Much like Ngati Hako who staggered through 1000 years of struggle in order to survive, the same can probably be said of Ngati Hei in their 600 years of chequered existence. When the ancestor Hei, said to be an uncle of Tamatekapua of the Te Arawa canoe, decided to join his relative Tuhoro in settling in Hauraki, the prognosis would have been very optimistic. They were both men of rank with a cultural background that would have brought many advantages to the people of the land with whom they settled.
This in fact did happen as history acknowledges, and the tribes of Moehau were far superior to their contemporaries in the district. It is not certain whether there had been some regular communication between Ngati Hei and their Rotorua-based relatives. The only certainty is that after having established one of his tribes and naming various places in Hauraki, the chieftain Hei left to join the bulk of his people to the south. There he founded his other tribe, or rather, established his son Waitaha as Te Waitahanui-O-Hei—who still reside there.
Ngati Hei, in time, spread up and down the east coast of Hauraki from Whangapoua to Whangamata, with the mountain ranges behind creating a buffer between the increasing western tribes. When the militant tribes of Marutuahu descended upon them during their punitive wars, Ngati Hei were hard-pressed to avoid their wrath. Apart from isolated incidents when some of their lands were occupied, Ngati Hei managed to maintain a certain aloofness from the turmoil thus escaping the tragic fate of Ngati Huarere.
Because of the breathtaking beauty and prolific resources distributed throughout their domains, Ngati Hei were continually assailed by their covetous enemies. Their history has detailed these numerous encounters which had them falling back at first to many of their coastal bastions, yet to rally again and again until their foes were repulsed.
When the Marutuahu had established their mana over Hauraki, the individual sections of Ngati Tamatera, Ngati Whanaunga, Ngati Maru and Ngati Paoa continually encroached upon their preserves. There were intermarriages that, as in the similar instance of the Ngati Hako experience, leaned towards undermining tribal cohesion. Intertribal conflicts were frequent which did not improve the lot of Hei's descendants as they slowly watched the boundaries of their lands diminish. Even to this day some of these tribal sections have attempted blatant trespass and indeed often succeeded in making claim to their remaining possessions.
