Melanesian Land-Tenure

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AT a meeting of the Royal Anthropological Institute held on October 11 Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, president, gave an account of the Melanesian system of land-tenure. He described the nature of the ownership of land in two patrilineal societies in Melanesia, Ambrim in the New Hebrides, and Eddystone Island in the Solomons, and showed that its essentially communistic character agreed with the account given by Codrington of the land-tenure of the matrilineal parts of the archipelago. This close agreement, contrasting with the great diversity of other aspects of Melanesian culture, was held to indicate that the communal ownership of land was an early, though not necessarily the earliest, feature of Melanesian society which has been little affected by the many influences to which the general diversity is due.