The owners of the land were determined by the Native Land Court at a hearing on 7 March 1922.41 At the hearing Petera Te Ninihi explained the ownership of the land:
I am nephew of Te Ninihi named in Crown Grant.
I have made up a list of original Ngatitawhao & also a list up to date. I have all the Ngatitawhao in the list.
When land granted the Crown Grant (the ?) said it was for only those people of Ngatitawhao who lived at Rangiwaea.
In my list I have included people who were allowed to go on land thro’ aroha. They lived at Tuhua, and are of the Urungawera Hapu.
They were at Tuhua when land was granted, but they went to Punakiwai, near Whangamata, & so thro aroha my elders got them to come and live on Katikati No 1. Then they applied to govt for some land - & they were given it - at Waiau - under Urungawera. They were to have equal shares, but some got greater shares than others.
Everyone in Tauranga knew them as Urungawera, & for less than 20 years they called them Ngaitawhao.
I amended my list to include all persons now living on the land. I have in it all the original Ngaitawhao & their descendants. We have had meetings lately of people from all around. Some from the land itself and some from Matakana Is.
I have list of original names. No rightful owners has been left out.42
The lists compiled by Te Ninihi were read out in the court, and passed without objection. The court then ordered that those people named in the ‘up to date’ list were the beneficial owners of the land, and cancelled the previous Crown grant. In September 1923 the Native Land Court partitioned the Katikati No 1 block, in accordance with an arrangement prepared by the owners.43 This partition also created the 1A meeting house site. In 1940 a burial ground site was partitioned from the 1B block, to be Katikati 1B1.44
As well as sorting out title to the land, facilities at the marae continued to be improved throughout the 1920s and 1930s when there were about 200 Maori living at Otawhiwhi.45 The meeting house was renovated about 1925, and the next step was to build a dining hall. The arguments for building a dining hall were both cultural and practical:
Before that calico tablecloths were laid on the ground and the people sat around them and were served their food. Occasionally, when the weather was really bad, the food would be laid out on cloths on the floor in the centre of the meeting house.46
In November 1935, under the direction of Tukumaru Roretana and 17 other marae representatives, an application was made to the Maori Purposes Fund Board for a subsidy to defray some of these building costs. The application was supported by the local Member of Parliament, Taite Te Tomo.47 Roretana met with the Secretary of the
47 Taite Te Tomo to Native Department, 11 November 1935, Maori Affairs (MA) 1 26/9/9/5 Katikati, National Archives (NA) Wellington [pp 1-2], [Numbers in [] refer to pages of the Document Bank.]
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