[2] According to Muriwhenua tradition, the great waka navigator Kupe discovered the region, mistaking Houhora mountain, north of Kaitaia, for a whale.

According to another, he landed in Hokianga Harbour, and on his return to Hawaiki, created waves which reached the coast of Ninety Mile Beach.

He instructed his people to place dummy warriors, made out of bulrushes, around the pallisades of their pā (fortification), fix a long flax rope to a rock on the mainland, and use it to escape.

The kūaka (bar-tailed godwit) is the symbol of the tribes; their annual migration from the Muriwhenua harbours represents the successful escape.

[2] In 1840, 61 chiefs from Muriwhenua signed the Māori language version of the Treaty of Waitangi, in the hopes it would protect their lands from colonisation.