FURTHER PAPERS EEL ATI YE TO

E—No. 2

10

1800, which everybody has lieavd : "Teira's title to that piece of land has been fully investigated. It is quite correct. Bo one can invalidate his title." True. He has a title, that is to say, to his own cultivations within that block—two or three subdivisions. So also have we a title, as well as those who were driven oft' that block of iand, each man having two subdivisions, or one, or three, or four, within the block. This also is Wiremu Kingi's expression which the Land Commissioner of Taranaki perverted: " Wiremu Kingi admitted that that land belonged to Tcira only." It was his strong desire to get hold of the land, and his ignorance of the Maori language, that made him pervert that expression of Wiremu Kingi's. Oar opinion of this statement of Mr. C. W. Richmond's is, that the side of Tcira and his party only was investigated, and what they had to say listened to by those land purchasers of Taranaki, who crossed over to Arapawa to prosecute the inquiry. The side of Wiremu Kingi's party was not investigated, nor were their statements listened to. As we learn from Wiremu Kingi's letter, which says : " One thing that he said was, that they (the I'akehas) will not listen to my words.' . This was said to him by the Land Commissioner of Taranaki (I have that letter by me.) However, I did not believe all that he wrote to us in that year, for I thought that the Government would not go so far as that. Moreover, they never came to us to inquire. If they had inquired of all parties; if they had heard their statements, continuing the inquiry till they came to us, they would have found out the fault in the statement ofTeira'a party. Why! their pieces of land lie dotted about among the pieces of all those persons who dissented from the sale, and among ours also who live here. This is what Wiremu Kingi says in his letter: " The error of all the Pakehas, of i'arris, of Whiteley, of the Governor. They say that to Teira alone belongs his piece of land. No, it belongs to us all. That piece of land belongs to the orphan, it belongs to the widow." (His letter is here with us.) If they had done so, the Governor's Land Commissioners at Taranaki would not have falsely told him that they had inquired, and that it was quite correct that that land belonged to Tcira only. We have heard that there are full 600 acres of the land which belong? to Teira and his companions. We concluded that it could not be that land at Waitara, but that it must have been a piece of land lately discovered by Teira and his companions, it was so very large. The reason why Wiremu Kingi and his patty made so much objection when Teira began to propose that that place should be so d to the Governor, was the fear lest their land and oars should be all taken together as belonging to Teira. And it happened just as they feared. We have heard by letter from Wiremu Kingi of what the Land Commissioner of Taranaki said, which was as follows : " Their rule now is, that though it bo but one man who offers the land, the Pakehas will be quite willing to hoy " (His lelter lies here.) Now we do not admit the correctness of ihese words which we have heard, that the land belonged to Teira, that that land belonged to his hapus, namely, Ngutihinga and Ngatituaho, and that they gave Wiremu Kingi leave to settle on that piece of land when he came from Waikanae, and that he then for the first time settled there, ''that Wiremu Kingi's interference was unwarranted, and that the land did not belong to him, and that he had no right to say what he did." Listen. The Pakehas only and Maories of other tribes of this island will consider this assertion as correct. But as for us of the Nyatiawa tribe, who live here at Waikanae, and as far as Wellington, and across the Straits to some who live at Arapawa and as far as Taitapu, we will never admit i:s truth, nor will we condemn Wiremu Kingi as interfering unwarrantably. The only persons of Ngatiawa ssho will justify Teira and condemn Wiremu Kingi, are those who are deceiving the Governor and the Pakehas. Perhaps the Land Commissioners of Taranaki consider that Teira and his party constnute the whole of Ng&tihinga and Ngatr.uaho, and that the following men do not b long to those hapui, uaniely, Wiremu Te Patukakariki (the chief of those hapus) Nopera Te Kaoma and others, who dissented from the sale. So their words were listened to by the Land Commissioners of Taranaki. Listen. It was the wife of Wiremu Patukakariki, and their own two daughters, and some other women of those hapus. who drove off the Governor's surveyors from their own pieces of land. Now that land was not so divided formerly that there should be a distinct property for hgati hinga and Ngati tuaho by themselves, and that there should be a distinct property for other luipus as A'gati hum and Nyuli uenuku, each hapu separately within that block of land which the Governor has got possession of. No. They were all mixed up together. The cultivations were separated by the boundary marks which were placed by our ancestors. These hapus do not form a distinct body from them. They all belong to one tribe. All these cultivations have names which our ancestors gave them. The name of Wiremu Kingi's cultivation is Te Parepare. The cultivations of his two children which belonged to their mothers are at Hurirapa, the pa which was burnt by the soldiers : and another at Orapa on the south of tiieir old pas. All these cultivations are within the block which is said to belong to Teira only, and the Governor has possession of them all. All the cultivations which belong to us and to those who dissented from the sale, name'y, the people of Ngati Jcura and Ngati uenuku and some of Ngati hinga and Ngati tuaho, to whatever hapu they belong i the Land Commissioner at Taranaki has treated ali these cultivations as belonging to Teira alone. How then can it be said that "they gave Wiremu Kingi leave to settle on that block, when he came from Waikanae " ? A fine saying, indeed ! No. Each man knew the cultivation of his own ancestor. Was it they who gave Wiremu Kingi leave to cultivate Te Parepare, when he went from Waikanae? Was it they who gave his children leave to cultivate at Te Hurirapa, when ihey went from Waikanao ; which cultivations have been taken by the soldiers ? Was it they who gave our ancestors all their cultivations, which I have already mentioned, when they went from Waikanae ; which cultivations the soldiers have taken with the edge of the sword ? In my opinion this saying is like poison. According to the Land Commissioner of Taranaki, Teira's offer of that land was perfectly just, and Wiremu Kingi was altogether in the wrong. We say that Tcira is far more in the wrong, and there is nothing that can hide his fauit. I say in conclusion that I cannot find any words to pacify my tribe, that they may no longer be irritated about our land. They are very sore that the land of our ancestors should be taken without their consent. If that land should be permanently taken, it will be a permanent saying, down to future generations, that that land was violently taken by the Queen of England's Governor. There are also other sayings of the Pakehas about Wiremu Kingi which I have heard. They say he is a b.'d man, a drunkard, and a murderer. My reply to this. He must only just now have taken to drinking at Waitara. When he lived with us at Waikanae, I never saw him purchase a keg of spirits, nor did 1 see him drunk, —never. Nor have I ever heard that he was a murderer before I was born ; and even up to the time of my bciug>a full grown man, I never knew of arky man being murdered by him, even up to the time of his going to Waitara.— -His father, Eeretawhangawhanga, was cursed by Ngatimaruat Whareroa in 1H37. Then a great war party of Ngatiawa went from Waikanae to Whareroa, to the number of 400. It was owing to the moderation of this old chief that the people of Whareroa were not killed ; their potato crops merely were pulled up. I went with that expedition. Wus it from Wiremu Kingi's being a drunkard or a murderer that the Laud Commissioners of Taranaki concluded that that laud at Waitara belonged only to Teira and his party? Or was that the reason of their taking it ? Now there is another murderer in the very presence of those Land Commissioners of Taranaki ; but they do not call him murderer. On the contrary, they call him "Friend." Why do not they take his land also ? Wiremu Kingi and his party did not wish to fight, when Teira received the money in payment for Waitara : hence one of them wrote to me to ask if it would not be a good thing for them to collect money to pay back the money which Teira had received from the Governor, lest our lands should be taken for that money, and, when they hasten forward to retain possession, it should become an occasion for the Governor to quarrel with them (We have this man's letter lying here.) I myself heard formerly the strong injunctions of Wiremu Kingi's father, Keretawhangawhanga, at, our pa at Waikanae in 1840, that Waitara should not be sold to ths Pukeha. Now, that was his continued injunction up to the time of his death at Waikanao in 1844, when he loft the same injunction for Wiremu Kingi to observe after him. When Here and the old men of Waikanae heard that Niutone Te Pakaru, chief of Ngatimaniapoto, was