NATIVE LANDS COURT.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 293, 28 July 1875, Page 2

NATIVE LANDS COURT.

(Before Judge Rogan, and Assessors Honb Peeti and Wikibiwhi Te TuahV.) OKIRAU BLOCK. The investigation of title to this Block began on Monday last. This case has come before the Native Lauds Court on more than one occasion, when it was found necessary to adjourn the hearing. It was this block of land that was being adj udicated upon in the latter part of 1873, during the visit paid by Henare Matua and his henchmen, the proceedings of which culminated in a scene in the Court-house, not speedily to be forgotten by those who witnessed it, or saw the state of frenzy which the mobile vulgus assumed on that particular occasion. Rapata Whakapuhia claims through his ancestral descent from Te Awe Awe who, he alleges, inherited the land from Kaipoho, who was the original owner (names supplied). Mrs. Wyllie put in a list of the persons whose claim she admitted in conjunction with her own. My claim, she said, is principally through Tu Korero who was the wife of Kaipoho. A dispute arose concerning a fishing net which has been alluded to by other witnesses. The dispute resulted in Kaipoho making the land over in his wife’s favor. The area of the land thus given was very considerable about which quarrels frequently took place. Rapata Whakapuhia descends from a younger branch of the family. The several portions of land owned by the ancestors named in the hearing of this case, were divided off. The portion of land belonging to Te Awe Awe, the ancestor through whom Rapata claims, is within Major Westrup’s run, to which we have preferred no claim. Paora Kate, Tepora Waaka, Mere Mahanga., and Xhaka Ngarangioue, also gave evidence confirmatory of the above. Riparata Kahutia said she claimed through direct lineal descent from Kaipoho and Tukorero.