J 835. 



TERRITOllY PURCHASE OF LAND. 



585 



quadrupeds, excepting rats, upon New Zealand : and while so 

 destitute of animal food, a rat was considered ' game ' by the na- 

 tives ; and no man would attempt to kill his neighbour's rats, or 

 those which were found on his territory, without intending, or 

 declaring war against him. Had not the rats, eaten by the 

 older men of Cawa-cawa, belonged to them, the lawful or 

 understood owners of the rats would long since have made war 

 upon the people of Cawa-cawa. Rats having been there killed, 

 and war not having been consequently declared, were irre- 

 sistible arguments in the minds of those men, who never forgot, 

 and who knew not how to forgive an injury.* Some of us are 

 apt to think modern game laws harsh inventions, and the result 

 of civilization. Yet if, in our own history, we look back seven 

 hundred years, we find that human lives were then for- 

 feited for those of beasts of the chase : and if we look at this 

 country, which may be supposed two thousand years behind 

 our own, in point of civilization, we find, that to kill a rat upon 

 a neighbour's land, is an offence almost sufficient to cause a 

 general war. 



The precise manner in which territory is divided among 

 these savages surprised me not a little : I thought land was 

 but shghtly valued by them. Though sold to Europeans for 

 what we consider trifles, the sale is, to them, matter of high 

 importance, in which every free man of the tribe ought to be 

 consulted. Uncleared land is supposed to belong to the tribe, 

 collectively. Cultivated spots, and houses, are private pro- 

 perty, but cannot be sold, or given away, out of the tribe, 

 without the consent of the whole community. This division of 

 land among small tribes,-f- looks much like a comparatively late 

 appropriation of the country. To make a purchase of land in 

 New Zealand, in a manner which will ensure quiet and unques- 

 tioned possession, it is necessary to assemble all the tribe of 



* In Mariner's Tonga Islands a fall description is pfiven of the man- 

 ner in which the Friendly Islanders shot rats : as an amusement. 



+ There are several varieties of the human race in New Zealand; 

 differing- from one another as much as the lightest olive-coloured Ota- 

 heitan diflers from the 'brown-black' New Hollander. 



