Exploring the legacy of Pukaki, the ancestral father of Ngati Whakaue, a hapu (sub-tribe) of Te Arawa of Rotorua, this text also relates the history of the carving of Pukaki that featured in the Te Maori exhibition, its origins, how it was acquired by the Crown and how Ngati Whakaue regained it from the Auckland Museum in 1997.