muru
In Maori culture, muru was a formalised practice of retaliatory or compensatory plunder — a sanctioned group act of taking property from someone who had caused harm, embarrassment, or misfortune to the community.
Definitions
In Maori culture, muru was a formalised practice of retaliatory or compensatory plunder — a sanctioned group act of taking property from someone who had caused harm, embarrassment, or misfortune to the community. It wasn't random theft but a recognised social mechanism for restoring balance and acknowledging collective grievance. Today the term appears in discussions of Maori history, customary law, and occasionally in New Zealand political commentary as a shorthand for collective payback.
The historian explained that muru functioned less like crime and more like a structured form of community-enforced reparation.
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(NZ) An act of retaliatory theft among the Maori.
“www.themaorigreenlantern.maori.nz/the-muru-in-...”
— Bluesky· May 2026
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