Ngati Pikiao Lands: Loss of Tribal Ownership and Control
NGATI PIKIAO LANDS: LOSS OF TRIBAL OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL Alan Ward Newcastle, N.S.W 21 October 2001 A report for the Waitangi Tribunal Synopsis In customary Maori society, different kinds of land rights were held at different levels of the society - individual, whanau, hapu, and iwi. The advent of the commercial economy led Maori to seek clearer definition oftheir rights, at each of those levels, as do modern South Pacific societies. But there was no widespread demand among Maori to abrogate totally the 'tribal' level- certainly not among Ngati Pikiao. British and colonial govemments, however, purported to transmute the allegedly communal 'tribal' rights into individual rights, through the operation of the Native Land Acts. In fact, they elevated customary individual use rights into the right of each individual to severally alienate his or her interests in the new titles, while rarely facilitating the development of individual farms on the ground. In reaction against the debilitating effect of this process, Maori, for more than a century, have demanded a restoration of 'tribal' authority over the land. This would appear to be in contradiction to the trend in other South Pacific societies, where the drive for individual or family enterprises is strong. In fact, however, most South Pacific societies are opposed to widespread 'land registration' or 'conversion' or 'titling'ofcustomary tenure. Instead, there is a great deal of infOlmal demarcation of individual and family farms, internal migration of small groups, and informal trading in land rights to accommodate these trends. Formalisation of the arrangements is sometimes sought to accommodate internal migration, especially to the towns, but still with limited modification of customary tenure.
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