E—No. 7

Arawa and Tainui; the former was commanded by Tamate Kapua and other chiefs, and first touched land at Whangaparaoa, a headland near the East Cape ; it then coasted along touching at various points where the chiefs gave names to the prominent land-marks, their principal object in doing so being to take possession of the land, which they did as far as Cape Colville, where Tama Te Kapua died and was buried; his people then placed themselves under the guidance of Ngatoroirangi and returned to Maßetu; in the mean time, the chiefs Ruauru and Toroa, in the canoe Matatua, had landed at Whakatane, and therefore part of Te Arawa district was taken by them from Te Awa-o-te-atua to Whangaparaoa. Shortly after which, the father-in-law of Ngatoroirangi discovered the Rotorua lakes ; to his surprise he found people there whose ri»ht to the lakes he disputed, and after a great deal o( argument, he succeeded in taking p-.ssession of the lakes and the surrounding country. The Tainui, commanded by Huturoa, came along fro n Whangaparaoa to Cape Colville, and came up the Tamaki river, taking possession of the district from Cape Colville to M&ngawai on the East, and on the West from Manukau to Wiiainijaroa. The next canoes of the migration were the Ngapuhi canoes Mamari, Riukakara, and Mahuhu; the former of these went into the Hokianga river, and the people in it took possession of the land as far South of that river as Maunganui, aud to the North as far as Ahipara ; the Riukakara migration went into Whangaroa, and took possession of the land as far North as Mangonui, and as far South as the Bay of Islands; Mahuhu, the Ngatiwhatua canoe, touched at the North Cape and took possession of the land not taken by the two former migrations, viz. from Mangonui along the East coast to the North Cape, and on the West coast to Ahipara; this migration left a number of their party at the North Cape, and the remainder came on to Kaipara and took possesssion of the land from Kaipara to Maunganui, on the North, and on the South to Te Taupaki. There was also, as before stated, another migration of Natives who landed at Te Waka Tuwhenua (Gape Rodney), a little to the South of Whangarei, and took possession of the land between Whangaparoa and the Bay of Islands. The canoe contained a person who had the leprosy, from whom the major part of the migration caught the disease ; leprosy is called by the Maories tuwhenua, hence the name of the canoe " Waka Tuwhenua," (the canoe of the leper), and also the point J,t which the party landed. Being thus afflicted, they fell into disorganisation, and those who were not cut off by the leprosy became amalgamated with the adjoining tribes or migrations, and part of their land was taken by the Tainui people as far as Whangarei ; the Mamari (Ngapuhi people), took the residue from the Bay of Islands to Whangarei. The chief Manaia in the canoe Tokomaru, took possession of the Taranaki district, which had been claimed by Turi, as I have before mentioned. The ancestor of the Ngatiawa tribe, the most unsettled of all the migrations (as I shall presently shew), arrived in New Zealand in the Tokomaru. The canoe Kurahaupo, commanded by Ruatea, landed near the East Cape, taking possession of the land from the point already taken by the Arawa, round to Port Nicholson. The canoe Takituma (or as it was sometimes called for its fast sailing " Horouta,") commanded by Tata, first landed at Turanga, but proceeding Southward it crossed Cook's Straits,- and its crew took possession of the whole of the Middle Island. There are many other canoes with each of which are connected distinct migrations to New Zealand, but as these migrations will have to be mentioned when I speak of the customs or laws relative to the ownership of land, I would only here remark that those which I have already named shew that all the land in the No.'th and Middle Islands were taken possession of immediately on the arrival of the canoes. It was not in these Islands that the Maori became aware of the value of land, or that he first became owner of landed property, as the tradition of the occurrences which caused the migrations shows; the Takitumu people, for instance, left Hawaiki on account of a quarrel about land. The boundaries of the districts claimed by right of discovery, as mentioned in the hasty sketch above given, did not long remain in that condition. Some time after the Arawa and Tainui migrations had settled in their own districts, a chief named Raumati, of the Tainui people, went over-land to the Bay of Plenty and burnt the canoe Te Arawa ; this was the cause of the first Maori war in New Zealand, which war resulted in the Arawa people gaining part of the Tainui lands. I will now proceed to give the customs or laws by which a New Zealander held his land by right of birth. A Maori invariably grounded his claim on the right of his grandfather or grandmother, and not of his father, mother, brother, or any other immediate kindred. Although he had no written records to guide him in his knowledge of his ancestors and their claims, he was, nevertheless, carefully taught by his father or grandfather the history of his progenitors, and as I have before stated, was often taken to the boundaries of his hereditary claims; so that, with a memory singularly retentive, he can not only recount the traditions of his ancestors for ten or twelve generations, but even of each branch of every family or offshoot. It is mainly on his knowledge of these that a Maori depends tor proving his title, so that in an assembly of chiefs discussing a disputed question about land, the wars that may have occurred in the tribes, their origin, and the names of (the chief men who took part in them for hundreds of years, are narrated in support of either side of the argument. As a rule, a Maori chief does not make a will, yet there have been instances in which a chief on his death-bed has portioned out his land to each of his children. The sons' claims .in all instances are derived from their grandfather: the eldest son of the senior branch in the male line is chief of the tribe, and exercises sole authority over the land as guardian for his people against the encroachments of other tribes; yet all the descendants from the i male branch of the family have an equal right in the lands of their progenitors, no matter how distant the relationship. They all, so long as they can trace their origin up to the same progenitor (provided a family war has not intervened, and thereby divided the tribe) claim equal, right to the lands owned by that progenitor, This custom is a law amongst the Natives; but the title in the female line does not expand to such an extent. The grand-daughter of a chief has an equal claim in the lands of her grand-father, with that of her male cousins, and the claim continues good to her grand-child; but on the death of that