This thesis is about narratives of tribal sovereignty, law, and citizenship and how they may continue to be recognised in the post-colonial legal order of New Zealand and how these factors have influenced the common law. It is also an analysis of whether Māori notions of sovereignty law and citizenship in the Pōtikirua ki te Toka-a-Taiau district have continued into that postcolonial legal system. After exploring the epistemology and ontology of the pre-existing legal system in the district, I conclude that prior to 1840 the chiefs, tohunga and rūnanga of elders were exercising sovereignty (mana rangatira, mana whakahaere, and mana tangata) at the hapū or iwi level. They were also engaged in making and enforcing law and they determined their citizenry through whakapapa and whanaungatanga. There was also an emerging Ngāti Porou identity, but it was an identity that remained marginal to hapū or iwi autonomy. This pre-existing legal system was modified by the coming of the Pākehā, their guns and other trade goods, their Christian religion, and the Crown’s predilection for war against any group that sought to pursue mana Māori as reflected in the battles that took place in the district in the year 1865. Owing to the Crown’s dependency on Ngāti Porou for military service, it continued after 1865 to recognise the mana rangatira, mana tangata, mana whakahaere, and tikanga of the loyalist chiefs. By aligning with the Crown, those chiefs were able to achieve a revolutionary assumption of power over the previously autonomous Kīngitanga and Pai Mārire iwi and hapū of the district.