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Te Rangi Cove in the east.

A Brief History of Ōpōtiki OPOTIKI - A BRIEF HISTORY

or a long time a lot of people thought that the history of New Zealand started in 1769
with Captain Cook. Fortunately, Māori tradition is now more widely known and the
Farchaeologists and historians are exposing the real depth of our origins. In historical
association, the beaches, hills, rivers and flats of the Ōpōtiki District are unsurpassed in this
land.
PRE HISTORY
At first there was Kupe who reported a land uninhabited when he encircled it at about the time
of Alfred the Great. Then there was the settlement period time of Toi, usually dated at about
1150. Two hundred years later, when the Black Prince was fighting at Poitiers, the so-called fleet
migration from Hawaiiki occurred, and this is often taken as the starting point when generalising
about Māori history.
In these times, Tainui canoe sailed along the coast and 24 km from Ōpōtiki, Torere, daughter
of Hoturoa the captain, left the vessel and her name. The Nukutere canoe touched at Opape before
going on to a final resting-place around the East Coast. Tauturangi stayed here and became a
progenitor of Whakatōhea, the people of this district. The Mataatua Canoe reached Whakatāne.
Repanga, nephew of Toroa the captain, saw the cooking fires to the east, came in this direction and
added his name to the ancestors of Whakatohea. As an old man he was killed near Onekawa Pā,
the remains of which are still to be seen above Ohiwa Holiday Park.
As far as we know at present, the earliest inhabitants here were the Tini-o-Toi and Tini-o-
Awa tribes who sprang from the Toi settlement period of the 12th century. Recent discoveries in
Hawke's Bay have shown that man lived in Aotearoa long before this, so it could well be that the
Eastern Bay of Plenty also was occupied at a much earlier period.
Tirohanga, Makeo (the high conical hill south of Waiaua bridge), Paerata and Tawhitirahi are
all Pā sites of great antiquity as well as a host of others. Locally written material is available for
those interested in detail of such manner.
The name “Ōpōtiki” originated from the name of a spring of the eastern bluff above
Waiotahi Beach called “O-Potiki mai-Tawhiti.” This name goes back to the migration from
Hawaiiki. It concerns a chief Tarawa who, left behind, decided to join his people whom he
knew were in New Zealand. Tarawa, and his brother Tuwharanui, set sail for New Zealand in a
canoe named Te Arautauta, accompanied by two Tanahanaha fish pets known as O-Potiki-mai
Tawhiti, and meaning “two pets from afar.” Landing on the Waiotahi Beach, Tarawa found a
spring as an abode for his two fish pets. The spring thereafter became known as O-Potiki-mai-
Tawhiti because of the continual reference to the inhabitant fish of the same name.
Before the arrival of Europeans, Ōpōtiki was a populous Māori centre, and a large
village, Pā Kowhai, extended along the river banks from King Street (west) to the present
A. & P. Showgrounds.

Ohiwa from Onekawa Pā in the west.
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