S62 Essays. 



language, " where tis navel-string was cut," as Ms first blood (ever sacred in 

 their eyes) had been shed there. (5.) By having had his secundines buried 

 there (this, however, was much more partial), (c.) By a public invitation 

 from the owner to dwell on it. (cl.) By having first cultivated it with per- 

 mission, (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 resting on it. (y.) By having had a near relative killed 

 or roasted on it, or a portion of his body stuck up or thrown away upon it. 

 Qi.) 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, &c. 

 («'.) 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. 



(ii.) Indefinite. — (a.) By having been invited to come there by the chief 

 with a party to dwell {lit. having had their canoe in passing called to shore). 

 5. 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 conquering it. {d^ By having aided with food, a canoe, a spear, &c., an 

 armed party who subsequently became conquerors of it. All these equally 

 applied, though he should belong to a different tribe or sub-tribe. 



(iii.) Beyond all these, however, was the right hy gift or transfer, and hy 

 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 noiu say) may clearly be proved beyond 

 all doubt — (a.) By the acts of their several ancestors (great-grandfathers) 

 to their children, from whom the present sub-tribes derive their sub-tribal 

 names, and claim their boundaries ; such ancestors divided and gave those 

 lands simply to each individual of their family, which division and alienation, 

 however unfairly made, has never been contested, (h.) By their ancient 

 transfers (gifts or sales) of land made by individuals of one tribe to indi- 

 viduals of another, as related by themselves ; and from which gift, or aliena- 

 tion, in many instances, they deduce their present claims, (c.) By their 

 earliest (v/ntampered) sales and transfers of land to missionaries and to others, 

 which were not unfrequently done by one native (as was notably the case 

 in i\Q first alienation of land by deed, to Mr. Marsden at the Bay of Islands, 

 in 1815) ; although the foreign transferees, not knowing the native custom, 

 often Avished others, being co-proprietors, to sign the document of transfer — 

 and this, by-aud-by, came to be looked upon as the New Zealand custom — 

 whence came the modern belief that all must unite in a sale ; and thence it 



