Note 24 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

All land has been appropriated, when every piece of land is claimed by some one as his property. The owner, of course, need not be an individual; land may also be owned by a group of individuals. Yet the statements of our ethnographers concerning tribal property may not be accepted without much caution. They often tell us that a tribe claims the ownership of the territory it inhabits. This so-called right of property held by the tribe often proves to consist in this, that no strangers are admitted to the territory, but every member of the tribe may cultivate as much of the land as he likes. In such case, whether it be the tribe or the king to whom the land is stated to belong, the term “ownership” is very inappropriately used24. We shall only speak of appropriation of land when some one claims the use of it to the exclusion of all others, and values his property. Where the so-called owner is always willing to give a piece of it in cultivation to whoever wants to cultivate it, we shall not speak of appropriation; where, however, the land is never (except by way of favour) given in use gratis, but a rent is always stipulated, it appears that the owner values it, it has now really been appropriated25.