married into another tribe, or—­in latter days—­became the wife of a white, she did not forfeit her title, though sometimes such rights would be surrendered by arrangement, to save inconvenience.  Trade never entered into Maori life.  Buying and selling were unknown.  On and by the land the Maori lived, and he clung to it closely as any Irish peasant.  “The best death a man can die is for the land,” ran a proverb.  “Let us die for the land!” shouted a chieftain, haranguing his fighting men before one of their first battles with the English.  No appeal would be more certain to strike home.

Though the tribal estate was communal property in so far that any member could go out into the wilderness and fell trees and reclaim the waste, the fruits of such work, the timber and plantations, at once became personal property.  The fields, houses, weapons, tools, clothes, and food of a family could not be meddled with by outsiders.  The territory, in a word, was common, but not only products but usufructs were property attaching to individuals, who could transfer them by gift.

Though in time they forgot the way to “Hawaiki,” and even at last the art of building double-canoes, yet they never wanted for pluck or seamanship in fishing and voyaging along the stormy New Zealand coasts.  Their skill and coolness in paddling across flooded rivers may still sometimes be witnessed.

Always needing fish, they placed their villages near the sea beaches or the rivers and lakes.  In their canoes they would paddle as far as twelve miles from land.  Amongst other fish they caught sharks, killing them before they hauled them into the crank canoes; or, joining forces, they would sweep some estuary with drag nets, and, with much yelling and splashing, drive the fish into a shallow corner.  There with club and spear dog-fish and smooth-hound would be done to death amid shouts and excitement.  Then would come a gorge on a grand scale, followed by business—­the cutting into strips and drying of the shark-meat for winter food.  In the forests they found birds, and, not having the bow-and-arrow, made shift to snare and spear them ingeniously.  To add to the vegetable staples which they had brought with them from their Polynesian home, they used the root of the fern or bracken, and certain wild fruits and berries—­none of them specially attractive.  What between fish, birds and vegetables, with occasional delicacies in the shape of dogs and rats, they were by no means badly provisioned, and they cooked their food carefully and well, chiefly by steaming in ovens lined with heated stones.  Without tea, coffee, sugar, alcohol or tobacco, they had also but seldom the stimulant given by flesh meat.  Their notorious cannibalism was almost confined to triumphal banquets on the bodies of enemies slain in battle.  Without the aid of metals or pottery, without wool, cotton, silk or linen, without one beast of burden, almost without leather, they yet contrived to clothe, feed and house themselves, and to make some advance in the arts of building, carving, weaving and dyeing.