E—No. 7

LECTURES ON knowledge, and as the " tohunga" guides by his intimacy with the gods, so there is a proper province for the " rangatira." When any meeting takes place of the people, when a war dance is to be enacted, or any minor point of dispute arises in the tribe, —the matter is arranged by the "rangatira," so far as to see that order is kept; as, for instance, that the men in the war dance are all " kapa tonu" or in regular lines, and that in a dispute a fair hearing is given to each party. To shew what tribal rights are, we must still have recourse to the past history of the Maori prior to his migrating to these islands. The Maories who cane, although related, were not of one " hapu" or family, but were even some time previous to leaving Hawaiki members of different " hapus," quarrels between which were the cause of their migrating. But in Hawaiki each tribe or " hapu" was called a "kahui," aud not, as in the present day, by the name of the chief who was the leader of a family when it separated from the main tribe or " iwi." As each " waka," canoe, or the people who came together, for some time after they landed maintained their unity as a people, they were called an " iwi." The term " iwi," therefore, means the descendants of those meti who came over in one canoe, and in many cases the name of the " iwi" has merged in the name of the canoe in which their ancestors came ; as, for instance, the Rotorua. tribes are called " Arawa," the Ngapuhi " Mamari," and so on. In my former lecture I stated the boundaries of the lands taken and claimed by each one of the migtations which came to these islands, and I also gave many of their customs relative to their numerous claims to land : it therefore now remains to shew the origin of the " iwi" being sub-divided into " hapus." In order to be enabled to point out clearly tribal right and "mana" of chiefs I must again revert to the land taken by the Maori on his first arriving here, and as an illustration I will take two districts, Arawa and Tainui. The Arawa district remains, as a whole, in the hands of the offspring of the same men who came in the Arawa canoe. The migration, very shortly after they arrived, dispersed over their large territory and divided into separate hapus (or families, as the word implies), and in course of time each of these hapus have taken the rank of iwi, and act independently of any other, as though it had been of a distinct migration. Each of these is again subdivided into many hapus, the aggregate body still keeping the whole of the district formerly taken by the Arawa. But not so the Tainui district. As I have spoken of the Arawa as an unbroken district, I will for contrast take the other extreme, that of the Tainui, which district, originally of large extent, is now so curtailed that the only portion now left to the Iwi of Tainui is a small portion of it; at Whaingaroa. As I shall have to speak of all the migrations, I will at one; give a general outline of the different migrations or iwis, in reference to their present tribal rights or mana over that district which their respective .migrations took on their arrival here. The Ngapuhi have now more land as an iwi than the district taken by the migration of Mamari. So have the adjoining Iwi, the Ngatiwhatua. The Tainui' have lost all their territory save a small portion. The migration by the Aotea have but a small portion of their ancient district. The adjoining migration of Tokotnaru have lost a portion of their ancient district. The old occupants of the south island have become a mere name on the land of their fathers. The Takitumu still hold all their land. The Matatua, who took part of the Arawa district, have but part of the land first taken by them. The Ruikakara and Wakatuwhenua have lost their name as a migration in the Ngapuhi iwi, and the Mahuhu have lost their claim to the land at the North Cape. Intermarriage has caused the loss of land to the original owners more than conquest. As more disputes on this point are caused than any other, I will at once enter on the tribal rights which arise from it. I stated in my former lecture that it was thought a point of material importance that females given in marriage ought, if possible, to induce the husband to join her tribe so as to add to the force of her people; hence portions of land are claimed by certain tribes who reside in and claim part of a migration district, but who do not own any right of mana to be exercised by the offspring of the original migrators in whose district they are thus located. I will instance some of these claims in each migration, and, for the sake of clearness, I will take the migrations consecutively, from the North Cape along the West coast and round by the East coast. There is not an instance of this sort in the Mamari migration, but there are other claims (dissimilar in origin, though in effect the same) which I will presently refer to; anu similar claims also exist in the next migration district, that of Mahuhu. In the adjoining migration of Tainui, there are many of the class of which I first spoke. In the Kawerau, for instance, which tribe had their origin from a chief of the Aotea and Ngatiawa migration of the name of Maki marrying a Tainui woman, he became the avenger of the Tainui wrongs, and after some time the bead of a hapu which now forms a distinct people, acting without any reference to the chiefs of hapus in the Tainui or Mahuhu migrations by which they are surrounded. The tribal rights of this little hapu, which does not number in all 50 men women and children, are not few or of minor importance to them. In the produce of the land and sea they do not pay tribute to any chief, nor could they be commanded by any adjoining tribe or hapu to assist in any act whatever, nor could a chief go to any of their fishing grounds without their express permission. In the wars of past times they bore the brunt of battle by themselves. In an attack made on them about 45 years since by a Ngapuhi chief named Te Kahakaha, they did not ask the aid of any other tribe and, although they were beaten they neither fled from their own land, nor did they ask revenue to be taken for them by the powerful tribes of Waikato. Again, in a war anterior to the one I have just mentioned, they were so determined to hold the land of their fathers, that although few in number and unable to meet their enemy (Ngapuhi) in open fight, they built a pa on long posts in the midst of a deep swamp, and there defied the attacks of their more numerous foes; this was not done so much to baffle their enemy as to keep the mana of their land,