[17] Colenso, Maori Races of New Zealand, p. 34. Polack, op. cit. p. 68 sq.
[18] “Maxima sua esse credebant quae ab hostibus cepissent” (quoted by Ahrens, Naturrecht, ii. 137).
The occupation of a thing may take place in various ways. Hegel says that “taking possession is partly the simple bodily grasp, partly the forming and partly the marking or designating of the object.”[19] But there are still other methods of occupation, in which the bodily contact with the object is involuntary, or in which there is no bodily contact at all. Among the Maoris a man acquired a peculiar right to land “by having been born on it (or, in their expressive language, ‘where his navel-string was cut’), as his first blood (ever sacred in their eyes) had been shed there”;[20] or, generally, “by having had his blood shed upon it”; or “by having had the body, or bones, of his deceased father, or mother, or uterine brother or sister, deposited or resting on it”; or “by having had a near relative killed, or roasted on it, or a portion of his body stuck up or thrown away upon it.”[21] Among many peoples an animal belongs entirely or chiefly to the person who first wounded it, however slightly,[22] or who first saw it,[23] even though it was killed by somebody else. Thus among the Greenlanders, if a seal or some other sea-animal escapes with the javelin sticking in it, and is afterwards killed, it belongs to him who threw the first dart;[24] if a bear is killed, it belongs to him who first discovered it;[25] and when a whale is taken, the very spectators have an equal right to it with the harpooners.[26]
[19] Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, § 54, p. 54; English translation, p. 59.
[20] Of certain tribes of Western Victoria we are likewise told that, “should a child of another family have been born on the estate, it is looked upon as one of the family, and it has an equal right with them to a share of the land, if it has attained the age of six months at the death of the proprietor” (Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 7). The Rev. John Bulmer (quoted by Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 146) testifies the prevalence of such a birth-right among the Murray tribes, and suspects it is common to most of the tribes of Australia:—“The fact that an aboriginal is born in a certain locality constitutes a right to that part, and it would be considered a breach of privilege for any one to hunt over it without his permission. Should another black have been born in the same place, he, with the former, would have a joint right to the land. Otherwise, no native seems to have made a claim to any particular portion of the territory of his tribe.” Cf. Schurtz, Die Anfänge des Landbesitzes, in Zeitschr. f. Socialwissenschaft, iii. 357 sqq.
[21] Colenso, op. cit. p. 31. See also Polack, op. cit. ii. 82.
[22] Dalager, op. cit. p. 24 sq. (Greenlanders). Boas, ‘Central Eskimo,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 582. Dall, Alaska, p. 394 (Aleuts). Ratzel, op. cit. Bourke, Snake-Dance of the Moquis, ii. 227 (Asiatic Hyperboreans). Campbell, Second Journey in the Interior of South Africa, ii. 212 (Bechuanas). Livingstone, Missionary Travels, p. 599 (natives of South Africa), von Heuglin, Reise nach Abessinien, p. 290 sq. (Woitos). Laws of Manu, ix. 44. Post, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, ii. 163. Idem, Grundriss der ethnol. Jurisprudenz, ii. 707 sq. Andree, in Globus, xxxviii. 287 sq.
[23] Boas, ‘Central Eskimo,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 582. Ratzel, op. cit. ii. 227 (Asiatic Hyperboreans). See also Semper, Die Palau-Inseln, p. 86.
[24] Dalager, op. cit. p. 24.
[25] Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 29.