Te Ata-inutai

Te Ata-inutai was a Māori rangatira (chieftain) of the Ngāti Raukawa iwi in the Tainui tribal confederation based at Whare-puhunga in the Waikato region of New Zealand.

[10] Waikari's head was taken by the Ngāti Raukawa and was placed in the waters of Kāwā, near Mount Kakepuku to function as a mauri tuna (a talisman for attracting eels).

[4] In Hoeta Te Hata's account, however, the rituals were carried out by a nameless tohunga (priest), Waitapu came home already pregnant, and Te Ata-inutai planned to kill his grandchild if it proved to be male, but Waitapu covered the baby's front and tricked him into believing that she had given birth to another daughter.

On his way home, however, Te Ata-inutai was ambushed and killed at Waipapa, below the Pou-a-kani cliff by a war party of Ngāti Tūwharetoa led by a rangatira called Kewha (according to Pei Te Hurinui Jones), in revenge for the earlier deaths of Hine-te-ao and Waikari.

[14] Te Ata-inutai's head was taken to Maungawharau in the Kaimanawa Range where it was placed on a tree as a bird talisman for kākāpō.

[16] The earliest published account of Te Ata-inutai's life is included in a 1904 article by Walter Edward Gudgeon, with no indication of the sources on which it is based.

[19] F. L. Phillips gives an account in his 1989 book on Tainui historical geography, which he heard from Kahu Te Kuru of Ngāti Manunui.