§ 6. Land tenure in Micronesia.

Kubary tells us that the population of Ebon, and of the whole Rallik group (in the Marshall Islands), consists of four ranks. "The common people are called armij kajur and form the greater part of the subjects. They have no property, except the land allotted to them by the chief, who can take it from them at his pleasure. Every week they have, each of them, to provide the chief with prepared food, the quantity and quality of which are determined. The next class are the leotakatak, [322] who hold their property by hereditary right and not from the chief. The chief cannot take the property of these men unless he kills them first." "The punishments inflicted by the chiefs in former times consisted most often in capital punishment, and more rarely, in less serious cases, in confiscation of land and house". [Kubary, Die Ebongruppe, pp. 36, 37.]

Several other writers affirm that in the Marshall group the upper classes are the sole proprietors of the soil and the common people are destitute of land. [Senfft, in Steinmetz's Kechtsverhältnisse, pp. 448, 452; Steinbach, p. 297; Kramer, Hawaii, etc., pp. 430, 431.]

Regarding the isle of Nauru we are told that not only every inch of land and every palm, but even the reefs and the sea washing them, are held as property. [Jung, p. 68.]

On the Pelau Islands the right of disposing of the land of the tribe vests in the obokul (chief of a family-group); but he cannot alienate any land without the consent of his nephews. However, a regular agriculture does not exist, and most of the land remains untilled; therefore the opposition of the nephews generally bears a formal character; they only aim at extorting a present from the obokul. The obokul divides the land among the members of the tribe for cultivation. He may also cede pieces of land to aliens for use without payment; such persons then enter into the position of kaukath, i. e. they are considered as related to the tribe without possessing the same rights, they occasionally provide the obokul with food, and help him in his work. In another place our informant states that there is not often reason for disputes about land, as the population is scarce and large tracts of land are uncultivated. [Kubary, Soc. Einr. der Pelauer, pp. 47, 48; Kubary, Die Verbrechen, p. 85.]

On the Mortlock Islands the chief of each tribe has an unlimited right to dispose of the land belonging to the tribe. He divides it among the heads of families on condition of their paying a tribute in kind. The latter assign to each member of their groups a piece of land for cultivation. Most land is divided up between the several keys (family-groups); the land which is not yet occupied is the property of the principal key ind thus more directly than the rest at the disposal of the chief. [Kubary, Mortlock-Inseln, p. 253.] [323]

On the isle of Kusaie twelve principal chiefs own all the land; but the chiefs of the second rank administer and cultivate it for them. The common people are obliged to pay a tribute to the chiefs and serve them. The highest mountains are planted up to their summits with bananas, taro, sugarcane, etc. [Waitz-Gerland, V, 2 pp. 120, 121, 78.]

On the Eastern Caroline Islands the land belongs exclusively to the two upper classes; the third class are attached to the soil on which they live. [Waitz-Gerland, V, 2 p. 118.]

Hale states that in Ponape or Ascension Island there are three classes. All the land belongs to the two upper classes. The estates are never alienated and pass only by succession. [Hale, p. 83.]

Gerland tells us that on the Marianne Islands the nobles were hereditary owners of the whole of the land. [Waitz-Gerland, 1. c, p. 114.]

As to the Kingsmill Islands, the particulars given by Wilkes and Parkinson, as quoted in the second chapter of Part I [See above, pp. 107-109.] sufficiently prove that all land had been appropriated. According to Wilkes "any one who owns land can always call upon others to provide him with a house, canoe, and the necessaries of life; but one who has none is considered as a slave, and can hold no property whatever." Hale tells us that "the katoka are persons not originally of noble birth, who either by the favour of their chief or by good fortune in war, have acquired land and with it freedom". [Wilkes, p. 96; Hale, p. 102.] If in Wilkes' statement we read "proletarian" instead of "slave," and take Hale's "freedom" in an economic, not in a legal sense, we find that here too the lowest class were destitute of landed property.

 

The conclusion is that on most of the islands of Micronesia all land has been appropriated, most often by the upper classes to the exclusion of the lower. In Pelau, though a vast amount of land is actually out of tillage, the regulation of landed property related by Kubary proves that all land is held as property. Here, as well as in Rotuma and Tahiti, we have to deal with the effects of the depopulation that has taken place in Oceania. In Mortlock there seems to be free land; but Kubary's account is not very clear.