The Law of Muru. his finest spear and went out to meet it. Every man was armed. His brother-in-law advanced threateningly and gave the cry, "Stand up! — stand up! I will kill you this day! " He and the defendant then en gaged in what appeared to be a combat to the very death. But there must be no kil ling, for that was against the law of muru. Neither was it proper for the defendant to worst his assailant, though it was quite cor rect for him to make a good show of defense. At the first sign of blood the duel was over. Then the brother-in-law roared, "Murua! murua! murua! " and the sacking of the house was begun. The raiders appropriated pretty nearly everything that was movable and divided the loot among themselves. For lesser offenses a limited quantity of goods was taken; for greater, not only was all the offender's property removed but his house was burnt as well. He then became the honored guest of his plunderers, and so remained, supported by them, until by his labor or the muru of somebody else, he had accumulated sufficient property to start housekeeping once more for himself. It will be seen from the foregoing that the law of muru rendered the country in which it held force essentially communistic. No man could count his possessions his own except for the day; the next they might be his no longer. A traveler relates that he saw a nice coat, which a native had procured from the captain of a trading schooner, pass through the hands and over the backs of six different owners in the space of a single month, and return considerably the worse for wear to the original purchaser, all these transfers having been made by the lawful process of muru. For any holder of it to have offered objection to its being taken from him would have been a gross breach of etiquette. As before stated, as far as the law of muru was concerned a blunder was more impor tant than a crime. If a man killed another by accident, he would be murued; if the
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killing was intentional, the act would be con sidered either very meritorious or of no con sequence whatever. Thus, if a man killed his own slave, it was nobody's business but his own; if he killed a man belonging to another tribe, he had only to declare that he did it in revenge for some aggression, either recent or traditional, by the victim's people, and all his own tribe would praise him and de fend him to the death. What was held to be murder was the malicious destruction of a member of one's own tribe. This was of very rare occurrence, and usually went un punished, the murderer taking refuge with his own relations, who were bound to protect him by every means in their power. I conclude this brief and imperfect sketch of the Maori law with a story or two which will further illustrate its workings. A young Maori chief named Mawea lived with his handsome wife on the outskirts of a village. One day while Mawea was absent from home attending an assembly of his people, his wife eloped with a young chief from a neighbor ing tribe. The injured husband had two courses open to him; he could go to his people and with fiery eloquence demand that they fight the robber's tribe to regain possession of his bride; or else he could approach them mournfully and quietly re late his trouble, in which case he well knew what would happen. He chose the latter course. His case was discussed for an hour or so by the leading men of the village, and he was told to return to his home, with the assurance that the matter would be attended to on the following day. The next morning a muru party arrived and he was gratified to see that it numbered fully fifty men. He went out and paraded with seeming defiance up and down in front of his dwelling, hold ing in his hand a formidable looking blud geon, which, however, was really very harm less, being made of a flax stalk, and as light as cork. The preliminaries, part of which was a long address, being over, the leader gave the signal and three stalwart fellows of
