NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume X, Issue 3644, 16 July 1873, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE.

We have received the fifth volume of the Transactions and Proceedings, which include the papers contributed at the various affiliated societies during the year 1872. It contains a great variety of information of oil kinds. Mr. Travers contributes a paper upou " The Life and Times of Te Kuuparahti," the famous Wellington chief, from which we take the following extract. It explains a good deal of the sources of Maori trouble. THE MAORI AND HIS UNO. " There is no point," says Mr. White, " on which a New Zealander's indignation oan be more effectually roused than by disputing his title to land. This love for his land is not, as many would suppose, the love of a child for his toys ; the title of a New Zealander to his land is connected with many and powerful associations in his mind. He is not, of course, what we call a civilized man, but in dealing with him wo deal with a man of powerful intellect, whose mind can think and reason as logically on any subject with which ho is acquainted, as his more favoured European brethren, and whose love for tho homes of liia fathers is associated with the deeds of their bravery, with the feats of his boyhood, and the long rest of his ancestors for generations. The New Zealander is not accustomed to law and parchment, or to wills and bequests, in gaining 'knowledge of or receiving a title to the lands of his fathers ; nor would he quietly allow any stranger to teach him what lands were his, or what lands were not; what were the names of the boundaries, the creeks, mountains, and rivers in his own district. The thousand names within the limilsofhis hereditary lands were his daily leason from childhood. The son of a chiof invariably attended his father, or his grandfather, in all hid fishing, trapping, or spearing excursions ; and it was in these that he learnt, by ocular demonstration, the exact boundaries of his lands, and especially heard their various names. It was a custom with the Maoris in ancient timen to eat the rat —a rat indigenous to this country, and caught in traps set on the tops of the mountain ranges. This was a source of part of their daily food, and it was therefore, with them, a point of great importance to occupy every available portion of their lands with the3o traps ; and as most of tho tribal boundaries are along the range of the highest hills or mountains, and as these were the common resort of tho rat, every Now Zealand chief soon naturally became acquainted with the exact boundary of his land claims. Ho did not, however, limit these claims to tho dry land—they extended to the shellfish, and oven out to sea, where he could fish for cod or shark, or throw his net for mackerel; nor did he go inadvertently to these places, and trust to chance for finding his fishing grounds—he hud land-marks, and each fishing-ground and landmark had its own peculiar name; these to him were more than household words ; his fathers had fished there, and he himself and his tribe alone knew these names and landmarks. Were a creek was the dividing boundary of his lands this was occupied by eel-dams. These dams wore not of wickerwork, that might be carried away by a Hood labour and art wore bestowed upon their construction, so that generations might pass, all of whom in turn might put their eel-basket j down by the carved and re-ochred totara post which their great grandfather had placed there. When the dividing boundary between two tribes ran along a valley, land-marks were put up ; these consisted generally of a pilo of stones or a hole dug in the ground, to which a name was given significant of the cause which gave rise to such boundrry being agreed to j suoh, for instance, as Te Taupaki the oume given to the dividing boundary on the West Coast between the Ngatiwhatua and Tainui tribes —which means the year of peace, >r the peaceful way in which a dispute is »djusted. This boundary had its origin from I chief of the called Poutapuaka, ;oing from Eaipara to take possession of land vith his paraoa, or bone spear. His intention ?7as to go along the coast as far as the quantity >f food which he carried would enable him to ;ravel, and return from the point at which his 'odd was expended ; he had succeeded in takng possession of the whole of tho line of sandy loast called Kangatira, and on arriving at the op of the hill, now known aB To Taupaki, he net the Tainui chief Haowhenua. They both lalted, [sticking their spears in the ground, nd inquiring of each other the object of their icing there. They found that they were both in the same errand, and at onGe agreed that his meeting point Bhould be the boundary lividing the lands of the tribes whereof each ras the representative. Tho Ngatiwhatua hief at once dug a hole with his bone spear, ,nd the boundary ao established has remained o this day. I may state," adds Mr. White,

" without fear of contradiction, that there ii not one inch of land in the New Zealand Islands which is not claimed by the Maoris, and [ I may also state that there is not a hill or valley, stream, river, or forest, which has not a name—the index of some point of the Maori history. As baß been stated above, the New Zealander knows with as much certainty the exact boundary of bis own land, as we could do frsm the distances and bearings given by a surveyor. But these boundaries aro liable to be altered at times; for instance, when lands are taken by a conquering tribe, or are given by a chief for assistance rendered to him by another tribe in time of war, or when land given to the female branch of a family again becomes, after a certain time, tho property of male branch of the family. In certain cases also lands are ceded by a tribe for a specific purpose, with certain restrictions, and a tenure conditional, on certain terms being complied with."