Mangatawa is sacred to Ngati Ranginui, Ngaiterangi, and Te Arawa iwi. The maunga is associated with the arrival of waka in the region, and with several important ancestors who settled in this area. Before the maunga was damaged by quarrying, its shape was said to resemble that of a whale gazing out to sea, with the northern point, Maungamana, representing the eye of the whale.
Because of its shape Mangatawa is also known as Te Tohora, the whale. The following quote explains how the whale became a landform:
Long, long ago, a whale and her baby cruised into the harbour through the entrance past Maunganui and Matakana. They swam up the harbour past Te Papa and Matapihi toward Maungatapu. They found the water was getting more shallow and they turned round to return to deeper water. Unfortunately, they turned into the Rangataua arm of the harbour between Matapihi and Maungatapu. They knew which direction the ocean lay. They could hear the waves pounding on the beach at Omanu and Papamoa. They struggled over the mudflats of Rangataua, trying to find a way back to the open sea. They stopped at Karikari on the eastern shore of Rangataua. There was a spring there and they drank from it, because they were tired and thirsty. They did not know that this spring was magic. All life departed from the body of the mother whale and she was fixed there, gazing northward out to sea. The baby nestled beside the mother and was also fixed there as the smaller hill beside Mangatawa on the Papamoa side.14
The father whale later came in search of his family and unfortunately also turned to stone, becoming Kopukairoa hill, south of Mangatawa. The spring at the base of Mangatawa, near Rangataua Bay, is called Te Waiu o te Tohora, the milk of the whale, because:
Sometimes the water flowing from it is quite white, so it must be the milk from the whale, which rests there as a guardian of the people of Te Arawa and Tauranga Moana.15
Te Arawa tradition says that Mangatawa was the taniwha which guided their canoe from Hawaiki to Maketu.16 Tamarangi, who was the son of Haerehuka of Te Arawa, was killed during a battle of Ngapuhi and Te Arawa against Ngaiterangi. Haerehuka wanted to protect Tamarangi’s body from desecration and so carried him to the summit of Mangatawa for cremation.
The Takitimu waka arrived at Tauranga moana under the command of Tamatea, who was known as Tamatea mai tawhiti and Tamatea ariki nui.18 After implanting the mauri of his people on Mauao, Tamatea built a pa at Mangatawa, on Maungamana. The grandson of Tamatea was Tamatea pokai whenua who, after voyaging around
14 Evelyn Stokes (ed), Stories of Tauranga Moana, Centre for Maori Studies and Research, University of Waikato, 1980, Mangatawa
15 Ibid
16 Ibid
17 ‘Submission to Tauranga County Council and Bay of Plenty Harbour Board from Tauranga Moana District Maori Council’, in Evelyn Stokes, Te Raupatu o Tauranga Moana: Volume 2: Documents Relating to Tribal History, Confiscation and Reallocation of Tauranga Lands, University of Waikato, 1992, p 56
18 Stokes, Stories of Tauranga Moana, Takitimu Te Waka, Tamatea Te Ariki
