Māhanga was a Māori rangatira (chieftain) of the Tainui tribal confederation in the Waikato region of New Zealand, based at Kāniwhaniwha on the Waipā River, and an ancestor of the Ngāti Māhanga and Ngāti Tamainupō hapu. Bruce Briggs estimates that he lived around 1600.
Life
Māhanga was the son of Tūheitia, a famous warrior, based at Papa-o-rotu in Waikāretu, who was said to have never been attacked at home and was the author of the proverbial saying, "come to me, to the Papa-o-rotu, to the unstirred current, to the pillow that falls not, and the undisturbed sleep. Although I am small, I have teeth." Through Tūheitia, he was descended from Hoturoa, captain of the Tainui canoe.
Tūheitia had come into conflict with Kōkako, a chieftain from Marokopa on the west coast of the Waikato, after the latter led a raiding party down the Waikato River and into Manukau Harbour, where they seized the village of Āwhitu. After some fighting, Kōkako withdrew to Kāwhia, but he later returned to Āwhitu and, according to one account, he drowned Tūheitia there by means of a trick. Māhanga therefore inherited the conflict.
Wiremu Te Wheoro reports that Māhanga was known as "Māhanga who abandons food, who abandons canoes," because he was always moving around and never stayed in one place for long.
Settlement at Kāniwhaniwha
After some time, Māhanga moved south into the Waikato, settling where the Kāniwhaniwha stream meets the Waipā River, at a village called Kāniwhaniwha, Pūrākau, or Te Kaharoa.
There he had two daughters, Wai-tawake and Tū-kōtuku-rerenga-tahi (the latter at least the daughter of his wife Paratai). One day the two daughters caught sight of a stranger up a tree and invited him to come back to their village. The stranger was Tamainu-pō, an exile from Kāwhia and secretly the son of Kōkako. The two girls instantly vied with one another to marry Tamainu-pō, but Māhanga, impressed by the large haul of birds that Tamainu-pō had caught, which indicated the power of his karakia (magic spells), and the efficiency with which he distributed the birds to the people, decided in favour of Tū-kōtuku. According to Wiremu Te Wheoro, Wai-tawake angrily fled to the south and married a man of Maniapoto. Eventually, Māhanga divided his lands between the two daughters, giving the north to Tū-kōtuku and the south to Wai-tawake (a gender-flipped doublet of the story of Tāwhao and his sons Whatihua and Tūrongo) .
Battle of Kiri-parera
Sometime later, Kōkako came south with a war party and built a fortress at Kiri-parera, just downstream from Kāniwhaniwha. Therefore, Māhanga assembled his forces and called for his Toko-whitu ('Seven Champions') to leap over his back. None of them could, but Tamainu-pō was able to do it, a sign that he would defeat Kōkako.
When Māhanga's force approached Kiri-parera, they saw Kōkako's forces hiding ready for an ambush near the gateway. Taimainu-pō shouted for them to charge and then used the distraction to sneak over the palisade into the fortress and search for his father. He found him, took his cloak and patu but then let him go free.
After the battle, the Toko-whitu all presented severed heads, claiming that they had killed Kōkako, but they obviously looked nothing like him (Kōkako had distinctive light-coloured hair). Taimainu-pō also brought a head, taken from someone who looked similar to Kōkako, and together with the cloak and patu, this convinced Māhanga that Kōkako was dead.
Reconciliation with Kōkako
After Taimainu-pō's son was born, however, he wished for the baby to receive the tohi baptismal ritual from his grandfather, so he revealed his true parentage and the fact the Kōkako was still alive to Tū-kōtuku and Māhanga, who agreed to let them go to Kōkako, in the hope that Taimainu-pō would forge a peace between him and Kōkako. Then he placed Tamainu-pō, Tū-kōtuku, and the newborn under a tapu, telling them not to get out of their canoe or reply to calls from the banks of the river until they reached their destination. They paddled down the Waipā River and along the Waikato River until they reached Kōkako's new base on the island of Tai-pōuri near Rangiriri on the Waikato River (or Okarahea according to Mohi Te Rongomau). When they arrived, Kōkako agreed to performed the tohi ritual for both Tamainu-pō and his newborn son, whom he named Wairere, and he agreed to return to Kāniwhaniwha with Tamainu-pō and make peace with Māhanga.