Mr Mapu Morehu, chairman of the Taheke Incorporation is drafting fat lambs. He takes a few minutes off to give his views on incorporations to Te Ao Hou. (PHOTOH 6ETER BLANC) and stocked each year. The long range purpose is to settle the owners in family groups when development is sufficiently advanced. The incorporation's policy will be not to allow settlement before all debt is repaid, the land is fully stocked and enough cash is available to give the new settlers a financial start. The chairmanship of Tautara Incorporation is the only formal position Major Vercoe now holds; the other incorporations now being on a sound footing and administered by his own people, he has left them to the younger generation to run. He also gave up the chairmanship of the Arawa Trust Board, content to play the role of the elder statesman in all tribal affairs.

FROM CRAYFISH TO WOOL The history of Lake Rotoiti goes back to Ihenga, one of whose dogs discovered the lake when chasing a kiwi, not long after the landing of the Arawa canoe. The dog dived into the water of the lake, ate some fish and freshwater crayfish, caught the kiwi and returned to its master carrying the kiwi in its mouth. Then it vomited up the raw fish and crayfish. Ihenga, led by the dog, then found the lake. Shoals of inanga were leaping on the water. Ihenga named the lake ‘Te roto iti kite a Ihenga,’ thus claiming it as a possession for his children. It is a long story, still known to the elders, from Ihenga to European times, and as the nineteenth century ended the shores of Lake Rotoiti were still covered with dense forest as in pre-pakeha days. A number of fine carved houses still surrounded the lake, one of them being the meeting house at Mourea belonging to Pokiha Taranui, Major Fox, one of the celebrities of the time. Much of the Maori land was leased and sold around the end of the nineteenth century, while the Ngati Pikiao's own farming was on a very limited scale. Generous haystack at Tautara, the latest of the Ngati Pikiao incorporations. (PHOTO: PETER BLANC)