Rongokako was a Māori ariki (chieftain) and tohunga (priest) of the Tākitimu tribal confederation and ancestor of the Ngāti Kahungunu iwi, who is famous for his giant leaps. He is said to have lived at the end of the fourteenth century, about eighteen generations before the mid-twentieth century. Several places along the east coast of the North Island are traditionally connected to him.

Whangara is a small community in the northeast of New Zealand's North Island, located between Gisborne and Tolaga Bay, five kilometres southwest of Gable End Foreland and two kilometres east of State Highway 35.