Tamatea Arikinui

Tamatea Arikinui or Tamatea Mai-Tawhiti was a Māori ariki (chieftain), who captained the Tākitimu canoe on its journey from Hawaiki to New Zealand, where he settled at Tauranga and became the ancestor of the Ngāti Kahungunu iwi. J. H. Mitchell places Tamatea in the mid-fourteenth century. In Ngāti Kahungunu tradition, he is distinguished from his grandson Tamatea Urehaea who undertook extensive explorations of New Zealand. Northland and Tauranga traditions say that they were the same person.