Landownership on a Micronesian Atoll

Abstract

T HE United States now finds itself governing some hundred or more island groups in Micronesia. For most of these the ownership of the land has never been shown on a map or described in a written record, nor are there any recorded laws governing landownership or inheritance. Yet we are pledged to govern these islands, and it is unlikely that the casual methods of the past can long suffice. All too rarely can the geographer feel that his work is of direct practical value, but the study here presented has proved one of the fortunate exceptions. To the government office at Ponape, charged with administration of the eastern Caroline Islands, the maps of Mokil furnished the first reasonably exact landownership picture of any part of its domain. The list of landownership and land-inheritance customs gave some basis for judging the ownership disputes from Mokil that already, in the summer of 1947, were beginning to be brought to the Ponape land office, and a supplementary study of all existing landownership controversies provided additional directly usable material. There are neither fences nor cornerstones in Mokil, but to the eye of the native landholdings are just as sharply defined as if there were. No man would think of climbing a tree for a drinking coconut or of harvesting breadfruit except on his own land. Boundary lines are numerous and are well known to the people, but they have not heretofore been shown on a map. Nor have the facts regarding landownership and the customs governing the possession and inheritance of land been recorded.' The small size of Mokil made it possible for the writer in seven weeks to investigate the problems of landownership at some length. The boundaries of all property holdings were mapped by pacing and the use of a Brunton compass. Then the recent land histories of several representative families