Throughout this period the claims of Pirirakau concerning ownership of the Te Puna lands were consistently denied by Mackay and Clarke. Pirirakau had not surrendered to the Crown, and refused to take part in the negotiations to sell the Katikati Te Puna blocks. When explaining why he did not need to get the consent of Pirirakau to the sale, Mackay described them as ‘vassals of Hori Tupaea’. Mackay wrote:
Some of them had inter-married with Ngatihaua and Ngaiterangi and had become to a certain extent incorporated into the latter tribe. They set up a claim to all the land from Te Wairoa to Waipapa and thence back to the range between the Thames and Tauranga. This was denied by the whole of the Ngaiterangi and Hori Tupaea. They contended that the Pirirakau claims were confined to the back forest between Te Wairoa and Te Puna; and that those were only the rights of a debased tribe the ‘mana’ was with them. Hohepa Hikutaia enraged them very much be saying they were ‘he pataka kai no te Rangihouhiri’ (a food store of the Rangihouhiri, the great conqueror of Tauranga, and from whom Hohepa Hikutaia was descended). The Ngaiterangi allowed the claim of the old Chief Mangapohatu, of the Pirirakau, to some of the land near the coast between Te Wairoa and Waipapa. After the dispute between the Pirirakau and Hohepa Hikutaia they would not attend the meeting, and left on the 11th July. I however saw Te Keepa Ringatu and others and offered to make a separate arrangement for payment for any claims which they could substantiate within the block under negotiation, and to make reserves where required. He approved of this and went to his tribe to make the proposal. On the 12th July he wrote to say his tribe would not make any terms.
The whole of the people of this hapu have been in rebellion from the commencement of the war, and with the exception of Mangapohatu and his family were all Hauhau at the time of the meeting.9
It is interesting to note that despite saying Pirirakau had no real claim to the area, Mackay was still trying to get their agreement to the purchase and was willing to make reserves for Pirirakau. By dismissing the hapu as ‘hauhau’, and subservient to the Ngaiterangi chiefs with whom he was negotiating, Mackay was able to deny their ancestral rights to the land that was being sold by certain Ngaiterangi chiefs.
Four different deeds of sale for the Katikati Te Puna blocks were signed on behalf of various tribes (Ngatihura, Tawera, Ngatipukenga, Ngatimaru, Ngatitamatera, and Ngaiterangi) in 1866. Although Pirirakau’s claims had been denied in 1866, five years later they did receive a payment for the purchase. This was recorded in the Te Puna and Katikati No 5 Deed, which was signed on 16 May 1871. The deed said that £1,471 had been paid by H.T. Clarke to the:
Chiefs and People of the Tribe Pirirakau and Ngatihinerangi … in consideration of the claims of these three hapus (viz. Pirirakau, Ngatihinerangi and Ngatitokotoko) to the land sold by all the Ngaiterangi to the Government.10
9 James Mackay Jr ‘Report on the Katikati Purchase and other questions relating to the District of Tauranga, 1867’, in Stokes, 1992, p 110
10 Deed No 462, cited in Evelyn Stokes, Te Raupatu o Tauranga Moana: The Confiscation of Tauranga Lands, A Report Prepared for the Waitangi Tribunal, University of Waikato, 1990, p 246
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