CorENso.—On the Maori Races of New Zealand. 363 
followed that one could not sell his own land! But such is not of New 
Zealand origin. 
(iv.) Their order of succession of inheritance, as clearly shown in their 
genealogical recitals, &c., was from father to son; but on the demise of the 
eldest, the next brother succeeded to the inheritance, pro tempore, and so on; 
eventually, however, reverting to the children of the senior brother, and 
mainly to the eldest of them. Hence a New Zealander, in speaking of his 
right to land, even after the decease of his parent through whom he derived 
his title, preferred to mention his grandfather’s name, and himself as deriving 
from him. It must not be forgotten that the living brother invariably took 
to wife the widow of his deceased brother, unless she destroyed herself, or 
he was willing to forego his right; this, also, often entangled the succession 
still more, especially to a European. 
(v) Usufructuary.—Of which two classes may. be here noticed. (a.) 
Permanent: As the right of a man to a hidden rock, or shoal, at sea for cod- 
fishing ; to a tidal bank for shell-fish ; or to a certain wood, or tract of land, 
for taking certain birds; or to a defined portion of a plain for quail and rats ; 
or to a forest, for hinau, tawa, or karaka berries; or to a defined portion of a 
flax swamp for cutting flax; or to a spot for an eel-weir; or to a hill, &e., 
for digging fern-root. Sometimes there would be a double right to the 
usufruct of the same estate—7.e. one man or family would have the right to 
the eels, another to the ducks; one to the fern-root, another to the rats, 
quails, &c. Those permanent usufruct rights often originated in transfers 
or gifts, and generally continued in the first line of descent. They were 
mostly easily managed by the New Zealanders before the incoming of the 
European, or rather before the younger natives became infiltrated with novel 
European notions. (5.) Temporary: Often only for a year or season—such 
as, to the fruit (juice) of the żutu shrub, or to the watery honey of the flax 
(Phormium) flowers, growing within certain bounds; to the young shags of 
a certain cliff; to the inanga (whitebait), or other annual fish, of a certain 
part of astream. In all such cases the right was generally made known by 
a pole being stuck up with fragments of wearing apparel, or a bunch of flax, 
grass, or such like, tied around it; and this was usually respected. 
(vi.) There were also other peculiar rights to property, such as that of 
the ariki, or head chief, to a whale, porpoise, or dolphin (“royal fish”) cast 
anywhere on shore within his territories, to a white crane, if in any of his 
streams; these, on being seen, should not be touched, but information 
given directly to him, the supreme lord. Also, to any wreck driven on a 
desolate shore; but a wreck of any kind, or even a canoe and property 
of friends and relatives upsetting off a village, and drifting on shore where 
a village was, became the property of the people of that village, although it 
