Williams states that in Fiji an adulterer may be deprived of his land as a punishment; and Fison tells us that the chiefs have overridden the ancient customs regarding land tenure[83].
In Tahiti, those who resisted the king’s authority were banished and deprived of their lands. “Should the offender have been guilty of disobedience to the just demands of the king, though the lands might be his hereditary property, he must leave them, and become, as the people expressed it, a “wanderer upon the road””[84].
In Niué, widows and orphans “are frequently robbed of the land inherited from their dead husbands and fathers”[85].
In Ebon, confiscation of land by the chief was formerly a mode of punishment[86].
On the Kingsmill Islands, if a noble girl were to have connection with a man of the middle class, she would lose her landed property[87].
On Nauru, according to Krämer, a murderer in most cases has to yield his land to the parents of his victim. Jung tells us that formerly the chiefs often had to settle disputes about land among their subjects. They then generally took the land from the quarreling parties and regarded it as their own[88]. [[332]]
Among the Melanesians described by Codrington the chiefs “often use their power to drive away the owners of gardens they desire to occupy”[89].
Where land is so highly valued, and wealth and power depend upon the possession of it, the chiefs and other men of power will be inclined to appropriate as much of it as possible. This is not always easy, and sometimes, in democratically organized societies, hardly practicable; but we may be sure that it will be done on the very first opportunity. This is strikingly proved by what Gardiner tells us of Rotuma: “Since the introduction of missionaries, too, much land has been seized by the chiefs, who, as a rule, in each district were its missionaries, as fines for the fornications of individuals. A certain amount of cocoanut oil was then given by the chiefs to the Wesleyan Mission, apparently in payment for their support. The mission in the name of which it was done, though generally without the knowledge of the white teachers, was so powerful that the hoag had no redress.” Formerly individual rights to land in Rotuma were highly respected: “The victorious side obtained no territorial aggrandisement, as it was to the common interest of all to maintain the integrity of the land, and the victors might on some future occasion be themselves in the position of the vanquished”[90]. We may suppose that originally the chiefs were not powerful enough to appropriate land belonging to others; but the additional power that the new religion gave them enabled them to seize the lands of their subjects, and they immediately availed themselves of this opportunity.
A similar change has taken place in Samoa. In Turner’s time Samoan government had “more of the patriarchal and democratic in it, than of the monarchical.” Von Bülow, writing several years later than Turner, states that some chiefs have lately introduced what he calls serfdom. In the villages where this state of things exists the inhabitants live on land belonging to the chief. They pay no rent, but are obliged to stand by the chief in war and peace. They are personally free and have the right to emigrate, but own no land[91]. [[333]]
We can now perfectly understand why people destitute of land are found in so many of these islands. And as most often not only the arable land, but fruit-trees, lakes, streams, and the sea adjoining the land are individual property, these people are entirely at the mercy of the landowners. We shall see that they have to perform the drudgery for the landlords, and are sometimes heavily oppressed.