The Village and the Local Community among Primitive Agricultural Tribes

Abstract

The local community, which G.P. Murdock, a social anthropologist, defines as “the maximal group of persons who normally reside together in face to face association”, is not quite identical in its scope with the village in terms of landscape. Many geographers, sociologists, and historians, however, believe in the contrary; they assume that those two were one, at least in ancient society. Corroboration of the ancient society is difficult, but ethnological facts may enable us to reason by analogy.We shall take the case of Melanesian primitives, who make taro and yam still employing digging sticks and by burning cultivation. The scope of their local community is not necessarily equal to that of their village; a local community very often includes two or more villages or hamlets. Also, their local community, although its people cooperate in many facets of daily life, is not to be called a very solid social unity, since land, which is the most important production means among Melanesians, is owned jointly by the consanguineal kin group as distinct from the local community, and not by the latter.Thus, among primitive agricultural tribes the local community, the village, and the land owning group differ in scope and structurally seem to be more complicated than is ordinarily supposed by scholars.