Tāmaki Makaurau: How the suburbs and maunga carry city’s history in their names

Thursday, 6 January 2022

MUMA essential services manager and Auckland local Puhihuia Wade, standing atop Māngere Mountain, tells the stories of how places in Tāmaki Makaurau got their names.

For each of Tāmaki Makaurau’s thousand lovers, there are stories that tell the colourful histories of its earliest inhabitants.

Māori first arrived in Tāmaki Makaurau, “the land of a thousand lovers”, more than 1000 years ago and built protective pā on the volcanic mountains around the city.

Luckily for today’s inhabitants, suburbs and maunga around the city carry their histories in their names.

Puhihuia Wade grew up in Pukaki, in Māngere, nearly a thousand years after her tūpuna came to Tāmaki on the Tainui waka.

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Puhihuia Wade knows the stories of her whānau’s history like the back of her hand.

She was raised by her whānau on the stories of their voyage across the moana to their new home.

Today she is the justice manager and essential services manager for the Manukau Urban Māori Authority, handling the pandemic response.

At the top of Māngere Mountain – named for its soft winds and fertile soils, making life easy for its inhabitants – Wade explained how her family left Hawaiki on a waka captained by their chief Hoturoa (closely followed by a tūpuna they left behind), and how they settled in parts of the isthmus that today we call Auckland.

Maungarei, or Mount Wellington, is linked to the story of Tainui ancestor Reipai’s travels north to Whangarei (or Te Whanga a Reipai) in the form of a bird, eventually reaching Ngāpuhi lands where the two iwi would be connected.

According to Wade and her whānau, Hoturoa had heard tales of Aotearoa, land of the long white cloud, from other tribes who had left and settled there earlier.

As he prepared their tribe and the waka named Tainui for the voyage, one man was to be left behind: Hape, also known as Rakataura, who was deemed too risky to join because of his club feet.

The Tainui waka set sail, unbeknownst to poor Hape, and eventually made it to Aotearoa via the East Coast and into Tāmaki through the Hauraki Gulf. They landed at Okahu Bay, then headed onshore to modern-day Panmure and Mt Wellington/Maungarei.

The Manukau Harbour was Tāmaki Makaurau’s “fridge”, Puhihua Wade said. “I remember as a kid growing up around the Manukau, we would be able to pick pupu and oysters to take home for kai. You don’t find any pupus any more.”

There, Hoturoa heard noises, and sent fellow chief Taikehu to scout ahead over the mountains for several kilometres and see who was there.

When Taikehu finally reached the source of the noise, he found out it was the chirping of many birds, not people: Manukau.

At some stage on their journey, Wade explains, they flipped the Tainui waka over their heads for shelter.

Māngere Mountain’s volcano erupted at least 20,000 years ago, forming the strategic maunga used by Māori ancestors on their arrival to Tāmaki around a thousand years ago. Its fertile soils were great for vegetables, and the remnants of kumara pits are still visible.

“It becomes a tāhuhu, or a roof. Ōtāhuhu is named for when they flipped the Tainui waka: te tāhuhu tanga o te waka Tainui.”

As the Tainui waka sailors continued their journey, they found themselves at another body of water. But this one looked treacherous for waka like theirs.

The mudflats of the harbour made Hoturoa nervous of the waka getting stuck, so they named it Te Mānukanuka o Hoturoa, where the great chief became anxious – the Manukau Harbour, today.

Te Puketapapakanga a Hape/Pukeiti, the little hill in Ihumātao.

But someone else had already made it through those tricky mudflats, Wade said.

Left alone in Hawaiki, clubfooted Hape had offered up a karakia and takutaku to his tupuna for three days and three nights, desperately wishing to reach Aotearoa and join his people.

On the fourth morning, so the story goes, a stingray called Kaiwhare found him on the shore and together they journeyed so quickly across the ocean they beat the Tainui waka, travelling into Tāmaki through the Manukau Harbour, where Kaiwhare still guards today.

Hape left his footprints on the shore, and got to work making himself a home, starting in Ihumātao and later Te Tātua a Riukiuta, where he – referred to as Riukiuta – took off his belt/tātua to rest. Today we know Te Tātua a Riukiuta as Three Kings.

On his journey, Hape found a pā with a flat top where he could see across the Manukau Harbour. To his surprise, there were his whanaunga, who had left him in Hawaiki.

That look out is called Te Puketapapakanga a Hape, the place where Hape rested. It is also called Pukeiti, the little hill, and is in the area of Ih umātao by the Otuataua Stonefields.

From the Manukau Harbour, Hape’s kin saw him too, and called out to him.

He replied with a karanga to call them to him, and that story is one tale behind the name Karangahape Road – Te Karanga a Hape.

Tāmaki Makaurau’s own name comes from its many strategic advantages. Land with fertile soil, plentiful waters and more than 50 maunga from which to survey for threats was a highly sought-after prize.

Wade says one story behind the name is that of a chief's daughter, who cast her net in the Manukau Harbour – “that was our fridge”, she said.

As she fished, the eyes of all the competitors would be on her, and on her fishing net, looking longingly at them both.

Wade says many of Auckland’s maunga are connected to Mataoho, the guardian or deity of volcanic mountains.

It is said he lived in Te Ipu o Mataoho, Mataoho's bowl, known today as Mount Eden/Manungawhau.

His head, Te Pane o Mataoho is at Māngere Mountain, and his nose is Ihumātao, Te Ihu o Mataoho.

Mataoho’s footsteps lie in Pukaki in craters, Te Pukaki Tapu o Mataoho, also known as Ngā Tapuwae o Mataoho.