Ngai Te Rangi. In acknowledging the political authority of a Ngai Te Rangi chief such as Tupaea, they were recognising that rangatira’s personal mana and leadership qualities. They were not placing themselves in a subordinate position to Ngai Te Rangi, nor were they identifying themselves as part of Ngai Te Rangi. In our view, all of the hapu of Ngati Ranginui and Ngai Te Rangi, together with Ngati Pukenga and Waitaha, have long ancestral associations with our inquiry area, and are tangata whenua of Tauranga Moana.

In this report, we will therefore use the term ‘Ngai Te Rangi’ with care. When spelt as one word with quotation marks, ‘Ngaiterangi’ refers to the frequently stated position of Crown officials that all Tauranga hapu were ‘Ngaiterangi really’. ‘Ngaiterangi’ is used in this report to refer to Tauranga Maori in the generic sense, as used by Crown officials in the nineteenth century. When spelt as three words without quotation marks (ie, Ngai Te Rangi), the term refers to those hapu outlined above that trace their primary descent from the ancestor Te Rangihouhiri and are of the Mataatua waka. The generalised use of the name ‘Ngaiterangi’ was undoubtedly inaccurate, and offensive to those who did not identify at all with the iwi Ngai Te Rangi.⁶⁶ However, for the Tribunal, the more important point is that, in light of the Treaty principle of equal treatment outlined in chapter 1, the Crown was obliged to treat all Tauranga hapu equally, regardless of what iwi labels they gave to them.

2.6 Chapter Summary

The main points in this chapter are as follows:

► Prior to 1840, several iwi were established at Tauranga following various migrations to the area over the preceding centuries. The principal iwi of the area were Ngati Ranginui, Ngai Te Rangi, Ngati Pukenga, and the Waitaha section of Te Arawa. Several other tribal groupings, including those of the Marutuahu confederation, had customary interests in parts of our inquiry district.

► The hapu was the primary social unit for Tauranga Maori in the pre-1865 period, and the hapu that made up the iwi of Tauranga had overlapping customary interests in the district. The political relationships between the hapu of the various iwi were also intricate and multifaceted. Throughout the nineteenth century, Crown officials often referred to all Tauranga Maori as ‘Ngaiterangi’ and, at times, claimed that Ngati Ranginui had been subsumed into Ngai Te Rangi. This was not in fact the case, and the various hapu of Ngati Ranginui maintained an identity distinct from Ngai Te Rangi, as did various other hapu with interests in the Tauranga district.

66. As one Ngai Tamarawaho claimant witness put it (doc f23, p 9): ‘Ngai Tamarawaho lost its identity as a result of the raupatu…. It stripped us of our mana, and laid bare a once proud people. Then we were written out of existence by the naming of all the Tauranga tribes as Ngai te Rangi. I grew up as a Ngati Ranginui girl and certainly not a Ngai te Rangi girl.’