In some of these out-districts the people occupied partly fortified "pa's", in others they lived on open "kainga" of a few huts without fortification, and in still others they had no more than camping shelters. But their base was Kaiapoi, which, with a population of at least 1000 people, was a considerable Māori town, and the permanent home of the most important chiefly families of the Ngāi Tahu. These people were in constant communication with their still numerous kinsmen in the north at Kaikoura (which had an even larger population than Kaiapoi) and also with the large body of the Ngāi Tahu who had gone further south to settle in Otakou.