Tai-te-ariki was begotten by the navigator Iro-nui-ma-oata. When Tangiia, fleeing from Tutapu, met Iro upon the ocean, he begged the boy of his father as a chief for himself and a head for the whole of his people; Iro granted the request, and Tangiia received the child and gave him the new name Te Ariki-upoko-tini, the ariki of countless heads. Installed as ariki when Tangiia's people settled Rarotonga, he stands at the beginning of the consecrated high chieftainship of the Takitumu side of the island, and Rarotongan genealogical tradition carries the ariki succession of Tangiia's people onward from his installation.