Primitive Property

PROPERTY, PRIMITIVE. Property is bound up with every aspect of social life. It gives a stimulus to economic effort, enters into questions of marriage, family life, and inheritance, forms the subject of legal judgments, provides compensation for i offences, and acts as a frequent incentive to war. It is held in goods such as food, clothing and weapons; and immaterial items (songs, personal names, mythological tales, magical spells, social offices) are in many communities a matter for precise ownership. The tie between man and property is often not one of mere eco nomic interest the basis of attachment is of the nature of a sentiment, a complex set of emotional considerations centring in the object. Thus to the Maori his tribal land is his greatest treas ure, a fact which is illustrated by many proverbial sayings, e.g., "The blood of man is the land" or "Man perishes but the land remains." This love of his ancestral soil is a factor which greatly complicates the economic aspect of alienation. The association of ownership with a tie of sentiment is common to other primitive communities, as with the Lango and their cattle.

The precise meaning of ownership is different in every culture, varying according to custom, tradition and the relative social status of those who enjoy its privileges. Failure to recognize the essential nature of the-primitive conception of ownership has led to the formulation of many unreal hypotheses in anthropology— and, in the practical sphere, to misunderstanding and conflict between native and white man.

Primitive Communism.

From a partial study of the evi dence, certain social theorists, as Friedrich Engels, were lured by their political ideals—for which this notion formed a useful prece dent—to advance the thesis that the most primitive form of ownership was communism. This idea was championed on more scientific grounds by W. H. R. Rivers, who thought he had dis covered in Melanesia evidence for the existence of a communistic type of economy marked by a lack of differentiation of personal interests. The institutions of every primitive people show a much closer relation between the individual and his group than that which animates European culture, and a greater readiness (inspired by custom) to yield to the corporate claims of the society. Thus among the Gilyak the catch after fishing is freely divided among the members of the community, even families which have taken no part in the work receiving a share. Yet at the same time private ownership is distinctly recognized in such articles as swords, shields, etc. Among the Mekeo people, again, a pig, an item of family property, is seldom killed except by command of a chief. At the same time the close grip retained by communal interests upon even a man's personal property does not indicate any sweeping suppression of his individuality. Commu nism, if this term be employed, signifies not a lack of recognition of individual interests, but a conscious subordination of them in major affairs—under the pressure of custom and public opinion— to the control of the group as a whole. That the process is one

of integration of interests, not mere blind absence of any sense of individuality, is shown by the existence of complicated indi vidual claims and privileges within the sphere of communal owner ship. Thus in the case of the Melanesian canoe, the management of which was adduced by Rivers as a proof of communism, the deeper researches of Dr. Malinowski reveal a complex system of control with one man as master of the vessel and paramount own er, the others having lesser shares, each well defined, and all having specified duties and responsibilities to their fellow mem bers. No irrational, undifferentiated absorption of the individual in the group can be discovered. This position is supported by the results of intensive research in material from Old Peru, Australia and New Zealand, while study of the problem of ownership in more general context suggests that this blend of "communism" with individualism is characteristic of all primitive society.

Land Tenure.---These

conclusions apply also to the specific case of ownership in land, the precise system of which varies according to the economic conditions and social structure of the community concerned. Among hunting peoples the measure of tribal control of the territory over which they range appears to be fairly communal, though even here, as in the case of the north-eastern Algonkin tribes or the Vedda of Ceylon, the portion of land on which each family catches game may be very sharply demarcated and protected by heavy penalties from intrusion on the part of neighbours. With changes in the form of economy the partition of interests varies, until among people such as the Mela nesians the delimitation of rights allows of ownership of the land by one man and of the fruit trees upon it by another. Again, a person's admitted status as an owner is often qualified by rights of other people, such as relatives, the chief or the village magi cian, to certain portions of the produce. The key to the under standing of a system of native land tenure lies in realizing the inadequacy of such simple labels as "communistic" or "individu alistic" and in grasping the complex scheme of titles, claims, privileges and obligations on the part of individuals and the com munity with which the native himself invests the control of the soil.

Attempts have been made by Kohler, de Laveleye, Lafargue, Biicher, Lewinski and others to group the various types of owner ship in a chronological sequence, to trace their origins, and on this basis to lay down theories of the evolutionary development of the idea of property. Such efforts, however, lack reality, and the undoubted contributions of these writers have come incidentally from their descriptive and analytical studies.