page_title: Te Tatua-a-Riukiuta
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Te Tatua-a-Riukiuta / History
caption_attribution_description: English: "Panoramic view looking west showing Three Kings Road (later Mount Eden Road, foreground) and part of the Three Kings mountains" Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries. 4-4230.
context_page_description: Te Tātua-a-Riukiuta is a volcano in Three Kings, New Zealand that erupted 28,500 years ago. The volcano had three prominent peaks and a number of smaller peaks until most of them were quarried away, leaving a sole remaining large peak.
context_section_description: An earlier name for the volcano was Te Tatua o Mataaho (the war belt of Mataaho), which referred to a deity living in the Maungawhau crater. It was later adapted to Te Tātua-a-Riukiuta, which referred to Riukiuta, a senior priest of the Tainui waka who brought together diverse genealogical lines of the local tribes. The name Three Kings derives from the biblical Magi, and was named by Captain William Hobson's surveyor Felton Mathew in 1841. Big King refers to the second-highest (and only remaining) peak.
  Te Tātua-a-Riukiuta was once the site of a pā, and Big King has retained Māori earthworks from that era such as kumara pits and terracing.
  The area has been drastically quarried over the years for the red scoria it contains, and only one of the three large peaks (Big King) remains today, largely because of the water reservoir that was built on its summit at the beginning of the 20th century. The reservoir is below the hydraulic grade of the area and is hence maintained as an emergency supply reservoir only.
  However, the large scoria deposits in the surrounding area are still being quarried. The groundwater level became a problem for the quarry in 1995, and Winstone Aggregates, the company operating the quarry, arranged with the Auckland City Council to supply the water to the region. However, as a result of local opposition to this arrangement, the water is instead discarded into the sea. This dewatering has led to concerns about subsidence.
  In the 2014 Treaty of Waitangi settlement with Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau, a collective of 13 Auckland iwi, the volcano was officially named Te Tātua-a-Riukiuta and ownership was vested to the collective. It is now co-governed by the collective and Auckland Council in common benefit of the iwi "and all other people of Auckland".
caption: View looking west, made in 1920, showing Three Kings Road (later Mount Eden Road, foreground) and part of Te Tātua-a-Riukiuta: Highest King is in the background to the left, with East King to its right.
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