About Us: History

Ngati Manuhiri te Hapu
(Ngati Manuhiri Tribe)

Manaia and his son arrived on the Moekaraka waka at Te Waka Tuwhenua, where  the Goat Island Marine Reserve is located. They occupied kainga along the entire coastline. This is especially true of Manaia's son Tahuhu. He is associated with O-Tahuhu at Tamaki. He also occupied Motutapu briefly. He lived at Pakiri and controlled the whole coast from his Pa known as Te Arai o Tahuhu (Te Arai Point).This original occupation has been maintained through ahi kaa in the area  until present day by Ngati Manuhiri hapu of Ngatiwai.

By the fourteenth century migrations associated with some of the famous ancestral canoes had begun to influence the Mahurangi area. These migrants conquered and absorbed the Maruiwi and the descendents of Toi. From the North came the Ngai Tahuhu people, the desendants of Tahuhu. From the south came the descendants of Tainui waka who had settled around the Waitemata Harbour. These people, who also had Arawa affiliations, had by the sixteenth century become known by the general name Ngaoho. They had intermarried with the earlier tribal groups, including Ngai Tahuhu who they pushed to the north, and were in occupation of all the land between the Waikato River and the Kaipara Harbour entrance, including Mahurangi.

The Kawerau people (are) descended from a large group of Ngati Awa people who had migrated north to the Tamaki isthmus from Kawhia in the 1620's. Led by Maki, the most famous ancestor of the Mahurangi people they initially settled at Rarotonga (Mt Smart). Then over the next generation they spread northward conquering the islands of the Hauraki Gulf north to Hauturu (Little Barrier Island), the Kaipara district north to the harbour entrance, as well as the east coast from
Takapuna to Te Arai. This conquest included Mahurangi, where the people of Ngaoho and Ngai Tahuhu were defeated and absorbed.

Maki had two sons - Manuhiri and Whetu - whose ancestors held rights on the east coast as Ngati Manuhiri, Te Uri O Katea, and Ngati Rongo. The first two hapu
had links to Te Kawerau. Ngati Manuhiri held ancestral rights in the area on the coast of the main ridge extending from Paepae o Tu (Bream Head) to Matakana.

Ngatiwai te Iwi

Ngatiwai is unified by its descent from one of the oldest lineages in Taitokerau, Ngati Manaia. Unlike surrounding iwi, direct descent from Manaia has given Ngati Wai status on east coast since the beginning of human occupation. Manaia's own occupation established iwi status in the northern part of the Ngatiwai rohe. Principally through Manaia's son Tahuhunuiorangi, Ngatiwai's manawhenua and manamoana on the coast from Whangarei to Whangaparaoa was established. At times this extended to Tamaki. After the time of Te Rangihokaia, himself a descendant of Tahuhunuiorangi's tuakana, a number of key marriages cemented the relationship between Ngatiwai and Kawerau hapu of Ngati Rehua and Ngati Manuhiri. This ongoing relationship with Tainui is another unique feature of Ngatiwai among iwi in Taitokerau.

Thus, Te Iwi o Ngatiwai and the hapu Ngati Manuhiri have an unbroken occupation and presence in the area of the Hauraki from Whangarei to Whangaparaoa including the islands in the Hauraki Gulf.