Note 36 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Gardiner gives an elaborate account of the regulation of landed property in Rotuma: “No private property in land formerly existed, it was all vested in the pure for the time being of the hoag36; the district generally had rights over it. It usually consisted of four kinds: bush, swamp, coast, and proprietary water in the boat channel; common to the hoag, too, were wells and graveyards. Every member of the hoag knew its boundaries, which consisted of lines between certain trees or prominent rocks, posts, and even stone walls. In the bush land every hoag possessed property; it lay on the slopes of hills and in valleys between at some slight distance from the coast, from which it was separated by a stone wall, running round the whole island. On it taro, yams, bananas, plantains, and a few cocoanut trees were grown for food, while the paths into it and through it were planted with the Tahitian chestnut, the fava tree, and the sagopalm. The Tahitian chestnut and fava trees were favourite boundary marks owing to their size and longevity. Swamp land is only possessed by Noatau, Oinafa, Matusa, and Itomotu. It is low-lying land, on extensive beach sand flats, which exist in these districts. The tide always keeps it wet, percolating through the sand, and in it is grown the papoi, or broka, against famine. The possession of a good-sized strip always caused and gave to the hoag a position of importance; its boundaries were stones at the sides. Coast land lay outside the surrounding wall, to which the hoag had a strip from and including the foreshore. On it as near as possible to the coast the house or houses of the hoag were placed, while the rest of the land was planted with cocoanuts for drinking purposes. Hifo trees are stated to have been planted formerly to show the boundaries, but they more often now consist of stones or cocoanut trees, the ownership of which is a constant source of dispute. Districts and even villages were sharply marked off by walls down to the beach. All had the right of turning out their pigs on this land, and each hoag had to keep in proper repair the parts of the wall adjacent to it. Each had, however, usually an enclosure on its own land for its own pigs, when young. The proprietary water ran from the foreshore to the reef, a continuation of the strip on shore. At Noatau and Matusa, where it is very broad, it was to some extent cross-divided. It consists of a sand flat covered by 10–12 feet of water at high-tide. On it fish of all sorts are caught by traps and various devices, and shell-fish are gathered. As these form no inconsiderable portion of the daily food, indeed the principal animal food, the value of this property was always very considerable. The reef—i.e. the part on the outside exposed at the low tide—was the common property of all. It was explained to me that fish, crabs, etc., cannot be cultivated there, owing to the heavy breaking seas, but are sent up by the atua, or spirits.” “Any land, not being planted, is willingly lent to another hoag on condition of two baskets of first-fruits of each patch being brought to the pure, but cocoanut trees on the land cannot be touched by the tenant, nor is he entitled to their usufruct. If a hoag owns land in one district, but lives in another, first-fruits are always paid to the chief of the district, in which its lands lie. Any encroachment on the land was very vigorously resented, it was usually referred to the district chief to settle, and his decision loyally adhered to.” “If he [a man] had planted more cocoanuts than required by the hoag, he has the entire usufruct of these trees during his lifetime, quite independently of the apportionment of the land below them for planting.” We see that the idea of landownership is most fully developed here. During the 19th century the population has much diminished, and so “most of the hoag have far more land than they can cultivate.” But formerly it was otherwise. “Examining the remains of planting, it appears as if the whole island, wherever practicable, was at one time tilled. The land, where there is a good and deep soil, is, and was, no doubt tilled regularly from year to year, while the rocky country was planted more or less in rotation with yams and kava. Even on the steepest slopes, there are signs of clearing, the summit alone being left crowned by the hifo. The bottoms of the craters of many hills used to be planted too; in the crater of Sol Satarua, the lulu as it is termed, there are still bananas growing, but planted so long ago that the fact that it had a lulu at all was almost forgotten”37. According to Hale, food was not always abundant on this island; therefore the natives liked to engage themselves as sailors on whaling-ships, until they had earned enough to buy a piece of land38. In Hale’s time land was evidently not so abundant as it is now that the population is so rapidly declining.