In Māori tradition

Maori mythology

Māori mythology and Māori traditions are the two major categories into which the legends of the Māori of New Zealand may usefully be divided...

, Waipapa was one of the great ocean-going, voyaging canoes

Maori migration canoes

Various Māori traditions recount how their ancestors set out from their homeland in great ocean-going canoes . Some of these traditions name a mythical homeland called Hawaiki....

 that was used in the migrations that settled New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. In the Māori traditions of Northland, the Waipapa is said to have landed in Doubtless Bay. The captain asked his crew to take tawapou

Pouteria costata

Pouteria costata is a small coastal tree native to the northern North Island and to Norfolk Island . In New Zealand, its common name is Tawapou ; on Norfolk Island it is called Bastard Ironwood. The name costata is from the Latin costatus , a reference to the prominently raised primary nerves of...

 log rollers off the canoe, which had been carried from Hawaiki

Hawaiki

In Māori mythology, Hawaiki is the homeland of the Māori, the original home of the Māori, before they travelled across the sea to New Zealand...

, and plant them on a the slopes of a nearby hill. From the rollers grew a grove of tawapou trees that today serve as a memorial of the arrival of the canoe.