Page 10 - Puhipi

name of which Taupo-nui-a-Tia he is remembered. Ngatoro-i-Rangi also went to Taupo

travelling to the south to the area now known as National Park.

The story of the Aotea revolves around one man Turi, the captain. He became involved
in a dispute with Uenuku the high chief, over land at Rangiatea and after much
dissension and some bloodshed decided to sail off with his people to Aotearoa in the

Aotea a vessel which had been built by Toto, father of his wife Rongorongo. The
migrants carried in their canoe all manner of food and plants and also some livestock
such as dogs and birds. Because of this the canoe is known in history as Aotea-utanga-

nui (Aotea the richly laden). Turis goal was a river flowing to the west which had been
described by Kupe. During the voyage some of Aoteas timbers had become strained in
a storm and Turi put in to Rangitahua, Sunday Island in the Kermadecs to make the
damage good. Before leaving they took on some people from the Kurahaupo (not
Whatongas vessel but apparently another of the same name) and brought them on to

Aotearoa.

The Aotea landed first on the east coast of the Nth Island and sailed down the west

coast perhaps after making a portage across the Tamaki Isthmus. They left the canoe
at Aotea Harbour (legend does not say why) and walked the rest of the way to
Taranaki. Turi named places as he went, names which they bear to this day. He found
his westward flowing river at Patea and there made his home. From the people of Aotea
sprang the Ngati Ruanui and Nga Rauru tribes of Taranaki and the area north of

Whanganui.

The Mataatua canoe sailed to Aotearoa under Toroa whose father Irakewa, legends

say had been to Aotearoa and had brought back a woman of that land as a wife. Legend
also says that Mataatua was tested for sea worthiness in a voyage to the Marquesas
Island. When she left for Aotearoa, she carried in addition to Toroas people the crew
of a vessel called Te-ara-Tawhao which had come from Aotearoa to Hawaiki in search
of the kumara. Mataatua called at Rarotonga and at Sunday Island where she like

Aotea took on board survivors of Kurahaupo. The canoe landed at Whangaparaoa and
eventually was bought to Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty which was the place where
Toi had settled. The name Whakatane was given to commemorate the actions of Toroas
daughter Wairaka who is said to have saved the canoe from drifting away down the

Whakatane river while everyone was examining the place which was to be their new
home. The word means “to act like a man”. The people of Mataatua intermarried with
the descendants of Toi and from them come the Whakatohea, Ngati Awa and Tuhoe
tribes of the eastern Bay of Plenty and the Urewera country.

Kurahaupo, the second of that name sailed from Hawaiki under the command of
Ruatea and Te Moungaroa. It was damaged in the heavy surf at Sunday Island and
most of the people were taken to Aotearoa by the Aotea and Mataatua. Te Moungaroa

was said to have possessed a treasure known as the Kura which seems to have been a