Note 109 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Rochas states that in New Caledonia the common people enjoy a rather independent position; they have to perform some services for the chiefs, which chiefly consist in cultivating their lands; but they always own a piece of land themselves. They are, however, sometimes killed by the upper chiefs for cannibal purposes. Glaumont enumerates the following classes: sorcerers, warriors, common people, slaves. But he adds that the chief himself, however powerful, would not dare to take away the field of taros or ignames belonging to the least of his subjects. According to Brainne, there are two classes: numerous chiefs of various kinds, and serfs, over whom the former, especially the superior chiefs, have the right of life and death. Lambert, a good authority, remarks that the only division of the people is that between the chiefs and their relatives and the rest of the population, and observes that those writers are wrong who speak of a class of nobles. The chief is not allowed to dispose of the property of his subjects109. So it seems that the natives here are rather democratically organized.