24 Transactions. 
included his house and fences, as well as all his smaller goods. All that a 
freeman made or caught, or obtained, or raised by agriculture, were his own ; 
although his house, created by himself, was his own, yet if not on his own 
land (rarely the case) he could not hold it against the owner of that spot, 
unless such use had been openly allowed to him by the owner before all 
(i te aroaro o te tokomaha). So a plantation planted by himself, if not on 
his own land (also a rare thing), he would have to leave after taking his crops, 
on being ordered so to do; but not so if he had originally, and with permis- 
sion, felled the forest, or reclaimed that land from the wild ; in which case, he 
would retain it for life, or as long as he pleased, and very likely his 
descendants after him. To land, a man acquired a peculiar right in many 
ways :— 
_ 1. Definite.—(a.) By having been born on it, or, in their expressive language, 
“where his navel string was cut,” as his first blood (ever sacred in their eyes) 
had been shed there. (b.) By having had his secundines buried there (this, 
however, was much more partial). (e.) By a public invitation from the owner 
to dwell on it. (d.) By having first cultivated it by permission. (e.) By 
having had his blood shed upon it. ( f.) By having had the body or bones of 
his deceased father or mother, or uterine brother or sister, deposited or rested 
onit. (g.) By having had a near relative killed or roasted on it. (h.) By 
having been bitterly cursed in connection with that piece of land, i.e.—this 
oven is for thy body, or head ; on that tree thy liver shall be fixed to rot ; thy 
skull shall hold the cooked birds, or berries of this wood. (i) Or by the 
people of the district using for any purpose a shed which had been temporarily 
put up there, and used by a chief in travelling. 
2. Indefinite.—(a.) By having been invited to come there by the chief with 
a party to dwell (%ż., having had their canoe in passing called to shore). (6.) 
Through his wife by marriage ; but such would only be a quasi life-interest to 
him, i.e., during her life and infancy of the children, as, in case of children, 
they would take all their mother’s right. (c.) By-having assisted in conquer- 
ing it. (d.) By having aided with food, a canoe, a spear, etc., an armed party 
who subsequently became conquerors of it. All these equally applied, though 
he should belong to a different tribe or sub-tribe. 
3; Beyond all these, however, was the right by gift or transfer, and by 
inheritance, which, not unfrequently, was peculiar and private. This (which 
has of late years been much contested, and too often, it is feared, by ignorant 
and interested men, or by those who have too readily believed what the 
_ talkative younger New Zealanders now say,) may clearly be proved beyond all 
doubt :—(1.) By the acts of their ] ancestors (great lfathers) to their 
children, from whom the present sub-tribes derive ue subtribe] names, and 
claim their boundaries ; such ancestors divided and gave those lands simply to 
