Baldwin. — Early Native Records of Manaivatu Block. 7 



of law arose, stretched their claim to that of an undisputed 

 possession of their lands. The three sections of Raukawa which 

 established themselves in the Rangitikei-Manawatu, and Wha- 

 tanui's branch, which occupied the land about Horowhenua, 

 made a mistake from a territorial point of view when they left 

 the original inhabitants to maintain a precarious existence, for 

 European ideas and European interference pushed the matter 

 eventually to a pitch of injustice. The claims of the subject 

 tribes through the years following gradually strengthened. The 

 fighting with the rebels gave them a further claim. Armed by 

 the Government with rifles, and supplied with ammunition, the 

 Ngatiapa assumed an arrogant attitude, until at last the whole 

 matter came to a head in the year 1863. In the year 1862— not 

 1865, as Buick, generally so accurate, states — the first Native 

 Land Court Act was passed, and Courts were set up to ascer- 

 tain and determine the tribal ownership of the lands. As it was 

 pointed out at the time, this Act, despite many flaws and many 

 weaknesses of detail, was a step in the right direction, as it 

 enabled the ownership or crystallized mana of the land to be 

 definitely determined before the memory of the truth had passed 

 away. To the great disgust of the Mauawatu Natives, however, 

 the Rangitikei-Manawatu Block, and the Raukawa blocks on 

 the West Coast, were expressly excluded from the operation of 

 the Act, and a feeling of anger and alarm was thus raised in the 

 ever-suspicious minds of the tribes concerned. At the time in 

 question the King movement was very pronounced throughout 

 the whole of the land ; and a Commissioner, who made a tour 

 throughout the whole of the land, and in, amongst others, the 

 Manawatu district, reported that at Otaki, at Poroutawhao, 

 and other settlements, including the Rangitane cultivations on 

 the Oroua River, the King party was in a strong majority. 

 Trouble began to brew, the only element wanted being a leader. 

 This leader was soon forthcoming in Ihakara Tukemaru, a 

 Ngatiraukawa chief, who had his residences at Motuiti and 

 Kereru. It was represented to the Raukawa that the reason 

 their land was excluded was because the Ngatiapa Tribe was 

 selling to the Government, and were claiming the whole of the 

 block lying between the Rangitikei River and the Manawatu. 

 The discontent grew apace, and was fostered by Ihakara, so 

 that it finally culminated in preparations for a fight. The 

 Ngatiraukawa, under Ihakara, together with the Rangitane, col- 

 lected at Tawharitoa, Ihakara's pa, to the number of some four 

 hundred. The Ngatiapa, who were in a large minority, appe. led 

 to the Wanganui tribes, who thereupon expressed their intention 

 to support them, and they, too, commenced to construct a 

 fortified pa on the other bank of the Rangitikei River at Owharoa, 



