the flagpole was presented by Maihi Paraone Kawiti was a voluntary act on the part of the Ngāpuhi that had cut it down on 11 March 1845, and they would not allow any other to render any assistance in this work. The erection of the fifth flagstaff at Kororareka by the Ngāpuhi warriors who had conducted the Flagstaff War, and not by government decree, indicates the colonial government did not want to risk any further confrontation with the Ngāpuhi. The continuing symbolism of the fifth flagpole at Kororareka is that it exists because of the goodwill of the Ngāpuhi. Notwithstanding the achievements of Te Ruki Kawiti and Hōne Heke in pushing back colonial government control over the Ngāpuhi, in the years after the Flagstaff War over 2,000 km2 of Ngāpuhi land was alienated from Māori control. As part of Maihi Paraone Kawiti's erection of the fifth flagpole at Kororareka, he offered the Governor all the lands between Karetu and Moerewa to north of Waiomio and as far south as the Ruapekapeka Pa. Tawai Kawiti described this offer of land as being "a whariki" (or mat) for the flag to repose on. The offer was accepted but was paid for at half the land's value. 20th and 21st centuries Amidst cultural and economic decline, the twentieth century saw a steady migration of Ngāpuhi Māori from Northland into other regions of the North Island, mainly Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty. In part, this has seen the organisation of Ngāpuhi into large geographic and urban divisions. The whārenui of Ōkorihi marae burned down in 2003. Waitangi Tribunal - Te Paparahi o te Raki (Wai 1040) In 2010, the Waitangi Tribunal began hearings into the Ngāpuhi's claim that sovereignty was not given up in their signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Tribunal, in Te Paparahi o te Raki inquiry (Wai 1040), considered the Māori and Crown understandings of He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga / The Declaration of Independence 1835 and Te Tiriti o Waitangi / the Treaty of Waitangi 1840. Many of the arguments used were outlined in Paul Moon's 2002 book Te Ara Ki Te Tiriti: The Path to the Treaty of Waitangi, which argued that not only did the Māori signatories have no intention of transferring sovereignty, but that at the time the British government and James Busby did not wish to acquire it and that the developments and