Mahanga Tainui - Mahanga Tuhoe

The focus of this blog, is to clearly differentiate two distinct Maori Rangatira of the Classical Maori era.  Both Men were named Mahanga, one was a Tainui Ancestor, and the other a Tuhoe Ancestor.  However, Elsdon Best in his book, Tuhoe ; Children of the Mist (1925), merges details about both men into the Mahanga, that he was documenting in his historical account about the Tuhoe people.

Elsdon Best, introduces his readers to Mahanga, as the son of Taneatua, whom he says settled at Putauaki (Mount Edgecumbe, Kawerau).

He goes on to say that later, Mahanga, settled in the Waikato District, and that he left descendants somewhere in Kawhia, "Te Awaitaia being, it is said, so descended".  This is the point at which Best merges the two men.  The Mahanga (of Tainui Waka); that Ngati Mahanga is descended from was the son of Tuheitia;  and was born north of the Raglan Harbour.  Tuheitia was 10th in descent directly from Hoturoa the Navigator of the Tainui Waka.  The descendants in Kawhia belong to Mahanga, the son of Tuheitia; and Te Awaitaia is absolutely descended from him; this however has no correlation with the Tuhoe Ancestor - Mahanga; and Elsdon Best is quite wrong in saying so.

Best goes further to say, that Taneatua was living at Purakau.  Purakau was the known pa of Mahanga in the Waipa District.  Purakau or Purakautahi as it was also known is on the confluence of the Waipa River and the Kaniwhaniwha Stream.  The Hinterland of Waikato Country, and Taneatua from the other side of the Island would never have lived here.  Such is the unlikelihood of this, that it borders on the absurd.  

The view of Purakau from the Te Pahu Road

An aerial view of Purakau as being on the confluence of Waipa and Kaniwhaniwha

Most importantly though is the whakatauki that Best accredits to Mahanga.  

    "Mahanga, whakarere kai, whakarere waka"

     "Mahanga who abandoned food and canoes".

This is a point of contention, because the earliest publication of this whakatauki was by Elsdon Best in 1925.  Then Lesley Kelly (1949) in Tainui : Hoturoa & his descendants, some years later quotes Elsdon Best and places this whakatauki alongside the story of Tainui waka's Mahanga.  So ... the question remains which Mahanga, does this whakatauki refer to.  Kelly, quotes Best heavily throughout his book, and gives point of reference to Best's contention that Mahanga was the son of Taneatua.  He glazes over this by merely saying that it supports a contention that Mahanga was in Tuhoe for part of his life, when this might have been an opportune time to make the distinction of there being two Mahanga.

In the Moerangi Investigation of Title (Mercer MB 12 - 14) that was held in 1909, Tai Rakena said that the whakatauki was a Tuhoe whakatauki; and his tenor - was that it wasn't necessarily a whakatauki that was alluded to Mahanga, the son of Tuheitia; hence was could conclude, that the whakatauki could just as easy be about Mahanga, the son of Taneatua. In this instance, Lesley Kelly could have used this proverb to add detail to his somewhat short account of Mahanga, te tupuna o Ngati Mahanga, i roto  i Nga Iwi o Tainui Waka.