Abstract
The study of hapū formation is an excellent place to begin, in order to understand the dynamic nature of Māori society. Hapū, or clans, are a group of inter-related whānau, joined together by a streamline of whakapapa and distinguished rangatira. The hapū begins first as an imagined political community, conceptualised in the minds of people, both members and non-members. In former times, changing circumstances sometimes led to a rivalry for mana causing disparate groups within a hapū to ramify, or regenerate, under emerging leaders and new identities. This dissertation is a study of hapū formation. It first looks at this phenomenon in pre-contact Māori society, then the changes that came about due to colonisation. This study concludes with the history of the formation of Ngāti Pikiahu Waewae, of Tokorangi in the Rangitīkei area, a dual hapū representative of Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Tūwharetoa, which emerged as a single entity in 1840. At the request of Te Heuheu Tūkino II (Mananui), Ngāti Pikiahu and Ngāti Waewae migrated to the Rangitīkei area to halt Crown land sales. Though they shared mutual relationships prior, their imagined existence as a unified hapū was initiated by their migration; and over time Ngāti Pikiahu Waewae emerged as a single body.