A general assembly of the tribes consequently met at Rotorua, when it was shown that the land I proposed to purchase came within the old boundaries of Tapuika. But several generations before the present the _Pa_ at Maketu had been taken by the hostile tribe Ngatiawa, and the Arawa tribes, including Tapuika, had been driven from the sea-coast to Rotorua and elsewhere. When the flax trade with Sydney was in vigour, many of the Arawa natives had been permitted to return to scrape flax for sale to a trader named Tapsell who was stationed at Maketu; and at length the combined Arawa tribes expelled Ngatiawa, and recovered the lands of their forefathers. They then established themselves in force at Maketu, and some of them marked out by boundaries, and took possession of land originally belonging to Tapuika, for their own use. Tapuika did not offer any objection to this, but now said that the land so taken was merely given up for their occupation, and that the _mana_ of their chief Te Koata over the land had never been given up.
The decision of the chiefs of the Arawa, to which Te Koata, who was present, assented, was that as Tapuika could not have recovered their lands if unassisted by other Arawa tribes, the land of Tapuika which had been taken possession of by the fighting men of the combined tribes now belonged to those men, or expressed in their own words, “_kua riro i te toa_,” had gone to the brave.
This decision was important, as it established a precedent of value in dealing with any lands similarly circumstanced elsewhere in New Zealand—a precedent being always a powerful argument with the _Maori_.
When foreigners, called by the natives _Pakeha_, first came to New Zealand, they were admitted readily by the _Maori_ to dwell among them. They were allowed to acquire land by purchase, and to form alliances with their families; and the children of such connections were considered as belonging to the tribe of their mother. They were never treated as belonging to a stranger tribe—as _tangata ke_. _Tăku pakeha, toku matua_, my own _pakeha_, my father, were the common terms used to denote their sentiment of relationship.
It is not to be wondered at that every tribe in these islands was at first anxious to have _Pakeha_ settlers dwelling with them, and was ready to admit them to the privileges of tribesmen, for through them they could obtain what they most valued of the world’s goods. But when dissensions arose between the two races, notably about land, and issued in war, the feelings of those who took up arms became modified, and their old friends, the _Pakeha_, were no longer looked on as _matua_ or fathers, but rather as _tangata ke_, or strangers.