came preserved muttonbirds and dried fish, the canoes or carriers returning from Kaiapoi with loads of Kumara; while to Kaikoura went part of the store of southern muttonbirds in exchange for potted pigeons. A survival of this traffic was seen by Europeans as late as 1844. Kaiapoi was known to the Māori of other parts of New Zealand as the home of a people who had both an abundance of food, and an exceptional wealth of the highly prized greenstone. In the eyes of the Māori, this hard and tenacious nephrite jade or pounamu was the nearest equivalent to metal itself, and a tool or weapon made of it was considered a prized possession. Ownership of greenstone was a mania of the Māori, driving them to endure unimaginable hardships to obtain it. The main greenstone source was in the Taramakau and Arahura Rivers on the West Coast, roughly opposite Kaiapoi. Until the Ngāti Wairangi of the West Coast were conquered about the year 1800, the expeditions sent across the ranges by Ngāi Tahu were war-parties, equipped to fight for the greenstone they wanted. The Ngāi Tahu used eight routes across the ranges, those from Canterbury and its immediate northern district being up the Rakaia River and over the Whitcombe or Browning passes to the Hokitika river; up the Waimakariri River and over Arthur's Pass to the Taramakau; up the Waipara and the Hurunui Rivers by Lake Sumner to Harper pass and the Taramakau; and (from Kaikoura) up the Waiau-uha and thence by either the Amuri pass to the Ahaura River and on to the Grey River, or by the Lewis Saddle down the Cannibal Gorge directly to the Grey River. The "Kai huanga", "eat relation", feud Even within the Ngāi Tahu tribe there were feuds and rivalries that led at times to bloodshed, and even to open warfare. The most important of these outbreaks — a bloody feud that developed into civil war — began between 1810 and 1815, about the time of the first contacts of European flax-traders with the Māori of Banks Peninsula. This was known as the kai-huanga or 'eat-relation' feud, which, by destroying the Ngāi Tahu in Canterbury, effectively prepared the way for their conquest in 1832 by Te Rauparaha. The leading character in this feud was Tama-i-hara-nui, principal chief of the Ngāi Tahu, who appears to have lived both at Kaiapoi pa and at Takapūneke