appropriate naming. Ranges, ridges, promontories and streams identified tribal and personal boundaries. Prominent peaks, rivers and seas assumed a personification of great reverence. Every topographical feature, however insignificant, promoted a commemoration to ancestors, deeds, events, phenomena and an acknowledgement to atua, the gods of creation.
The peripheral boundary of the Hauraki can generally be described as commencing at the sunken reefs of Nga Kuri-a-Wharei offshore of Waihi Beach on the eastern coast, progressing west inland to Mount Te Aroha, thence to Hoe-o-Tainui. It then follows north along the range line of Te Hapu-a-Kohe and the Hunua Ranges to Moumoukai and Papakura. The northern boundary includes parts of the Tamaki isthmus, Takapuna, Whangaparaoa and Mahurangi before terminating at Matakana river estuary south of Cape Rodney. The seaward boundary includes parts of the island of Aotea (Great Barrier), and then southward to its beginning at Nga Kuri-a-Wharei. Included within those margins are the inner gulf islands of Tikapa Moana and those (except for Tuhua island) offshore of the eastern coastline of Te Tai Tamawahine.
It must be understood that the boundary descriptions given are in no manner as definitive as might be expected. Traditional Maori boundaries are not reduced to straight lines unless of course they are described with reference to specific physical landmarks. The only practical process apart from historical fact in precisely identifying these margins or boundaries can be from some early land sale records and transfers.
A Hauraki example in respect of their muddled settlement is the intermingling of related tribes and subtribes who have firmly established 'Kainga-pockets' within each other's territories, without the loss of their individual identity. Where intermarriages occur, then the custom often requires affiliation with the tribe resident on the ancestral land.
In the case of the relocation of a section of Ngati Porou in Hauraki lands last century, the boundaries of gifted lands were described intimately by the donors and they indeed have a secure title on which they have maintained all the cultural aspects of their former tribal area without question.
This can also be said of the division of Ngati Pukenga of Tauranga Moana who were gifted land in the same manner at about the same period and although, like Ngati Porou, they have not severed links with their parent tribe in Tauranga they are now virtually Hauraki in all other respects.
The definition of the Hauraki tribes is specific and refers to the tangata whenua residents who have occupied lands within the general description of boundaries aforementioned, circa 1840. This is shown as Map 2. Their known tribal districts of occupation are, commencing from the north: Mahurangi, Takapuna, Tamaki, Wairoa, Puwhenua, Piako, Katikati, Ohinemuri, Wharekawa East and Moehau.
They are, in vague order of settlement: Ngati Hako, Ngati Hei, Ngati Rahiri, Patukirikiri; the Marutuahu confederacy of Ngati Tamatera, Ngati Whanaunga, Ngati
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