Ngā Tupuna/ the Ancestors

Ngāti Kuri are descended from the original inhabitants, the founding peoples of the northernmost peninsula of Aotearoa, in Te Hiku o Te Ika. These peoples, known also as Te Iwi o Te Ngaki, were already occupying Te Hiku o Te Ika before the arrival of the many migratory waka from Polynesia. Their ancestor was Ruatamore.

Ngāti Kuri also trace their whakapapa to the Kurahaupo waka which first made landfall in Ngāti Kuri’s rohe at Rangitahua, the Kermadec Islands.

The Ngāti Kuri ancestors of ancient times laid the foundation for Ngā Uri, their descendents, as expressed in the following whakatauki:

Ko takoto kē ngā kōrero a ngā mātua mo te whenua

The foundation of manawhenua was set by the ancestors of ancient times

These ancestral linkages affirm Ngāti Kuri as tangata whenua.

Te Whenua/ The Land

The mana and the rangatiratanga of Ngāti Kuri extends throughout its rohe over all the whenua and the adjacent moana. The Ngāti Kuri rohe is generally described as north of a line from Maunga Tohoroha (Mt Camel) in the east to Hukatere in the west and extending north-west to Motuapao, across to Te Rerenga Wairua and then east to Murimotu and including the islands of Manawatawhi (the Three Kings) and Rangitahua (the Keremadecs).