Ngāpuhi
Ngāpuhi (also known as Ngāpuhi-Nui-Tonu or Ngā Puhi) is a Māori iwi associated with the Northland regions of New Zealand centred in the Hokianga, the Bay of Islands, and Whangārei.[7] It also ensures the equitable distribution of benefits from the 1992 fisheries settlement[citation needed][8] with the government, and undertakes resource management and education initiatives.A common misconception is that the name Ngāpuhi comes from Puhi of the waka Mātaatua and maternal grandfather of Rāhiri, however there is little corroborating evidence for this claim.The more common version among other iwi is that Kupe was tasked with chasing down and killing Te Wheke-a-Muturangi, the giant pet octopus of Muturangi.He eventually followed the octopus to Aotearoa, where he cornered it and killed it in the Cook Strait, plucking out its eyes and throwing them, becoming Ngāwhatu (lit.[10] The common Ngāpuhi version, however, states that Kupe fled Hawaiki to escape retribution for attempted murder and adultery.When Kupe arrived back from his fishing trip, he told the people that Hoturapa had been lost at sea and drowned, and eventually went on to marry Kura.The presence of these influential Pākehā secured Ruatara's access to European plants, technology and knowledge, which he distributed to other Māori, thus increasing his mana.Armed with European firearms, Ngāpuhi, led by Hongi Hika, launched a series of expansionist campaigns, with resounding slaughters across Northland and in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty.Whilst the Bay of Islands and Hokianga was still nominally under British influence, the fact that the Government's flag was not re-erected was symbolically very significant.Such significance was not lost on Henry Williams, who, writing to E. G. Marsh on 28 May 1846, stated that "the flag-staff in the Bay is still prostrate, and the natives here rule.The Waitangi Tribunal in The Te Roroa Report 1992 (Wai 38) stated that "[a]fter the war in the north, government policy was to place a buffer zone of European settlement between Ngāpuhi and Auckland.This matched Ngati Whatua's desire to have more settlers and townships, a greater abundance of trade goods and protection from Ngāpuhi, their traditional foe.The restoration of the flagpole by Maihi Paraone Kawiti was a voluntary act on the part of the Ngāpuhi that had cut it down on 11 March 1845, and they would not allow any other to render any assistance in this work.[30] Amidst cultural and economic decline, the twentieth century saw a steady migration of Ngāpuhi Māori from Northland into other regions of the North Island, mainly Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty.Many of the arguments used were outlined in Paul Moon's 2002 book Te Ara Ki Te Tiriti: The Path to the Treaty of Waitangi, which argued that not only did the Māori signatories have no intention of transferring sovereignty, but that at the time the British government and James Busby did not wish to acquire it and that the developments and justifications leading to the present state were later developments.[34] A common Ngāpuhi interpretation of the Declaration of the United Tribes is that the British government was simply recognizing Māori independence and putting the world on check, merely re-asserting sovereignty that had existed from "time immemorial".