634 



and woman's work is very definitely marked off, and that 

 no one ever thinks of encroaching upon the sphere of action 

 of the other sex. This feature is, I think, quite universal. 

 Among the Papuo-Melanesians and Massim even the details 

 of the division of labour seem to be identical throughout the 

 whole area. My inquiries, however, into this matter have not 

 been sufficiently careful for me to be able to bring any very 

 interesting facts to light. From my notes, however, as well 

 as from what I remember having seen, the state of things in 

 Mailu seems to be, in this respect, identical with what obtains 

 among the natives of Bartle Bay. These have been described 

 by the Rev. H. Newton, to whose account the reader may 

 iDe referred. '^^^ 



6. Property and Inheritance. 



Introductory Femarks. — The question of the tenure of 

 property, or real law, is so important that it has been neces- 

 sary to allude to it on several occasions in preceding para- 

 graphs. '"0) In this place some general remarks will be made 

 and the scattered facts stated elsewhere will be summarized. 

 What has been said before, in connection with land tenure, 

 must of course be borne in mind — namely, that "property" or 

 "ownership" are terms which are used here not in our (modern 

 European) legal sense, but as short expressions for the sum 

 of the customary right a man, or social body, enjoys with 

 respect to a material object. 



Com/munism. — This term is often applied with reference 

 to the mode in which goods are used by natives of the same 

 general stage of culture as the Papuasians. Here again 

 detailed, concrete facts must be given, and the general condi- 

 tions of native life kept in view, if the term is to have any 

 meaning at all. The natives of Mailu live in small village 

 communities, the members of which are in constant mutual 

 contact and entirely cut off from the outer world, so that 

 there is no possibility or opportunity of exchanging the 

 majority of goods in common use. On the other hand, these 

 goods are quite abundant; food, materials for clothing, fire- 

 wood, common implements are neither scare nor difficuFt to 

 prepare for use. There is then no room for very strong 

 individual appropriation, and the natives are certainly 

 extremely liberal and "communistic," in the sense that a man 



'69) 0;). cif.y chapters on Men's AVork and Women's AVork 

 (chaps, viii. and ix.). 



(70) Thus in sec. 4 of chap. ii. the rights of a man to his house 

 were discussed, and again in describing the Gora and Ondga insti- 

 tutions the problem of property and rights to things had to be 

 touched upon. The most important form of 'ownership'' — land 

 tenure — was descri1)ed in sec. 1 of this chapter, etc. 



