There was another interesting discussion in the Waitangi Tribunal about the loss of mana versus subjugation. Ngāti Mutunga had initially filed legal opinion with the Waitangi Tribunal that said, "As a matter both of customary law and practical reality Moriori lost the status of tangata whenua of the Chatham Islands in 1835 by conquest and total subjugation." It was heartening to note that the tribunal wrote in its report, "as matters progressed, there was a growing acceptance of the duality of tangata whenua status. Eventually, this was acknowledged in submissions by Moriori, Ngati Mutunga, and the Crown." And the Waitangi Tribunal also noted, regarding mana, that although the contention had been that Moriori had lost mana through conquest and enslavement, the tribunal said that may be so, but mana is personal to persons or to peoples, and it comes and goes; it is not an institutional power given by history and then entrenched for all time. Were it the case that mana is irretrievably lost by conquest and enslavement, then many tribes, including Ngāti Mutunga, would have no mana today. If it were true that mana went for all time when people were displaced from the land, then most Māori would be without mana today, in light of the land losses and the outcome of the wars that followed European colonisation. I know that this was the point of the late Sir Mōnita, who said, when describing the Māori way, that the mana is in ourselves; we are a people. Mana depends on how we act today and what we make of ourselves.