2.4.2 Lands of Tauranga hapu

Working very roughly from east to west, our summary begins with Waitaha. Although Waitaha’s heartland is in the Te Puke area, outside our inquiry district, we have already noted their long association with Tauranga Moana. Following the Ngai Te Rangi invasion, Waitaha lost some of their rights along the coast, but they continued to exercise interests in their traditional territory west of the Waimapu River, which they shared with Ngati Pukenga, Nga Potiki, Ngati He, Ngai Te Ahi, and others. Tame McCausland of Waitaha acknowledged that Ngai Te Rangi became dominant on the coast between Mauao and Papamoa, but he asserted that Waitaha still retained interests and rights to collect kaimoana in this area. Further inland, Waitaha interests were largely unaffected by the Ngai Te Rangi conquest, and extended south to Otanewainuku and the Mangorewa River.³⁰

Nga Potiki interests were located in Papamoa and the area around Rangataua Harbour, but they also had use rights in the Kaimai hinterland.³¹ Ngai Tukairangi also occupied land in the east of the inquiry district. According to claimant witness Mahaki Ellis, Ngai Tukairangi were descended from the grandchild of Rangihouhiri, and following the Ngai Te Rangi heke to Tauranga, they settled around Mauao, Whareroa, Matapihi, Otumoetai, and Otamataha (Te Papa), although their interests are now centred around Whareroa and Matapihi. They also had use rights elsewhere, as Kihi Ngatai explained to us. These included rights to resources at Ongare Point and in the bush around Taumata and Te Poripori.³² Ngai Tukai- rangi’s territory overlaps with that of Ngati Kuku, and indeed there is some dispute between different claimant groups as to whether or not Ngati Kuku are part of Ngai Tukairangi. Ngati Kuku had interests at Mauao, Whareroa, Otumoetai, Te Wairoa, and Kaimai, and on Karewa and Tuhua Islands. Toa Faulkner, a Ngati Kuku claimant, told us that Whareroa Marae was established by the Ngati Kuku rangatira Hori Ngatai in the 1860s, after the hapu had relocated from Otumoetai. By the late 1860s, Whareroa had become Ngati Kuku’s principal area of settlement.³³

Ngati Pukenga are often considered to be an iwi. However, in the nineteenth century at Tauranga their political and social structure was similar to that of hapu in the district. This shows how the tendency of Pakeha to view tribes as either iwi or hapu does not fit well with the realities of the situation in Tauranga at that time. We discuss this in more detail below. In this report, we therefore refer to Ngati Pukenga as both an iwi and as a hapu, without prejudice and depending on the relevant context. Ngati Pukenga are also in a somewhat unusual position, in that they were a highly mobile people whose interests were located not only in various parts of the Tauranga Moana district but also in other, distant parts of the North Island. In the 1800s, Pakeha and Maori alike frequently referred to the section of the tribe living at Manaia on the Coromandel Peninsula as ‘Te Tawera’. However, for simplicity’s

30. Document l8, pp 14–15; doc n22, pp 4–6

31. Document n12, pp 4–6

32. Document 116, p 3; doc j5, p 3; doc n10, pp 5–6

33. Document c1, p 224; doc 117, p 2; doc n4, pp 3–4