As a result of the Katikati Te Puna No 3 deed, a Crown grant for lot 1, Katikati Parish, dated 5 January 1869, was made in favour of Te Patu, Turere and Te Ninihi in trust for ‘Ngaitauwhao’.33 Whanau a Tauwhao were also known as ‘Urungawera’, and have a close association with the sea and coastal areas. Their traditional settlement areas have been Tuhua, Motiti, Rangiwaea and Otawhiwhi. They also have an association with the Alderman Islands which were used as a base for fishing expeditions.34 A census of Tauranga’s Maori population in 1878 listed 45 members of Urungawera living at Katikati and Tuhua, and in 1881 Urungawera were said to be living at Tuapiro and Tuhua, and 26 Whanau a Tauwhao were living at Rangiwaea.35 Ngatirau and Ngatiteoteo had a population of 50 living at Katikati and Rereatukahia.36
A new meeting house was built at Otawhiwhi in the late 1880s.37 By the end of the nineteenth century, Otawhiwhi and Rangiwaea were the main marae for Whanau a Tauwhao, as the last of Whanau a Tauwhao at Tuhua had left there in 1901 to settle with their whanau at Otawhiwhi.38 The present meeting house (Tamaoho) was constructed in 1916.39
Following this, steps were taken to clarify the ownership of the land. The 1869 Crown grant only listed Te Patu, Turere, and Te Ninihi as owners, which meant that by the 1920s the occupiers of the land, as well as members of Whanau a Tauwhao living elsewhere, had no legal recognition of their ownership of the block. An application was therefore made to have the beneficial owners of the block determined. This had to be done under Part V of the Native Land Act 1909, which empowered the Native Land Court to ascertain the equitable owners of land held by nominal owners in trust for persons not named in the title to the land. However, section 108 of the Act said that the court could not exercise this jurisdiction over confiscated lands which had been granted to Maori unless the trust in the Crown grant was insufficiently defined. Accordingly, on 30 January 1918 an Order in Council was issued which declared that the Crown grant for lot 1, Katikati Parish, did contain an insufficiently defined trust. The Native Land Court was therefore authorised to:
determine who (if any) are the persons entitled beneficially to the said land, and in what relative interests, and to order the inclusion of those persons in the title together with or in lieu of the nominal owners, and if necessary or expedient, to partition the said land among the persons so found entitled.40
The court could also cancel the existing title to the land and issue a new title.
