454 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
The most advantageous regulation, however, intro¬ 
duced at this period, for the first time in any of the legal 
enactments, was that which regarded the boundaries of 
lands. This law required that all disputes about land¬ 
marks should be referred to the judges, or settled by the 
decision of a jury; and that the boundaries of all the 
lands, fields, &c. throughout the island, should be care¬ 
fully ascertained, and, with the dimensions, descriptions 
of the land, and the names of the owners, should he 
entered in a book to be called the Book of the Boundaries 
of Lands. A copy of the boundaries of each land, with 
the owners, signed by the principal judge, and sealed 
with the king’s seal, was to be prepared, as a docu¬ 
ment or legal title to the possession of such land in per¬ 
petuity. 
Many difficulties presented themselves in adjusting 
the rights of different claimants to the same lands. 
Prior to the introduction of Christianity, the lands often 
changed owners during the internal wars that prevailed, 
and the descendants of those who at this time possessed 
or occupied the land, preferred their claims. But as 
those who possessed the lands at the abolition of idolatry, 
held them either as the fruits of conquest or the gifts of 
the king, it was decreed that those who possessed them 
should be considered as their lawful owners, and that no 
claim referring to a period antecedent to this, should be 
admitted. This law, by which the lands of the islands 
were made the freehold property of their possessors, is 
one of the most important in its influence on the pro¬ 
perty, that had yet been enacted. The unalienable right 
in the soil would thus descend from the father to the 
son, and no man could be deprived of this natural right 
but by a flagrant violation of the laws of his country. 
