Page image
English
Pukawa. December 5th. 1848. Friend, Mr. McLean, Will you not have some consideration or thought about the lands the natives are offering you. Let your consent be for the purchase of one place, and for the keeping of another. This is about Rangitikei. It is not respecting myself I speak. I live disinterestedly. But let Mokau be the place for you to think of. Neither the Governor or you should consent to the purchase of Rangitikei. Give it up, before we have confusion. This was my advice to Mokau, which has occasioned him to live peaceably. Be thoughtful. Do not hasten your desire for obtaining land near to Mokau. He is now lamenting his lands at Arapawa, at Mana, at Porirua, at Kapiti, at Waikanae. That is all he has. He had great possessions. Remember two lands have occasioned former strife - Port Nicholson, - but not so much Port Nicholson as the Hutt. These originated those quarrels, those two lands. The lands now enumerated have been given up. All the lands are given up as payment for Te Rauparaha. These are the lands for him to live on, Manawatu, and the Rangitikei; and yet those will be on lands given to you, to the Europeans, by the Maoris. Let this land alone for Mokau, unless our talk be wrong, unless mine is so, and the Whero Whero's, and the Governor's. Listen to the word. He, Rangitikei, is now lamenting his lands. There are only two places for him to reside on. And if these are striven for, he will rise again. That is what I am seeking after, or anxious about; and likewise a bad word from that tribe to myself. They said that the sand flies would bite me. At Wanganui another word has been said of me, that I was all flesh to the Whero Whero - a roostingpole, or perch, for Kakarikis, or parrots. These are the evils of those tribes. They do not think of us. They have not sent any payment for the land up here. Let the great talk of these people moderate; and let their words be easier. Do not listen to the Maoris, when they object to my words, and to Mokau's. It is not for these people to dispose of my lands. Originally the land was theirs. In these days it is Mokau's, and Te Rauparaha's land. This is his word If he lived on the sand, the water in the great sea, it would be their land. The Rangitikei river is mine from Tongariro to Waikato. I am going to be near European food and clothing. Do not cut me off. Let me be near to the Governor and the Europeans. This is all From (Signed) Te Heuheu Iwikau Ehoa. To:- Makarini.