Page:Maori Religion and Mythology.djvu/112

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98
THE MAORI
CH. vii.

Pa, the six hundred rushed out to fight, and a battle took place outside. The men of the Pa were driven back, and the conquerors entered it with them. Then while the men of the Pa were being struck down Wainganui shouted to Hanui, "Be quick, Hanui, climb on top of your house, you and your children and your wives." So Hanui and his children and his wives climbed on the roof of their house. But most of the men of his tribe were killed, some only being left to be a Rahi, in which condition they now remain.


TAPUIKA.

It may happen that a tribe is driven off its lands by a conquering tribe, who may hold possession of the conquered lands for many years, but be, in their turn, driven off by the assistance of tribes allied to the original possessors of the land. It then becomes a question what right the allied tribes acquire in the recovered lands. A case of this sort came under my notice thus: I was instructed to purchase for the Government a piece of land of moderate size at Maketu to be occupied as a Mission station. As I had built a house on this land on a title of mere right of occupation, or as expressed in Maori, "Noho noa iho," and had resided there for some time, I thought, naturally, that the persons, at whose invitation my house had been placed there, were the persons to whom the land belonged. An arrangement was therefore made with them for the purchase of the land required, and a price agreed on. One night shortly after I was awoke from sleep by a knocking at the door of my house. My visitors were a deputation from some of the tribe Tapuika who had a small Pa