From Māui to the Foreshore and Seabed case, Ngāti Kuia tell their story from the tip of the canoe, Te Tauihu-o-Te-Waka-a-Māui.

Ngāti Kuia are tangata whenua of Te Tauihu-o-Te-Waka-a-Māui (the northern South Island). Descended from the ancestress Kuia, their whakapapa sits within a rich and complex Māori lineage, connecting with the stories held by neighbouring iwi – particularly the other Kurahaupō waka groups. Their networks also stretch towards the head of the country, linking to iwi originating from the East Coast of Te Ika-a-Māui (the North Island), such as Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu, Muaūpoko, and ultimately back to the Polynesian homelands, Hawaiki.

Drawing on hundreds of whakapapa, pūrākau, waiata and karakia recorded in nineteenth-century tribal manuscripts and court records, Madi Williams presents Ngāti Kuia history in Ngāti Kuia voices. From the stories of such tīpuna as Kaikaiāwaro and Hinepopo, through early encounters with neighbouring iwi and European settlers, to recent events such as the Treaty settlement process, this expansive account places Ngāti Kuia at the heart of the region’s living, layered history.

As Te Kenehi Teira observed during the Ngāti Kuia Treaty claim, the history of the iwi resembles ‘one huge jigsaw puzzle – you have to find all the pieces and put them together’. In this book, the pieces finally sit alongside one another.

Author

Dr Madi Williams (Ngāti Kuia, Ngāti Kōata, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Rangitāne o Wairau) is a senior lecturer at Aotahi – School of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha. She completed her doctorate on Ngāti Kuia in 2021 at the University of Canterbury and is the author of Polynesia, 900–1600: An Overview of the History of Aotearoa, Rēkohu, and Rapa Nui (Canterbury University Press, 2021). She is currently working on a book on taniwha with Dr Kirsty Dunn.

Endorsements

‘A counter-narrative in many ways, this work recentres Ngāti Kuia while pushing the genre of tribal history in new directions. Engaging with themes familiar to iwi across Aotearoa – land purchases, the Native Land Court, Treaty settlements and the treatment of Māori histories – it speaks directly to the issues that continue to occupy the minds of Māori historians.’

— Peter Meihana, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, Massey University