S. Percy Smith writes that "[i]n the early years of the Polynesian Society, the Arawa tribe set up a committee in order to assist us by compiling their tribal history. The following is the only paper received from them, for soon after they had made a commencement the leading man died, and his companions... ceased their labours from that time."
Biographical sources
- Te Whare-Auahi, Pango. "Te Hekenga A Kahu-Hunu/The Migration of Kahu-hunu." English trans. and notes S. Percy Smith. Journal of the Polynesian Society 14 (1905): 81.
Other
- "Te Hekenga A Kahu-Hunu/The Migration of Kahu-hunu." English trans. and notes S. Percy Smith. Journal of the Polynesian Society 14 (1905): 67-95.
- This lengthy account begins with Kahu-hunu’s migration from the Bay of Plenty down to the East Coast, after being offended by his elder brother, Whaene. Kahu-hunu’s various marriages are recorded, and then Pango recounts the fighting at Maunga-a-Kahia pa, the killing of Te Porangahau by Tu-Te-Ihonga in revenge for the murder of her first husband, Tu-pouri-ao, and tells of the killing of Tu-purupuru after he conspired to kill his twin cousins, Tara-ki-uta and Tara-ki-tai. This story concludes with an account of the migration of Rakai-Hiku-Roa from Turanga to the Hawkes Bay, after the death of his son Tu-purupuru. S. Percy Smith writes that it would have been ‘a pokanoa (unwarrantable proceeding) on [Pango Te Whare-Auahi’s] part to write any of the history of a different tribe to his own, were he not descended from some of those who took part in the migration related in the following pages. But to prove his right to do so, he furnishes in his MSS. many genealogical tables showing his descent from them’. Percy Smith adds that the author’s spelling of Ngāti Kahu-hunu is ‘a mere dialectical variation’ of the ‘more common cognomen’ Ngāti Kahungunu.