In the Abgarris, Marqueen and Tasman groups, the common people own no land; they serve the members of the upper classes and form their retinue; in reward they are provided with cocoanuts and other fruits and allowed to fish on the reef and in the lagoon[102].
In New Zealand, as has been shown in § 5, every freeman owned land. Accordingly, we find only a beginning of the [[336]]formation of a class of free labourers. Polack states that “the poorest classes work as freedmen on the farms of their richer relatives”[103].
On Easter Island, the king formerly held a despotic sway over the common people, i.e. those who did not belong to the nobility[104].
Gerland remarks that the two principal classes, nobles and common people, were nowhere in Polynesia less strictly separated than in Samoa and New Zealand. This strikingly shows that the appropriation of the land was really the basis of Polynesian aristocracy; for Samoa and New Zealand, as we have found, were almost the only Polynesian groups in which there was still free land[105].
Regarding the condition of the common people in Micronesia we have already mentioned many particulars in § 7 of the second chapter of Part I in inquiring whether they were to be regarded as slaves, and in § 6 of this chapter in order to prove that all land had been appropriated. We shall briefly repeat here what bears on their condition and the work imposed upon them, adding such details as have not yet been mentioned.
Steinbach states that in the Marshall Islands neither the lowest nor the next higher class owns land, “but they are allowed to grow as much produce or catch as much fish as is necessary for their sustenance. They have to perform certain services for the chiefs, such as the cutting of copra”. And Krämer tells us that the common people are a subjected class without property. The kings have an absolute rule over the people and many islands are their exclusive property. They may take as many women as they like from among the people as wives or concubines. The common man has only one wife and even this one his superiors may take away at their pleasure[106].
On Nauru, the lower classes (sometimes called “serfs” or “slaves” by the authors) are in the service of the chiefs and nobles.
In Ebon, the common people live on land allotted to them [[337]]by the chief who can take it from them at his pleasure. Every week they have, each of them, to provide the chief with a fixed quantity of food.
In Mortlock, according to Kubary, social ranks do not exist.
On the isle of Kusaie the chiefs have unlimited power. The common people are obliged to build houses and canoes for them and till their lands; the chiefs may always seize the goods and command the services of the people; the cocoanuts, which are rare, are for the chiefs alone; they receive a certain proportion of all the fish that is caught[107].