Note 118 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Generally speaking, we may conclude that in Polynesia and Micronesia there are lower classes destitute of land and entirely at the mercy of the landholders, whereas in Melanesia such classes do not exist. This agrees with our former conclusion, that in the two first-named geographical districts all land has, or had been appropriated, which is not the case in Melanesia. And if we consider the single groups of islands, we find that wherever in Polynesia there is still free land (Samoa, New Zealand), a more or less democratic régime prevails, and where in Melanesia all land has been appropriated (Fiji) there is a subjected lower class. In the same sense, Moerenhout, speaking of Polynesia, remarks that, in the sparsely populated islands the chiefs had little power, but wherever there was a dense population, wars were frequent and the chiefs reigned despotically118. There are, as we have already remarked, a few exceptions to this general rule (Rotuma, Pelau); but in these cases it is quite possible that a subjected class formerly existed. For a great depopulation has taken place in Oceania, especially in Polynesia and Micronesia119; and the value of land must have decreased together with the population. We have seen that in Rotuma all land is still held as property, but large tracts are out of tillage, though there are everywhere traces of former cultivation. In Pelau too, as has been said in § 6, the rights of property are still recognized, though there is but little land actually in cultivation. That the class of people destitute of land tends to disappear when the population decreases, is strikingly shown by the following statement of Ellis’s regarding Tahiti: “Although the manahune [lowest class] have always included a large number of the inhabitants, they have not in modern times been so numerous as some other ranks. Since the population has been so greatly diminished, the means of subsistence so abundant, and such vast portions of the country uncultivated, an industrious individual has seldom experienced much difficulty in securing at least the occupancy of a piece of land”120.