Māori Chiefs & Sub-Tribes of New Zealand has been accepted into the British Museum’s Anthropology Library, recognising the importance of his work in documenting Māori chiefs, sub-tribes, and Crown–Māori relationships.
Genealogy (Whakapapa) and Identity
For more than eighteen years, Beau has researched his Māori and Scottish ancestral lines. His ancestry connects to several Māori tribal groups, including Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga a Hauiti, Ngāti Konohi, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine, Ngāi Tai, Whakatōhea, Te Whānau a Apanui, Ngāti Whakaue, and Te Arawa, as well as Scottish heritage through the House of Moray.
His writing is deeply connected to the preservation of ancestral knowledge. Through his research, Beau explores how the lives of ancestors continue to shape identity, memory, responsibility, and belonging in the modern world.
Sport, Discipline and Leadership
Sport has also played an important role in Beau’s life. He spent more than twenty years involved in representative basketball, including representing Northland, being selected in a national tournament team to Vanuatu in 2005, being scouted by the New Zealand Basketball League Team Taranaki Mountain Airs, trialling with the Auckland Stars and playing with the Northland Suns in 2010.
He also founded and captained the Raumanga Royals, who went on to win the inaugural Northland Basketball Competition in 2011. Basketball taught Beau discipline, resilience, leadership, teamwork, confidence, and the ability to continue striving through pressure and adversity. These lessons continue to influence his writing, philosophy, and approach to life.
Philosophy and Lived Experience
Beau’s philosophical writing is shaped by both study and lived experience. His work reflects on truth, suffering, morality, responsibility, discipline, character, spirituality, wisdom, and the transformation of the self.
His book 9 Lives of Wisdom is a philosophical work shaped by hardship, survival, reflection, and personal growth. It examines what remains when comfort, certainty, status, and ordinary identity are stripped away, and how a person can rebuild themselves through responsibility, strength, and wisdom.
Beau’s philosophy is not written from theory alone. It is formed through life experience, solitude, fatherhood, struggle, recovery, and the ongoing search for meaning.
Purpose
Beau’s work is personal, cultural, ancestral, and universal. It speaks to people searching for identity, meaning, strength, truth, and purpose.
Through his books, Beau MacKey continues to build a body of work dedicated to preserving history, honouring ancestry, challenging ordinary thought, and encouraging people to live with greater wisdom, courage, humility, and self-understanding.
