Tapu te Ranga Island

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Tapu te Ranga Island
Location: Offshore, Island Bay
Type of site: Island refuge and defence
Known iwi/Hapu connections: Ngäti Ira
Condition : Little remains.
Like that of the name Heretaunga, the name seems to have been borrowed from the Hawke Bay district (possibly by Ngäti Mamoe). Best writes that it is an ancient Hawaiki tapu house name. As shown by Best's map, this island was the site of a small pa following Te Atiawa's invasion of Te Whanganui a Tara. This was where Tamairangi, wife of Ngäti Ira chief Whanake, and her children sheltered in a stone-walled pa following a penultimate enslaught at Turakirae. When Ngäti Mutunga attacked the island the family was evacuated by waka to Mana where they were placed under Rangihaeata's protection. Burnt oven stones, a stone wall shell midden and a rua or store pit reported post-Ngäti Ira.

An Island Bay resident and amateur archaeologist, Beckett, reported in 1960 that:

The island is small and rocky with a small hill about sixty feet high near its centre. The hill was levelled near the top as if to form a lookout. The remains of four posts were seen. A small well of brackish water existed on the rocky flat south of the hill. In a shingle flat on the eastern side, several sunken hut sites could be seen, and the remains of a rubble wall could be traced at the foot of the high ground facing the bay. Here an adze of dark stone and part of a stone patu were found.
The island has considerable heritage value as a traditional refuge