Sacha McMeeking, who was general manager of strategy and influence with Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu, said of the wealthy South Island tribe’s treaty settlement: "The decision was to settle cheaply ─ accepting $170-million when even the Treasury estimated the value of dispossessed lands lay between $12-and $15-billion". (1) What was that land actually like, how long had Ngai Tahu lived in the South Island, and how did they live?
It was probably in the seventeenth century that the Ngai Tahu crossed Cook Strait and commenced to slaughter Ngatimamoe and Waitaha, steal their land and drive them almost to extinction, the Ngatimamoe massacre at Goat Island being one example. In 1989 in Timaru I met a woman who said she was Ngatimamoe.
