CoLENSO. — On tlie Maori Baces of Neio Zealand. 363 



followed tliat cue could not sell Lis 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 nest 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.) Vsufructuary. — Of which two classes may be here noticed. («.) 

 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 Jiinaic, taiaa, or Icaraka 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, &c., 

 for digging fern-root. Sometimes there would be a double right to the 

 usufruct of the same estate — i.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, (b.) Temporary : Often only for a year or season — such 

 as, to the fruit (juice) of the tuttc shrub, or to the watery honey of the fiax 

 (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 a stream. 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 arihi, 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 



