832 Essays. 
proverb still commonly in use, “Kura pae a Mahina,” signifying a waif or 
godsend. Thus, if a person find anything which has been lost by another 
by the way-side or in the bush, and the loser afterwards hearing who found 
it, were to go and ask him to restore it, his answer would probably be, 
“I will not restore it; it is a kura pae a Mahina; if you wish to have it you 
must pay for it.” 
The Arawa sailed southward to the Bay of Plenty, and when they got 
to Katikati they found the Tainui settlers we have spoken of in possession ; 
so they went on, and, leaving a small settlement at Maunganui, on the east 
entrance of the harbour of Tauranga, sailed to Maketu, about sixteen miles 
further to the east, and there settled. Before they reached the shore two 
of the chiefs stood up in the canoe and laid claim to all the land they could 
see. This with them could be done by a very simple process. It was only 
necessary to say, “ This land is the bed of my child,” which would give his 
family so sacred a title that no one else of the colonists would dare to claim 
it. Hence we perceive that the New Zealanders brought with them their 
greed for territorial possessions; and if it is reflected that they came from 
islands of limited extent, where the increase of population tended to curtail 
the lands of each, we may thus perhaps account for their grasping at large 
landed possessions on their reaching New Zealand. Certain it is that two 
chiefs, Hei and Tia, claimed all the lands for miles north and south of 
Maketu for their sons Waitaha and Tapuika, whose descendants still claim 
them. 
Such a system of colonization tended to disperse these settlers over very 
extensive limits, and we consequently find that other chiefs started inland, 
each little family taking possession of a separate locality at a wide interval 
from any neighbour. The different territories thus acquired became the 
lands of their descendants, who came to be distinguished as a sub-tribe of - 
the Arawa, the name by which all sub-tribes were known when spoken of as 
a body. 
The territory of a sub-tribe belonged to the whole body, excepting such 
parts thereof as had been specially appropriated to families or individuals as 
cultivation grounds, fisheries, or otherwise; and their rights passed to their 
descendants. Other members of the sub-tribe had no right to meddle in any 
way with lands so appropriated ; at the same time, lands never appropriated 
specially belonged to tlie whole tribe. 
It is true that chiefs of influence often sought to seize lands which did 
not rightfully belong to them ; but such acts could only be carried through 
by might and not by right, and were always pertinaciously resisted; and 
there is a favourite proverb, that the best death for man is to die for his land, 
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