Ngāti Porou is a Māori iwi traditionally located in the East Cape and Gisborne regions of the North Island of New Zealand.

[1] The traditional rohe or tribal area of Ngāti Porou extends from Pōtikirua and Lottin Point in the north to Te Toka-a-Taiau (a rock that used to sit in the mouth of Gisborne harbour) in the south.

[7] He was a direct descendant of Toi-kai-rākau, Māui (accredited in oral tradition with raising the North Island from the sea), and Paikea the whale rider.

[10] A final defeat at the hands of Ngāpuhi took place in 1823, when a preemptive attack by a large army of Ngāti Porou warriors on Pōmare’s trespassing forces in Te Araroa was cut down in open field by musket fire.

The rangatira Taotaoriri was then able to negotiate a favorable peace between the two iwi, a deal sealed by his marriage to the Ngāti Porou noblewoman Hikupoto and the return of Rangi-i-paea, who had been abducted and married to Pōmare in a previous raid.

[11] This peace was to have important religious consequences, as a number of Ngāti Porou rangatira freed by Ngāpuhi in later negotiations would go on to spread the Christianity they had adopted from European missionaries during the course of their captivity.

[14] A second 1832 raid, this time against Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, did not meet with the same success, as the defenders of Wharekura pā rebuffed the attackers and slew two Ngāti Porou rangatira.

[15] Two years later, a retaliatory raid by Te Whānau-ā-Apanui was in turn rebuffed by forces under the rangatira Kakatarau, whose father Pakura was killed at Wharekura.

After six months of siege and heavy fighting, including the defeat of numerous sorties and the routing of a relief force of fourteen hundred warriors from Whakatōhea, Ngāi Tai, and Ngāti Awa, the attackers eventually proved unable to seize the pā and returned home.

[4][5] After World War II, large numbers of Ngāti Porou began emigrating from traditional tribal lands and moving into larger urban areas, in a trend reflected throughout New Zealand.