Note 49 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Kubary tells us that the population of Ebon, and of the whole Rallik group (in the Marshall Islands), consists of four ranks. “The common people are called armidj kajur and form the greater part of the subjects. They have no property, except the land allotted to them by the chief, who can take it from them at his pleasure. Every week they have, each of them, to provide the chief with prepared food, the quantity and quality of which are determined. The next class are the leotakatak, who hold their property by hereditary right and not from the chief. The chief cannot take the property of these men unless he kills them first.” “The punishments inflicted by the chiefs in former times consisted most often in capital punishment, and more rarely, in less serious cases, in confiscation of land and house”49.