MOTHERRIGHT 279 



originally paid for her as bride at the time of marriage. 1 

 On the Tami Islands when a child dies the father 

 makes presents to the mother's kin. He calls it 

 " buying the child " ; but obviously, as Dr. Kohler 

 remarks, the father is held responsible for the death, 

 and redeems his liability with a gift. 2 The Maori 

 father is in a much worse plight, for though descent 

 is reckoned in the paternal line fatherright is hardly 

 yet followed out to its logical consequences. When a 

 child dies or even meets with an accident unattended with 

 fatal results the mother's relatives headed by her brother 

 turn out in force against the father. He must defendhim- 

 self until he is wounded. Blood once drawn the combat 

 ceases ; but the attacking party plunders his house and 

 appropriates everything on which hands can be laid, 

 finally sitting down to a feast provided by the bereaved 

 father. 3 The entire clan in fact is held to have been 

 injured because one of its members (as under uterine 

 descent the child would be) has suffered, and his father 

 (who does not belong to the clan) is held responsible 

 and makes in this way compensation. 



1 /. A. I. xxxi. 305. If the parents be dead, the husband has 

 to pay their heirs. 



2 Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xiv. 351. A similar custom in Fiji, Anthro- 

 pos, i. 93. T.^ 



3 Old New Zealand, no ; Wilken, Verwants. 757, citing Bastian. 

 So Mr. Shortland relates that on a certain occasion when the wife 

 of a young chief had been guilty of infidelity, her father uncles and 

 other relations to the number of nearly one hundred made a descent 

 on the village of her husband and father-in-law, and remained there 

 three days feasting on their pigs, which they caught and killed with- 

 out opposition." The reason they gave for acting in this manner 

 was that the wife had been tempted to commit the fault in order to 

 avenge herself for her husband's neglect (Shortland, 235). The 

 blame of her misconduct was thus laid to his charge and reparation 

 exacted by her insulted relatives. 



