get was that in these matters, as in the case of inter-community bush
boundaries and personal bush boundaries, disputes were practically
unknown; though it was pointed out to me, as regards bush land,
that the amount of it belonging to any one family was usually so
large that crowding out could hardly arise.

If a man dies without male descendants in the male line, then, subject
perhaps to some sort of claim of his daughters, if any, to share in
his movable effects, his property goes to his nearest male relative
or relatives in the male line. This would primarily be his father,
if living, but the father could hardly be the inheritor of anything
but movable things and perhaps garden land, as the deceased could not
be the owner of bush land during the lifetime of his father. Subject as
regards movable things and perhaps gardens to this right of the father,
the persons to inherit everything would be deceased's brothers and the
male descendants in the male line of any such brothers who had died;
or in default of these it would be the father's (not the mother's)
brothers and their male descendants in the male line, and so on for
more distant male relatives, every descent being traced strictly in
the male line only, on a principle similar to that above explained.

Male infants, by which term I mean young children, there being of
course no infancy in the defined sense in which the term is used
in English law, like adults, may become possessed of property by
inheritance as regards bush and garden land, and by inheritance
or otherwise as regards movable property, but they would hardly be
likely to be the owners of houses; and the descent from these infants
is the same as that in the case of adults.

No woman can possess any property, other than movable property,