NATIVE LANDS COURT, CAMBRIDGE. Yesterday. —(Before His Honor Judge Williams.)

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1622, 25 November 1882, Page 2

NATIVE LANDS COURT, CAMBRIDGE. Yesterday. —(Before His Honor Judge Williams.)

Judgment in the Waotu North Block (14,000 acres). TitK Court met at 10 o'clock. His Honor gave judgment in the Waotu case, as follows :— The Court has accorded a very patient, protracted, and (as it appears to us) exhaustive hearing to the evidence adduced, in this case, and has arrived without much difficulty at the conclusion that the several - couuter claimants — all moie or less opposing one another, and agieeing only in their opposition to the claimant. Arekatera — have failed, to any material extent, to shake his position as a principal owner. The question before the Court divides itself naturally into two parts ; (</.) the Hue of demarcation between the northern and southern portions of the block called Waotu, and (//.) the ownership of the northern portion of it, which is at present the subject of enquiry. (A.) In reference to the first part it is conceded by all parties that there was a line crossing the blocks from east to west, and most of them admit that two brothers, Hae and Kapu, agreed upon this partition of their ancestral lands — then known (as now) by the name of Waotu— but comprising a much larger area than that to which tins name is at present restricted. This they did to all appeal ance amicably, and not ni consequence of any quarrel. Their line it is conceded on all sides staited from a totara tree on the left bank of the Waikato, and the great preponderance of evidence is in favour of the lino marked upon the plan in reel— the eastern termination of which on the Warovaka creek is fixed by a well-known ford, and artificially marked at a later period, when disputes a3 to its locality had arisen, by an upright stone called Te Rapeo Huia. The Court has no doubt in accepting this line as correct, and in endorsing it. (11.) As regards the proprietary of the land north of this divisional line, all the parties claim to be descended from one or other of the five conqueror chiefs sons or grandsons of Rauhawa, who exterminated the prior residents, and then left the countiy— to be afterwards occupied by their descendants of the first and second generations. It is evidently impossible to fix with great precision the limits of lands thus occupied by the various North Raakawa hapus at the beginning of the present century, nor does it much concern us to do so. It is plain that in or about the year 1828, the North Raukawa— an inland tribe, who had not yet procured firearms from European traders — were, hopelessly defeated by the North Mara— who had the supreme advantage over them on fcbe one &ide, .and hard pressed by their powerful Waikato neighbours on the other, and were reduced to such a desperate position as led the present majoiity of the tiibe to abandon the district altogether, and seek for a new settlement elsewhere. — With these the Court is not now called upon to deal. A. definite p rinciple has been laid doM n in reference to such a case, which lias governed all the decisions of the Court from the commencement, viz : — That those who abandoned the land in trouble are disclaimed by it in peace. Some families, however, belonging to different hapus clung to their ancestral home, living on or near these lands, often hiding, often taking refuge with neighbouring tribes on whom they have claims by intermarriage ; nevci quite losing heart, ami occasionally fighting vith more or less success against the Waik.itob, who had now (1S30) themselves driven back the Ngatimaru, and claimed in consequence a kind of right ever the district. No attempt at settlement, however, appears at any time to have been made by Waikato ; for the mere placing of herds of pigs upon the land, though done as an assoition of ownership, \\ as never followed up by any steps in that direction. The battle Of Matamata appears to have thrown such an advantage into the hands of the remaining Ngatiraukawa aud their Arawa allies as enabled them to treat for peace under favourable conditions, and a general pacification ensued. Soon aftei this the scattered parties of the Ngatiraukawa began to leturn to their lands ; the Waikato appearing (if the evidence adduced is reliable) to have formally abandoned any pretensions whatever over them. These several parties are the present claimants and counter claimants. To take them in detail, we will commence with those who allege the smallest claims. This course, as it chances, will nearly reverse the order in which they appear before the Court. (1). Hoera Tawa lnrahi and the Ngatitukorehe claim a small portion — some fifty acres —as theiis by gift. The evidence adduced, however, does not at the outside go beyond a permission to occupy this spot for a time, until they should be able to return to their proper lands at Tapapa and Tikau. This claim palpably fails, and must be at once dismissed. (2.) Parete te Riritukn for the Ngatilnu'u givestlie boundary of Hue aud Kapu, claiming for himself the land in the north western angle, far to the north of the line shown on the plan of green. But l'areto himself, when questioned by the court, though alleging an " ancestral line" sO palpably contradicted that very allegation by the vagueness of his statement, ignoiant at what point on the Waikato river his line commenced, aud at what poiut it struck the Huiluutaha stream, as to convince us that his claim has really no foundation. It thereand must also be dismissed. (3.)Makuini Whakarehu, for herself and the Ngatipauira may possibly establish a good claim uponsomepart of the Waotu Block, but the weizht oi evidence is distinctly against the location of that claim within the northern division of it. (4.) Rutene te Uwanga, and the Ngatihurikapu are in the same position as the last mentioned. They claim from the bonndary southward, anda'rp, therefore, pushed south by the fixing of that boundary to the position of the red line. These two claims must, therefore, both be dismissed. (5). We have now the claimsof Ngatinuitu, as represented byAperahawn Rangitutia, and those of Ngatimaihi and Ngatihuia remaining. The evidence of Arakatera is (with respect to these last two) conclusive that Ngatihuia and Ngatimaihi are only one tribe, and that the difference between 'them in the present case was caused by personal quarrel only. They mitst be taken to be as he has stated, one ; and to have equal rights in the land, -which they ,had never really abandoned, and which they openly , re-cLumed ' as , stoon as it j<y£s practicable for them to do so. But these both descend from iViailu, , aud, ,*w hate ver rightsMailii had; she same tvested up to i certain point of time in his -brother, Mutu,: lalao, . though <it t t h i)ioi>iiPQ , certai n thjf t ' t these i^lits tW.erejtra^MifciKjd equally nitf 1 1mpaired, f s to wthe^de^jfekn^-'jof bppli brotheiS'.' „t.he' ,«u uirdei^t ofrftne^ohe^afrU <-t^^.e^ile,<iifet|<^iobhoi,<.,«^efij tOilnVii for a

Heaheua n the sofyof Mufti,, seomj to have been far' less firmly established-^ Personal character may. have had much to do with this/ of >6the^ circumstances now forgotten. Still the fact appears unques« tionable. While admittiug therefore that Mutu" had a /right ,on ,Te Waotu Novthj it does not appear to be a right equal in value to that of Huia and Waihi. The claimant, Arakatera in persbn, lias so plaiiily established his own position by residence and occupation, without any serious opposition . subsequent to the year 1873, by .unquestioned birth from parents who never migrated to Cook's Strait during the war that terminated after the r .battle v of Matamata, and liy* the 'deliberate decision of independent arbitrators chosen by the litigants themselves^ that w,e must admit that position to be unassailable. Waihi Te Ngaru, also, has certainly proved his right, and but for personal differences between them, would never have been objected to by Arakatera. To these two, therefore, and to those whom they admit along with them, being descendants of such as did not emigrate to Kapiti before the general pacification, we award the chief interest in the block called Waotu North, containing 'about 14,000 acres, and we define to each of these equal shares therein. Further, to Aperahama Rangitutia, and the Ngatimutu we award an interest equal in amouut to one-half of either of the others : that is to say : — To Arakatera and the Nyatihuia, two-fifths ; to Maihi te Ngaru artel theNgatimaihi, twofifths; and to Rangifcntia and the Ngatimutu, one-fifth. We direct that each of these claimants shall bring before the Court a list of those whom they find entitled to share with them, strictly observing the proviso mentioned in respect to those who forfeited their rights at the time of the migration.

Adjournment. A rakatera applied to have the Court adjourned on the 20th December till the Bth January, so as to enable the naUxes to meet Tawhiao at Aotearoa on the 2!Wh December.