Another Version: Rakataura the Explorer

That story of the naming of Te Aroha is the Arawa tribe's version. The Tainui canoe crew's descendants, the Ngati-Maniapoto and allied tribes, have a different narrative, attributing the name-giving to Rakataura, the priest of Tainui, six centuries ago. Rakataura, when his people had settled at Kawhia after their voyage across the Pacific from Tahiti, explored the great expanse of the interior now known as the King Country, from the West Coast to Lake Taupo. He lived at various places with his family and he then went on eastward to the great range that extended like a wall beyond the plains.

He ascended the loftiest peaks of this range to survey the surrounding country, and as he stood on the heights he chanted songs of affection and sorrow for his distant kinsfolk, and he named the inland-looking peak Te Aroha-i-uta, and the other Te Aroha-i-tai-the names which the Arawa attribute to Kahu-mata-monioe. If this story is correct, then Rakataura of Tainui would seem to have prior claim to the fame of the name-giving.