Enoka te Pōtae-aute signed the East Coast sheet of the Treaty of Waitangi on 9 June 1840 at Tokomaru Bay. He was a rangatira (chief) of the Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare and Te Whānau-a-Te-Poriro hapū (subtribes) of Ngāti Porou. His wife was Makere Te Materonea, an important woman in Te Aitanga a Hauiti. Her mother was Te Rangipaia, who died with her husband during the Ngāpuhi raids of the 1820s.
Enoka was the father of Arapeta, Tama Whakanehua and Hēnare Pōtae. One source states that Tama Whakanehua was Enoka’s brother and therefore Hēnare’s uncle. [1] When Tama Whakanehua, also known as Tamati Waka, died in 1854, Hēnare Pōtae took over as the head rangatira. They lived at Māwhai pā (fortified village) in Tokomaru Bay.
Enoka died in 1852 and was buried in the Tuatini cemetery.
[1] ‘Henare Potae: Materials for a biography’, R. de Z Hall, Gisborne Museum