Rakahanga was first inhabited about 1350 AD. According to oral histories, the original population descended from just two people. Toa was a defeated warrior banished from Rarotonga, and his wife Tapairu was either the sister or the daughter of a Rarotongan chief. She may have been the one with the navigational skills to locate the tiny atoll, which some accounts claim was discovered by her brother Huku. The couple settled on the motu of Te Kainga, near the south west entrance to the lagoon.