Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/92

 The Law of Muru. tiful and pathetic lines he portrays the selfsacrifice of this class, so different from the selfishness, pomp, and self-aggrandisement so frequently shown by the higher monastic orders : — "A pore persoun of a town. That Christes gospel gladly wolde preche : His parischens devoutly wolde he teche : Benign he was and wondur diligent,

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And in adversite ful pacient. This noble ensample unto his scheep he gaf. That first he wrought, and after that he taughte. He sette not his benefice to huyre. And left his scheep encumbred in the mire, And ran to London, unto Seynte Pauls To seaken him a chaunterie for soules : He was a shepherd and no mercenare," etc. Major Greenwood, M.l>., LL. B., Law Students' Journal.

THE LAW OF MURU. By George H. Westley. THE onward march of civilization amongst what Mr. Kipling calls "the lesser breeds without the law," has pushed aside many very curious institutions. An institution of the kind referred to, and one which succumbed to civilizing influences only very recently, was the New Zealand law of muru. In speaking of muru as a law, one uses the latter term in a broad sense, in the sense of a rule of action established by long usage. In a stricter sense and from our point of view, muru would seem to have been es sentially lawless. The word itself in its common signification means " to plunder," and this is a definition which we might call apt enough; yet to the Maori mind, muru suggested nothing but what was right and proper. Our nearest legal equivalent for their understanding of the term would, per haps, be " to secure damages "; and yet this is not very near the mark either, for several reasons, one being that the person from whom damages were thus secured was, in his own estimation at any rate, better off than before. However, to avoid getting further entangled in paradox, we will look at once into the practical working of the thing. A little Maori boy while playing around the open fire, tumbled into it and was very se verely burned. With us the parents would be condoled with for the sad accident. Not so

with the Maoris. The father was imme diately and lawfully visited by a muruing party, and cleaned out of provisions, furni ture, canoes, fishing nets, in fact pretty nearly everything he possessed. Take another case. A man was out on the water with his family, when his canoe was upset and his wife drowned. Did his kind friends and neighbors gather round him with sympathetic tears? Not they. They simply pounced upon him, seized his goods and chattels, and gave him the soundest thrashing he had ever received in his life. If it was a mere upsetting without any loss of life, the man only forfeited his canoe and clothing. Now all this seems curious enough from our point of view, but more curious still is the fact that the victim of these persecutions, instead of feeling angry and resentful, sat down in his nudity and thanked his blessed stars for his good fortune. The greater his punishment, the greater was his gratifica tion; for the fact that his neighbors had taken so much trouble over his case, showed him to be a person of no small consequence amongst his people. To be allowed to go scot free would indicate that he was a no body, so meanly held by those around him that they did not think him worth muruing. And there was another consideration. The man who was himself murued, was privileged to take part in the muru of another; so that