Rāhiri (estimated to have lived sometime between 1475-1585) is the ''tūpuna'' (

ancestor An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder or a forebear, is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from whom ...

) of Ngāpuhi of Northland and

Ngāti Rāhiri Tumutumu Ngāti Tumutumu is a Māori iwi of New Zealand, named after the eponymous ancestor Te Ruinga, son of Tumutumu. They live at Te Aroha in the Hauraki District. See also *List of Māori iwi This is a list of iwi (New Zealand Māori tribes). Lis ...

of the

Hauraki District Hauraki District is a territorial authority within the Hauraki region of New Zealand. The seat of the council is at Paeroa. The area covered by the district extends from the southwest coast of the Firth of Thames southeast towards Te Aroha, alth ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

.The descendants of Rāhiri
/ref> The Ngāpuhi today is the largest

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

iwi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...

'' (tribe) in New Zealand. Rāhiri's significance for Ngāpuhi is that all the chiefly lines of descent in Ngāpuhi trace descent through him. As the saying goes: :''Mehemea he uri koe no Ngāpuhi, kihai e koe i heke ia Rāhiri, he hoiho ke koe!'' (If you are Ngāpuhi and do not descend from Rāhiri, then you are a horse!)

Biography

Rāhiri lived some time in the period 1475-1585, based on '' whakapapa'' (genealogical) calculations. He traced descent from Kupe of the ''Matawhaorua'' canoe and Nukutawhiti of the enlarged and renamed ''

Ngātokimatawhaorua In Māori tradition, ''Ngātokimatawhaorua'' or Matawhaorua was one of the great ocean-going, voyaging canoes that was used in the migrations that settled New Zealand. Matawhaorua was the canoe of Kupe, the Polynesian discoverer of the islands ...

'' canoe. He was the son of Tauramoko and Te Hauangiangi, and was born at Whiria pā, near

Opononi Opononi is a settlement on the south shore of Hokianga Harbour in Northland, New Zealand. State Highway 12 runs through Opononi. Ōmāpere is on the shore to the south of Opononi and Pakanae to the northeast. The New Zealand Ministry for Cultur ...

in the Hokianga. His first wife was Ahuaiti from

Pouerua Pouerua is a 270 m high basaltic scoria cone, in the Kaikohe-Bay of Islands volcanic field in New Zealand. It is in the locality of Pakaraka and was the site of a pā that was studied during a major archeological project in the 1980s. Pouerua is ...

. From this union came the first-born son, Uenuku. Uenuku was also known as Uenuku-kuare (Uenuku who was not blessed upon birth due to the ignorance of those accompanying his mother): while still a young boy, together with his mother Ahuaiti, he was cast out by Rāhiri and it was only when he was a young man that he was reconciled with his father Rāhiri. Ahuaiti had allegedly given her visiting brothers some of Rāhiri's best fern root, contrary to his instructions to her. This was the reason for her exile. Rāhiri's second wife was Whakaruru and from this union came Kaharau who, together with Uenuku founded the military might of Ngāpuhi. Upon reconciliation, the then territories of Ngāpuhi were divided up by Rāhiri on the basis of the flight and landing place of the kite, Tuhoronuku. Uenuku and Kaharau further consolidated connection through marriage of children. Rāhiri had other wives, two being Moetonga and Paru, descendants of these wives respectively settling the west and east coasts within Ngāpuhi-controlled territories, creating ''

hapū In Māori and New Zealand English, a ' ("subtribe", or "clan") functions as "the basic political unit within Māori society". A Māori person can belong to or have links to many hapū. Historically, each hapū had its own chief and normally opera ...

'' in those places.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rahiri Legendary Māori people Legendary progenitors