About Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki

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Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa. Aotearoa is the original name for New Zealand.

Māori are a tribal people that span the length and breadth of Aotearoa. Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki are one of these tribes based in Tāmaki Makaurau the Māori name for Auckland.

Ngāi Tai are made up of the people who had settled in Aotearoa hundreds of years ago and the subsequent inter-marriage to those who came from Hawaiiki during the great waka migration over 600 years ago. Ngāi Tai have a long, unbroken genealogy and occupation of their lands, waters and seas.

Rangitoto Island and Motutapu Island are ‘taonga’ or treasures to Ngāi Tai and have been for a very long time. Ngāi Tai are the ‘kaitiaki’ or ‘guardian caretakers’ of these islands and others where the preservation of endemic plant, wildlife species and the land is paramount. This is where our history resides, in the very earth we care for.

Ngāi Tai are a people unencumbered by any normal sense of boundaries. Where our vision was only limited by our imagination. It was the same vision, honed by thousands of years of exploration, facing the challenge of crossing the world’s greatest ocean for survival. These descendants of Maui today carry his DNA and values into the new world of Ngāi Tai, true inheritors and worthy recipients of a boundless legacy left by the ancients and their numerous descendants.

This is our tribe… This is our journey… This is Te Haerenga.