Best. — Maori Marriage Customs. 41 



seized with a desire for his first wife ; his love for her returned. 

 He rose and started to return to Whakatane, a journey of 

 some days. His companions could not persuade him to 

 remain ; nor could they catch the bird, which went its way. 



It sometimes occurred that the people of a family group 

 or clan would resolve to demand a girl of another village com- 

 munity as a wife for one of their young men. A party of 

 them would proceed to the place and demand the girl for that 

 purpose. If a single woman, she might be handed over with- 

 out any trouble occurring, provided that she was agreeable to 

 marry the young man. If not she would be held and pro- 

 tected by her people. Sometimes a very stormy scene would 

 follow, as each party strove to gain possession of the girl, who 

 would be seized by the opposing parties, and who sometimes 

 suffered severely at their hands. Even fatal consequences 

 would at times attend these wild scenes. Or, on arrival at 

 the residence of the girl, the party might seize her at once, in 

 which case trouble would be likely to quickly ensue, and the 

 two parties be transformed into a seething mass of excited, 

 yelhng beings, resembling maniacs. Scenes of violent abduc- 

 tion were by no means rare in Maoriland. And yet woman 

 occupied among the Maori people a much better position 

 than she occupied among most barbarous races. She was 

 usually upheld by her people when she objected to marry a 

 certain man who had desired or been selected for her. She 

 was to a considerable extent independent, and had a voice in 

 matters affecting the tribe. It was, perhaps, in connection 

 with adultery that her status appeared lowest, for she was 

 then regarded apparently as property, and any one tamper- 

 ing with her must needs pay for meddling with another per- 

 son's property. 



As already observed, many statements have been made by 

 writers that the Maori had no marriage rite, but that a couple 

 simply agreed to live together, and that was all there was 

 about it. But if a marriage between two young people was 

 not he mea ata whakarite (a matter deliberately arranged) by 

 their elders, or by the tribe or sub-tribe, then such a union 

 was much looked down upon and condemned. If the recog- 

 nised and established usages were not respected and followed, 

 but the union a mere moe noa iho, or random cohabiting, then 

 a child born to such would be termed a poriro (bastard), a 

 moenga hau, he mea kite ki te take rakau, a thing found under 

 a tree. 



In speaking or writing of the customs of other peoples, 

 more especially those of the more primitive races, we are 

 much too apt to set up as a standard of propriety, &c., our 

 own rites or customs, and if those of the people under discus- 

 sion do not coincide with our own, then thev are condemned 



