Kahungunu

Kahungunu is presented in the sources as the son of Tamatea Urehaea (a Tākitimu/Tamatea lineage figure). He was born at Kaitaia and, after his father relocated, was raised at Mangatawa in Tauranga. After his birth Tamatea buried Kahungunu's umbilical cord with three whatu‑kura (sacred stones) as an iho‑whenua — a tangible link binding the child and his descendants to the land. Kahungunu later travelled widely, quarrelled with his older half‑brother Te Whaene, moved eastward along the coast, courted and married prominent women (notably Rongomai‑wahine), settled at Maunga‑a‑kāhia on the Māhia Peninsula, led taua (war‑parties), and fathered many descendants who became the lineages of Ngāti Kahungunu and connected groups. Episodes in the narratives (including the drowning of Tama‑taku‑tai in a capsized canoe and his courtship feats) are recounted as founding events that establish place‑names, kin ties, and rights to land and resources.

Accounts describe Kahungunu as a particularly large and physically strong man. The sources note feats that demonstrate his size and stamina — carrying and single‑handedly rolling very large bundles of fern root (aruhe) down cliffs to feed a village, repeatedly diving to gather pāua (abalone), and general prowess at labour and seamanship. No detailed descriptions of facial features, dress, or supernatural marks are given in the cited material.

The narratives attribute to Kahungunu wide practical skills and chiefly capacities rather than supernatural powers: village planning, farming and resource management (ahuwhenua), bird hunting, woodcarving, moko (tattooing), flax‑weaving, canoe‑making and navigation, fishing and shellfish gathering, leadership of war parties, negotiation and peacemaking, and socially significant courtship and gift exchanges (for example, demonstrations of provisioning such as the aruhe bundle and pāua collection). These activities are represented as both material accomplishments and actions that create genealogical and territorial claims for his descendants.