federation, Ngati Maru, Ngati Tamatera, Ngati Paoa and Ngati Whanaunga, descendants of the fighting sons of Marutuahu, had that prowess in good measure.

Two consequences of the unremitting warfare in the region and the warlike propensities of the Marutuahu federation bear on the present paper:

•     At the opening of the nineteenth century, a considerable residue of utu accounts had accumulated to be made right. When, by 1820, the advent of muskets upset the previous precarious balance of power old enemies exploited this situation to settle scores.

•     Past contention had led to an irregular pattern of settlement with tribes found in layers or pockets. James Mackay, long-serving Crown agent and land-purchase officer, was later to remark that the lands of 'the principal Native landowners' in Hauraki 'are very much intermixed, and there is hardly a tribal boundary which has not been the subject of dispute for some generations past.'7 With the return of Hauraki tribes from their places of refuge in the Waikato after 1831, rights of ownership which absence had put in doubt or abeyance, had to be reasserted. Uncertainty as to ownership led to continuing disputes between hapu, which the Crown and private agents in the years ahead, in a traditional 'divide and rule' manner, were able to exploit when negotiations for cessions of land for miners' rights or actual purchases were in train.

7   AJHR, 1869, A-17, p. 3, often identified as 'the Mackay Report'.

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