Ngāti Maru tradition says that Hotunui arrived in New Zealand on the Tainui canoe around 1300,[2] but Pei Te Hurinui Jones reports that he was the son of Uenuku-te-rangi-hōkā, son of Whatihua and thus a fifteen-generation descendant of the captain of Tainui canoe, Hoturoa.

Although Te Ngako was younger than his half-brothers, Hineurunga was the tuakana (eldest sister), which gave Te Ngako the mana of being tuakana to his older brothers.

[2] A Tainui account of Marutūāhu is recorded by Pei Te Hurinui Jones but, unusually, he does not report his source.

It also appears in S. Percy Smith's History and Traditions of the Maoris of the west coast North Island of New Zealand prior to 1840, published in 1910.

[5] Hauraki Ngāti Maru versions are recorded by George Grey in 1853 and by John White in 1888.