From the very earliest days, the shores of Whangarei Harbour and its environs were rich in everything that made it desirable as a place to live to the Maori. Tangaroa had filled the sea with fish and shellfish with a lavish hand. Tane's forests were full of good timber while feeding in the treetops were fat kukupa and tui. It was indeed a land of plenty.
When Tahuhu, who came to Aotearoa in the canoe Moekakaroa, arrived in about the year 1350 he was immediately drawn to this place, and said to his men, "Tena le koha O Tangaroa me Tane, hoki" - behold the gifts of Tangaroa and Tane.
He and his people landed just south of Bream Bay at a place he called Te Arai because he built a temporary shelter there. To safeguard his people against the makutu of the tangata whenua, Tahuhu also set up a tuahu, which was a stone altar that stood a few feet high in a perpendicular position.
Most tribes had a tuahu at which many rites were carried out by their tohunga - ceremonies for christening, for childbirth, planting and harvesting of kumara, special fishing expeditions. In fact, for anything of importance to the tribe.
After living at Te Arai for some years Tahuhu was filled with a desire to explore the country further south so he called his people together and said, "Listen, 0 my people, a great desire to visit the lands further south fills my every thought and makes me as restless as a fantail. Day and night I am consumed with a curiosity to know about the lands further south. Come, let us make preparations for the journey."
So Tahuhu and his tribe journeyed to the Auckland isthmus until they found a spot that pleased him so much that he decided to live there. He set his men to work to build a kainga where he and his people could live. He called the place after himself, 0-tahuhu as it is known to this day. Many of his tribe married into the Wai-ohua, the local people and lived there in prosperity.
As the tribe expanded, they laid claim to more land, and then inevitably there were quarrels with the neighbouring peoples of west Tamaki. This made the Ngati Tahuhu unpopular and it is said that Tahuhu died because a curse was put on him by an enemy tohunga. On his death some of his people took his body back to be buried at Te Arai, his original home in Aotearoa.
Some of the Ngati Tahuhu stayed behind at Otahuhu but those who came north with their chiefs body rebuilt their kainga at Te Arai. Gradually some members of the tribe spread from Te Arai to the shores of the Whangarei Harbour while others went as far inland as Mangakahia Valley.
Referenced from Florence Keene's Tai Tokerau, Northland Room, Whangarei Library