"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.