Land Ownership In Micronesia

Landownership on a Micronesian Atoll Raymond E. Murphy Geographical Review, Vol. 38, No. 4. (Oct., 1948), pp. 598-614. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0016-7428%28194810%2938%3A4%3C598%3ALOAMA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D Geographical Review is currently published by American Geographical Society.

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LANDOWNERSHIP ON A MICRONESIAN ATOLL* RAYMOND E. MURPHY

T

HE United States now finds itself governing some hundred or more

island groups in Micronesia. For most of these the ownership of the land has never been shown on a map or described in a written record, nor are there any recorded laws governing landownership or inheritance. Yet we are pledged to govern these islands, and it is unlikely that the casual methods ofthe past can long- s&ce. All too rarely can the geographer feel that his work is of direct practical value, but the study here presented has proved one of the fortunate exceptions. To the government ofice at Ponape, charged with administration ofthe eastern Caroline Islands, the maps of Mokil furnished the first reasonably exact landownership picture of any part of its domain. The list of landownership and land-inheritance customs gave some basis for judging the ownership disputes from Mokil that already, in the summer of 1947, were beginning to be brought to the Ponape land ofice, and a supplementary study of all existing landownership controversies provided additional directly usable material. There are neither fences nor cornerstones in Mokil, but to the eye of the native landholdings are just as sharply defined as if there were. No mali would think of climbing a tree for a drinking coconut or of harvesting breadfruit except on his own land. Boundary lines are numerous and are well known to the people, but they have not heretofore been shown on a map. Nor have the facts regarding landownership and the customs governing the possession and inheritance of land been recorded.' The small size of Mokil made it possible for the writer in seven weeks to investigate the problems of landownership at some length. The boundaries of all property holdings were mapped by pacing and the use of a Brunton compass. Then the recent land histories of several representative families A

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*This study is a product of one of a series of investigations throughout Micronesia begun in the summer of 1947. The general program, known as the Coordinated Investigation of Micronesian Anthropology (CIMA), was sponsored by the Pacific Science Board of the National Research Council. Human geography was one of the fields represented. IThe literature on Mokil is scanty. Anneliese Eilers' "Inseln um Ponape" (Ergebnisse der SiidseeExpedition 1908-1910, edited by G. Thilenius, 11. Ethnographie, B. Mikronesien, Vol. 8, Hamburg, 1934, pp. 359-404)~the standard work on the atoll, summarizes the early visits and the meager scientific observations made but contributes little or nothing to the landownership story.

DR.MURPHY, professor of economic geography at Clark University,spent the summer of 1947 in the Pacific on research for the CIMA project.

5 99

-4 MICRONESIAN ATOLL

were recorded, in order to see how land had changed hands in the last three-quarters of a century, and the details were obtained regarding all unsettled problems of landownership. Finally, from the maps and information assembled in these ways and by hours of direct questioning, the principles TABLEI-COCONUT LANDHOLDINGS OF PRINCIPAL M OKILFAMILIES Based on planimeter measurementsfrom the authorijeld maps

Bossmana

FAMILY Number

Obet *Joabb Allen *Aukust (King) Etion Olten *Samuel Net-Penjamin *Kerestopa *Luie Japed *Lepan *Pernel *Alpert Hemy-Dom *Jimion Olber Jojden *Jaulik Loren

ACREAGE Total Per capita

FAMILY Bossmana Number

ACREAGE Total Per capita

Etuet Hiram Lemuel Jimez Kalen Net Willem Hare Etgar Luelen Kilinten Jek Aredt Melten Jorim Isaac Jimi Eliam Jojtp

Joai

a Local

spelling is used in this table and for the names of all persons mentioned in the article. The names reflect contacts with traders and missionary influence. b Families marked with an asterisk have one or more pieces of land on Ponape.

or customs were derived that have governed landownership and inheritance. At every stage of the work the writer was actively assisted by the people of Mokil. THE FAMILY We may begin this account of landownership with a description of the family (Fig. 4). The family is the landholding unit of Mokil,' and the name shown on the maps for the holdings of each family is that of the "bossman" or administrative head. The patrilocal extended family is the normal group.3 It consists of a father and mother, their sons and their wives and families, and the families of their married sons. All unmarried children are included, but married daughters are excluded, since they normally go to live with their husbands' families. The patrilocal extended family may include also 'The people of Mokil are organized into five exogamous matrilineal sibs or clans, but there seems to be no present relationship between clan membership and landownership except indirectly in that members of the same clan cannot marry. 3 Both patrilocal residence and patrilineal inheritance of property in land seem to antedate the German and Japanese administrations, and possibly even the Spanish period.

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ISAAC OLTEN OBET

0O T H E R S ANCIENT

TARO

SWAMPS

R E E F BORDER

FIG. I-Mokil Atoll. Scale approximately I : 26,000. The inset shows the position of Mokil in the eastern Carolines.

The writer constructed the maps for the individual islands from compass readings and pacing, on a scale of approximately

I : 138s. The field drawings were compared with an enlarged aerial photograph of Mokil. Correspondence was so close that it was decided to use the field maps without adjustment. The aerial photograph was used for placement of the three islands in the composite map. The normal pattern of division of the coconut land is one of transverse panels. The heavy lines mark the boundaries between the major divisions of the coconut land, thought to represent individual family holdings of a past period (lines are broken where they do not follow presentday property boundaries). The minor divisions on the map show individual family holdings of today. Their scattered distribution is exemplified by the cases of Isaac, Olten, and Obet. For a map of the principal taro areas see Figure 3.

FIG.2-The large taro area of Kalap with Kalap Village to the southwest. Most of this taro area is ancient and owned by rows, but along the edges are recent extensions that are the property of the owners of the adjacent coconut land. (From a U. S. Navy air photograph.)

ANCIENT

TARO

AREAS

FIG.3-Diagrammatic map of the ancient taro areas on Mokil. Since the predominant speciesof taro reaches a height of 10 to IS feet, accurate mapping of the areas was impossible. The main outline is reasonably correct, and the principal paths are located with fair accuracy. Then for each side of each path the number of rows belonging to each family was listed; the spaces shown are proportionate to the number of rows. Holdings of three families are distinguished. The major divisions of the taro area are used now only to designate the location of taro rows. For example, Isaac has taro holdings in Pensakou, Makatikitiko, Lauailol, and Jaukipar.

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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

the father's younger brothers and their wives, their sons and their wives, and so on. This family group lives either in a single dwelling or in a cluster of adjacent dwellings. The bossman is ordinarily the oldest man in the family. Since the people of Mokil use only one name, it follows that his name will disappear from the landownership picture when he dies. In this respect the king is no differ-

FIG. 4-A patrilocal extended family of Mokil. The patriarch at the upper left, Lepan, is the bossman of the family. The group is not complete since one son with his wife and family was in Ponape when the picture was taken. Most members of the family are dressed in their best Sunday clothes. Normally, the men wear trousers but no shim or shoes. A few wear the more picturesque wraparound or lava-lava. At home, except on special occasions, most of the women wear only the lava-lava, but the Mother Hubbard is more common for appearances in public.

ent from anyone else. For a number of generations the king's family has held land and passed it on from one generation to the next, and always the family has been subject to the same customs of landownership and inheritance as any other Mokil family. Patrilocal extended families may break up into nuclear families like our own. These hold land in the same fashion. But the true nuclear family is rare and of short duration. No sooner is it formed than it begins the process of expansion into the more characteristic patrilocal extended family. The families holding land in Mokil number about 40 and range in size from two members to 28 (Table I).

Some idea of the general picture of the atoll is a necessary background for an understanding of the family-land relationship (Fig. I). Mokil consists

A MICRONESIAN ATOLL

609

the oldest daughter (or the only daughter if there is but one) may bring her husband to her home. This was the case when Obet married Bessie some 60-odd years ago.' She was an only child, so Obet went to her home and, when her father died, succeeded him as bossman. The Obet landholdings of today were established in their broad outlines at that time. When Obet went to live with Bessie, he received from his own family 28 rows of taro in the ancient taro swamps of Kalap and three pieces of coconut land. And Bessie, since she was the only child, eventually received all the property that had been held under her father's name: eight pieces of coconut land and 32 rows of taro. If a map had been made after the death of Bessie's parents, it would have shown all this land and taro under the name of Obet, the new bossman (Fig. 12). The family was then a nuclear family beginning its expansion into the patrilocal extended family of today. The subsequent history of the landholdings of Obetlis fairly typical for the atoll. Large families are the rule in Mokil, and the nine children of Obet and Bessie, three girls and six boys, make a normal-sized family. Each of the three daughters married and went to live with her husband's family, and each received an allotment from Obet. Jeni, the oldest girl, was given title to two pieces of coconut land and 14 rows of taro, and these properties thereafter were nominally part of the holdings of the bossman of her husband's family. When a second girl married, she received a somewhat smaller allotment, and the dowry of the third girl was smaller still, according to ancient custom. At present, because ofthe serious crowding, it is customary to give the same amount to each daughter instead of impoverishing the family by giving the most land to the girl who marries first. It hardly needs to be pointed out that a large family of girls is a distinct handicap in Mokil. Just as land was given to each of Obet's daughters when she married, land was brought into the family by each of the five sons who have marriedSipan, Lipai, Erin, Ezra, and Jojep. Only Kelsen remains unmarried. Each piece of property brought in by the wives of the sons, though it appears on the map under Obet's name, is understood to belong, in the last analysis, to the wife and her husband. The story is complicated still more by grandchildren. Sipan has four children, of whom one son and one daughter are married. The marriages 7 It is worthy of note that one member of each of the two families which played a part in the beginning of the Obet land history came from Pingelap, an atoll some 70 miles southeast of Mokil (Fig. I). Obet's father, Noah, was a Pingelap man who married a Mokil woman and moved to Mokil, and Bessie's mother also came from this neighboring atoll. Pingelap people appear surprisingly often in the family trees of today, and Marshall Islands ancestry, too, is common. Such origins reflect the seafaring that has long been important in the lives of the people of Mokil and neighboring atolls.

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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

meant some additions to, and some losses from, the Obet holdings. And the oldest daughter of Erin, the third son of Obet, married and was given land. This brings the Obet land picture up to the moment (Fig. 12). A critical change is impending, however. Obet is a very old man; it is probable that he will soon die. There will then be a reaccounting. Although the details have not been made public, he has already told the family which of his sons is to be the new bossman and, in case the family breaks up, how the land of Obet and Bessie is to be divided. Either of two things may happen. The family may remain a single unit under the new bossman, or it may break up into smaller families, each with its own land. It is generally understood that the second alternative will be chosen. Each of the resulting family units will then, in its turn, begin the process of growth into a typical patrilocal extended family, and several new names will appear on the map as a result of the division of the properties now shown under the name of Obet. A study of the Obet family reveals what is happening to the land in Mokil. Although the group now holds a little more land than Obet and Bessie did originally, it must be remembered that the family of two. has grown to 28 members. Planimeter measurements show that Obet and Bessie began their married life with 20 acres of coconut land; they also had 60 rows of taro. Let us take the case of just one subfamily, that of Sipan. If the unassigned Obet property is evenly divided, and an even division among sons is now the rule, the Sipan family, already numbering seven members (exclusive, of course, of the married daughter, who has received her dowry), will have only 4% acres of coconut land and 19 rows in the community taro patch. Seven people will depend on one-fifth as much coconut land as the original two, and on one-third as many taro rows.' And in family after family the same story is repeated.

Ownership disputes are like land histories in throwing light on the principles of landownership and land inheritance in Mokil. Such disputes are too long and too involved to be presented here in detail, but in most of them the trouble seems to have arisen in some such way as this: A man goes to Ponape or elsewhere for an indefinite stay. He is not supposed to lose his rights to his land, but custom decrees that he must assign his property to someone, generally a brother, to take care of until he returns. The owner of The fact that Obet and his sons have dug some additional taro pits in their coconut lands does not materially change the situation. It merely means that they have increased their production of the essential taro and proportionately decreased their potential copra production.

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61I

the land dies in Ponape, and years later his son comes back to claim his inheritance. In the meanwhile the brother and his family have held the land so long that they have come to regard it as their own. In fact, the brother may have died, and his son may have become bossman. The new bossman refuses to recognize the claim, and since there are no written records and no courts, that is about where the matter is likely to stop. Such troubles are a further reflection of the growing scarcity of land on the atoll.

Ponape, a relatively large "high island" IOO miles to the west of Mokil, has affected the atoll's landownership story in several ways. Ponape has richer soil and much greater productive possibilities, but it is rainier and is not physically attractive to the Mokil people. It is, however, much less crowded and has therefore been available as at least a partial answer to the land scarcity of Mokil. But the major factor that has tied the two together as regards landownership is an event that took place in 1911-the establishment of Mokil Village in the Jokaj District of northwestern Ponape. The background of the movement to Ponape may be briefly summarized. In 1910 the people of the Jokaj District rebelled against the German government. By 1911 the rebellion had been suppressed and the natives of the district exiled to the Palau Islands. The German government then offered the land thus vacated to people from various island groups in the vicinity of Ponape. The Mokil people were offered contiguous pieces of land, and some 14 families, most of them parts of patrilocal extended families and not the whole family, moved to Jokaj Island, which is part of the larger district of Jokaj. The area in which they settled is called Mokil Village, just as the Jokaj District also has a Pingelap Village, a Ngatik Village, and so on (Fig.1I). The establishment of a settlement in 1911 on Ponape would be of little interest in this study of landownership in Mokil if the migrating group had broken away completely from their relatives on the atoll, but such is far from the case. Some 18 more or less distinct family units now reside in Mokil Village, Ponape, and most of these families are still tied in some degree to patrilocal extended families of Mokil. The bossman of a piece of land in Mokil Village may also be bossman of a Mokil family and may live on the atoll. Or he may live in Mokil Village and have a son or a brother in charge of his atoll holdings. Thus the center of gravity of the family may be in Mokil Village or it may be on the atoll, and there is constant travel back and forth. A daughter's dowry or a son's share of the family land may be all or in part in Mokil Village.

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The story of landholdings outside the atoll does not stop with Mokil Village. T; a smaller extent Mokil families have pieces of land elsewhere in Ponape, and these lands may be occupied by a son of the family or be tied in some other way into the landownership system of the patrilocal extended family of Mokil. O f course, not all the families of the atoll have holdings in Mokil Village or elsewhere in Ponape, and many such holdings are small. O f the 40-odd families of Mokil, probably a few less than half have some member or members on land in Ponape (Table I). Land connections with islands or island groups other than Ponape are few, though there are cases of people who have land rights by inheritance in Pingelap or elsewhere if they wish to return there.

Although there are no recorded laws in Mokil governing the ownership and inheritance of land, there are, as may have been inferred from the preceding pages, certain customs that public opinion attempts to enforce. These customs are not much like our own land laws, but they are the key to an understanding of landownership in Mokil. The following customs are listed by way of illustration: (I) Land cannot be bought or sold. The growing scarcity seems to have increased the rigidity of application of this rule. (2) Land can be inherited or otherwise acquired only by people with Mokil blood. '(3) Land can be exchanged, but the writer heard of no case of exchange with the purpose of consolidating scattered holdings. (4) When a girl marries, she ordinarily goes to live with her husband's family, and her own family gives her title to one or more pieces of coconut land and to several rows of taro. ( 5 ) If there are no boys in a family, the oldest daughter's husband may come to live with her family, and he becomes bossman when her father dies. This practice is called pela murin li, which is translated "follow the woman." (6) Adoption gives a child the same land rights as a member born into the family. (7) When either a boy or a girl is given in adoption, the original farmly ordinarily gives taro rows and coconut land with the child, much as a dowry is given. (8) Through advance agreement by the bossmen of two families, a boy and a girl from one family may marry a girl and a boy from another without property exchange, since the dowries cancel each other. In one family whose land history the writer recorded, this practice was carried to two sons and two daughters from each family. (9) Land on Ponape may be used for a daughter's dowry or may form part or all of the share of a son. (10) When a bossman leaves Mokil for a prolonged period, he must turn over his property

A MICRONESIAN ATOLL

613

to someone else, generally a brother, to keep for him while he is away. Theoretically, he or his descendants may reclaim this land at any time. (I I ) Before the bossman of a family dies, he indicates who is to be the new bossman and how the family land is to be divided. When he dies, the family may either remain a unit under the new bossman or divide into smaller families, each of which is the beginning of another patrilocal extended family. These are only a few of the many customs that, through long observance, have become essentially an unwritten code of land laws.

The study of landownership in Mokil leads ultimately to the chief problem of the atoll-overcrowding. It is not so much overcrowding so fir as the taro land is concerned, but the people have advanced far from the days when sheer subsistence on taro was e n ~ u g h They . ~ have become accustomed to flour and rice and sugar, and to various articles of clothing from the store. T o get these luxuries, they must sell copra, and the increasing .population means an ever decreasing amount of coconut land to a person. It is when measured in this way that the plight of the islands becomes apparent. One possible solution lies in the expansion of landholdings on Ponape. The usable land in the MokilVillage section is f d y allotted, but other parts of the island have desirable land that is available for settlement. Some Mokil families are taking advantage of this possibility. For example, as a result of a family decision, Obet's fourth son, Ezra, has arranged to settle on a piece of land in the interior of Ponape. In general, however, interior locations do not attract the amphibious Mokil people. Late in the field season of 1947 the possibility arose of relieving the congestion in Mokil and on the neighboring atoll of Pingelap by the removal of parts of certain of the patrilocal extended families to Ujelang atoll, northeast of Ponape.Io The number who wished to go far exceeded the space 9

The first record of the number of people in Mokil is for 1852, at which time there were only

87 residents (see Eilers, op. cit., p. 365). But there were legends of a much earlier period when the popu-

lation may have numbered five or six hundred. If this total did exist on the atoll, it was probably on a subsistence basis, with all the energy of the people devoted to the production of food. InThe plan was conceived by the Military Government on Ponape after it had beeh informed that Ujelang, the westernmost atoll of the Marshalls, was to come under itsjurisdiction. But, unfortunately for the people of Mokil and Pingelap, such plans are subject to sudden change. At the time the writer reached Guam on his return from the eastern Carolines, in late September, the newspapers carried a report that the Bikini natives, who had been moved to Rongerik atoll when Bikini was needed for atom-bomb tests, were starving because of the poverty of their new abode. In answer to this came a Navy announcement that the former Bikini natives would be moved to Ujelang. Still later it was decided to use Eniwetok, in the northwestern Marshalls, for further atom-bomb tests, and the people of that

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available. The writer was asked, on the basis of his maps and other data, to say which of the larger Mokil families were worst off and should therefore be given first consideration. Planimeter calculations now make possible a fairly definite answer. The picture is somewhat complicated where there are landholdings on Ponape, but certain families stand out clearly as cases of extreme need (Table I).

The landownership study of Mokil was intended chiefly as a type study. To the anthropologist it may suggest the value of mapping as a basis for investigating social organization. For the administrators of the islands such a study is recommended as a practicable method of attacking one of the greatest problems facing the United States in Micronesia-landownership. OF course, the value of a study of this kind, directly usable though it may be, is limited by the small area involved. But the work presented here is just a beginning. T o the administrators of the islands every island group may seem to be unique in its land customs; in reality the picture is not as complicated as that. Many similarities may be noted, especially between islands that are neighbors and are of similar physical type. The customs of Mokil, for example, are remarkably similar to those ofpingelap and Ngatik." The writer believes that it should be possible to make a rough classification, that the hundred-odd islands and island groups of the United States Trust Territory of Micronesia could be divided into a relatively few classes within each of which the customs of landownership and land inheritance would be essentially similar. Such a classification would greatly simplify the problems of island government. The project would require extensive field work in addition to the utilization of all information now available or being made available by studies that are under way. Much could be done through conferences with representatives of the various island units at government bases. Ideally, the work would be a joint enterprise of geographer and anthropologist. It would be of unquestionable scientific value a i d at the same time have the virtue of being of immediate and direct use in the administration of these new charges of ours in the Pacific. atoll instead of those from Bikini were sent to Ujelang. Early in 1948 the Bikini natives were reported as being in temporary quarters on Kwajalein, from which they were scheduled to be moved in a few months to a permanent home, probably in the southern Marshalls. At any rate, settlement on Ujelang had ceased to be a possible answer to overcrowdig in Mokil and Pingelap. r1 The writer made a brief visit to Pingelap in 1945. In September, 1947, he spent several days at the Ponape Military Government office discussing landownership and inheritance customs with people from Pingelap and Ngatik.