Landownership on a Micronesian Atoll

Raymond E. Murphy

Geographical Review, Vol. 38, No. 4. (Oct., 1948), pp. 598-614.

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 LANDOWNERSHIP ON A MICRONESIAN ATOLL*
RAYMOND E. MURPHY

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,
A

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 ofthe past can long- s&ce.
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 ex-
ceptions. To the government ofice at Ponape, charged with administration
ofthe eastern Caroline Islands, the maps of Mokil furnished the first reason-
ably exact landownership picture of any part of its domain. The list of land-
ownership 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 ofice, and a supplementary
study of all existing landownership controversies provided additional direct-
ly 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 mali
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
A

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

*This study is a product of one of a series of investigations throughout Micronesia begun in the
summer of 1947. The general program, known as the Coordinated Investigation of Micronesian Anthro-
pology (CIMA), was sponsored by the Pacific Science Board of the National Research Council. Human
geography was one of the fields represented.
IThe literature on Mokil is scanty. Anneliese Eilers' "Inseln um Ponape" (Ergebnisse der Siidsee-
Expedition 1908-1910, edited by G. Thilenius, 11. Ethnographie, B. Mikronesien, Vol. 8, Hamburg,
1934, pp. 359-404)~the standard work on the atoll, summarizes the early visits and the meager scientific
observations made but contributes little or nothing to the landownership story.

DR.MURPHY, professor of economic geography at Clark University,spent the summer

of 1947 in the Pacific on research for the CIMA project.
 -4 MICRONESIAN ATOLL 5 99

were recorded, in order to see how land had changed hands in the last
three-quarters of a century, and the details were obtained regarding all un-
settled problems of landownership. Finally, from the maps and information
assembled in these ways and by hours of direct questioning, the principles
TABLEI-COCONUT LANDHOLDINGS OF PRINCIPAL M OKILFAMILIES
Based on planimeter measurementsfrom the authorijeld maps

FAMILY ACREAGE FAMILY ACREAGE

Bossmana Number Total Per capita Bossmana Number Total Per capita
Obet Etuet
*Joabb Hiram
Allen Lemuel
*Aukust (King) Jimez
Etion Kalen
Olten Net
*Samuel Willem
Net-Penjamin Hare
*Kerestopa Etgar
*Luie Luelen
Japed Kilinten
*Lepan Jek
*Pernel Aredt
*Alpert Melten
Hemy-Dom Jorim
*Jimion Isaac
Olber Jimi
Jojden Eliam
*Jaulik Jojtp
Loren Joai
a Local spelling is used in this table and for the names of all persons mentioned in the article.
The names reflect contacts with traders and missionary influence.
b Families marked with an asterisk have one or more pieces of land on Ponape.

or customs were derived that have governed landownership and inheritance.

At every stage of the work the writer was actively assisted by the people of
Mokil.
THE FAMILY
We may begin this account of landownership with a description of the
family (Fig. 4). The family is the landholding unit of Mokil,' and the name
shown on the maps for the holdings of each family is that of the "bossman"
or administrative head. The patrilocal extended family is the normal group.3
It consists of a father and mother, their sons and their wives and families,
and the families of their married sons. All unmarried children are included,
but married daughters are excluded, since they normally go to live with
their husbands' families. The patrilocal extended family may include also
'The people of Mokil are organized into five exogamous matrilineal sibs or clans, but there seems
to be no present relationship between clan membership and landownership except indirectly in that
members of the same clan cannot marry.
3 Both patrilocal residence and patrilineal inheritance of property in land seem to antedate the
German and Japanese administrations, and possibly even the Spanish period.
 r''.. '. .
c. -.

L:' .'
L.:'
C....'
L:' .
L...' - ....J
<.: ...I
t.....
b;..
r:::.
..1
.....J
......i
MOKlL
fIr.:. .. . . .
1
.I
J
COCONUT LAND
ISAAC
I
OLTEN
OBET
0O T H E R S
ANCIENT TARO SWAMPS

R E E F BORDER

FIG. I-Mokil Atoll. Scale approximately I : 26,000. The inset shows the position of Mokil in the eastern Carolines.

The writer constructed the maps for the individual islands from compass readings and pacing, on a scale of approximately

I : 138s. The field drawings were compared with an enlarged aerial photograph of Mokil. Correspondence was so close that it was
decided to use the field maps without adjustment. The aerial photograph was used for placement of the three islands in the composite
map.
The normal pattern of division of the coconut land is one of transverse panels. The heavy lines mark the boundaries between
the major divisions of the coconut land, thought to represent individual family holdings of a past period (lines are broken where
they do not follow presentday property boundaries). The minor divisions on the map show individual family holdings of today.
Their scattered distribution is exemplified by the cases of Isaac, Olten, and Obet. For a map of the principal taro areas see Figure 3.
 FIG.2-The large taro area of Kalap with Kalap Village to the southwest. Most of this taro area is ancient and owned
by rows, but along the edges are recent extensions that are the property of the owners of the adjacent coconut land. (From
a U. S. Navy air photograph.)

ANCIENT TARO AREAS

FIG.3-Diagrammatic map of the ancient taro areas on Mokil. Since the predominant speciesof taro reaches a height
of 10 to IS feet, accurate mapping of the areas was impossible. The main outline is reasonably correct, and the principal
paths are located with fair accuracy. Then for each side of each path the number of rows belonging to each family was
listed; the spaces shown are proportionate to the number of rows. Holdings of three families are distinguished. The major
divisions of the taro area are used now only to designate the location of taro rows. For example, Isaac has taro holdings
in Pensakou, Makatikitiko, Lauailol, and Jaukipar.
602 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

the father's younger brothers and their wives, their sons and their wives,
and so on. This family group lives either in a single dwelling or in a cluster
of adjacent dwellings.
The bossman is ordinarily the oldest man in the family. Since the people
of Mokil use only one name, it follows that his name will disappear from
the landownership picture when he dies. In this respect the king is no differ-

FIG. 4-A patrilocal extended family of Mokil. The patriarch at the upper left, Lepan, is the boss-
man of the family. The group is not complete since one son with his wife and family was in Ponape
when the picture was taken. Most members of the family are dressed in their best Sunday clothes.
Normally, the men wear trousers but no shim or shoes. A few wear the more picturesque wraparound
or lava-lava. At home, except on special occasions, most of the women wear only the lava-lava, but
the Mother Hubbard is more common for appearances in public.

ent from anyone else. For a number of generations the king's family has
held land and passed it on from one generation to the next, and always the
family has been subject to the same customs of landownership and inherit-
ance as any other Mokil family.
Patrilocal extended families may break up into nuclear families like our
own. These hold land in the same fashion. But the true nuclear family is rare
and of short duration. No sooner is it formed than it begins the process of
expansion into the more characteristic patrilocal extended family. The
families holding land in Mokil number about 40 and range in size from two
members to 28 (Table I).

Some idea of the general picture of the atoll is a necessary background

for an understanding of the family-land relationship (Fig. I). Mokil consists
 A MICRONESIAN ATOLL 609

the oldest daughter (or the only daughter if there is but one) may bring her
husband to her home. This was the case when Obet married Bessie some
60-odd years ago.' She was an only child, so Obet went to her home and,
when her father died, succeeded him as bossman.
The Obet landholdings of today were established in their broad outlines
at that time. When Obet went to live with Bessie, he received from his own
family 28 rows of taro in the ancient taro swamps of Kalap and three pieces
of coconut land. And Bessie, since she was the only child, eventually received
all the property that had been held under her father's name: eight pieces of
coconut land and 32 rows of taro. If a map had been made after the death of
Bessie's parents, it would have shown all this land and taro under the name of
Obet, the new bossman (Fig. 12). The family was then a nuclear family
beginning its expansion into the patrilocal extended family of today.
The subsequent history of the landholdings of Obetlis fairly typical for
the atoll. Large families are the rule in Mokil, and the nine children of Obet
and Bessie, three girls and six boys, make a normal-sized family.
Each of the three daughters married and went to live with her husband's
family, and each received an allotment from Obet. Jeni, the oldest girl, was
given title to two pieces of coconut land and 14 rows of taro, and these
properties thereafter were nominally part of the holdings of the bossman of
her husband's family. When a second girl married, she received a somewhat
smaller allotment, and the dowry of the third girl was smaller still, according
to ancient custom. At present, because ofthe serious crowding, it is customary
to give the same amount to each daughter instead of impoverishing the
family by giving the most land to the girl who marries first. It hardly needs
to be pointed out that a large family of girls is a distinct handicap in Mokil.
Just as land was given to each of Obet's daughters when she married,
land was brought into the family by each of the five sons who have married-
Sipan, Lipai, Erin, Ezra, and Jojep. Only Kelsen remains unmarried. Each
piece of property brought in by the wives of the sons, though it appears on
the map under Obet's name, is understood to belong, in the last analysis, to
the wife and her husband.
The story is complicated still more by grandchildren. Sipan has four
children, of whom one son and one daughter are married. The marriages
7 It is worthy of note that one member of each of the two families which played a part in the
beginning of the Obet land history came from Pingelap, an atoll some 70 miles southeast of Mokil
(Fig. I). Obet's father, Noah, was a Pingelap man who married a Mokil woman and moved to Mokil,
and Bessie's mother also came from this neighboring atoll. Pingelap people appear surprisingly often
in the family trees of today, and Marshall Islands ancestry, too, is common. Such origins reflect the
seafaring that has long been important in the lives of the people of Mokil and neighboring atolls.
 610 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

meant some additions to, and some losses from, the Obet holdings. And the
oldest daughter of Erin, the third son of Obet, married and was given land.
This brings the Obet land picture up to the moment (Fig. 12). A critical
change is impending, however. Obet is a very old man; it is probable that
he will soon die. There will then be a reaccounting. Although the details
have not been made public, he has already told the family which of his sons
is to be the new bossman and, in case the family breaks up, how the land of
Obet and Bessie is to be divided. Either of two things may happen. The
family may remain a single unit under the new bossman, or it may break up
into smaller families, each with its own land. It is generally understood that
the second alternative will be chosen. Each of the resulting family units
will then, in its turn, begin the process of growth into a typical patrilocal
extended family, and several new names will appear on the map as a result
of the division of the properties now shown under the name of Obet.
A study of the Obet family reveals what is happening to the land in
Mokil. Although the group now holds a little more land than Obet and
Bessie did originally, it must be remembered that the family of two. has
grown to 28 members. Planimeter measurements show that Obet and Bessie
began their married life with 20 acres of coconut land; they also had 60 rows
of taro. Let us take the case of just one subfamily, that of Sipan. If the un-
assigned Obet property is evenly divided, and an even division among sons
is now the rule, the Sipan family, already numbering seven members (ex-
clusive, of course, of the married daughter, who has received her dowry),
will have only 4% acres of coconut land and 19 rows in the community taro
patch. Seven people will depend on one-fifth as much coconut land as the
original two, and on one-third as many taro rows.' And in family after
family the same story is repeated.

Ownership disputes are like land histories in throwing light on the

principles of landownership and land inheritance in Mokil. Such disputes
are too long and too involved to be presented here in detail, but in most of
them the trouble seems to have arisen in some such way as this: A man goes
to Ponape or elsewhere for an indefinite stay. He is not supposed to lose his
rights to his land, but custom decrees that he must assign his property to
someone, generally a brother, to take care of until he returns. The owner of
The fact that Obet and his sons have dug some additional taro pits in their coconut lands does
not materially change the situation. It merely means that they have increased their production of the
essential taro and proportionately decreased their potential copra production.
 A MICRONESIAN ATOLL 61I

the land dies in Ponape, and years later his son comes back to claim his
inheritance. In the meanwhile the brother and his family have held the land
so long that they have come to regard it as their own. In fact, the brother
may have died, and his son may have become bossman. The new bossman
refuses to recognize the claim, and since there are no written records and no
courts, that is about where the matter is likely to stop. Such troubles are a
further reflection of the growing scarcity of land on the atoll.

Ponape, a relatively large "high island" IOO miles to the west of Mokil,
has affected the atoll's landownership story in several ways. Ponape has
richer soil and much greater productive possibilities, but it is rainier and is
not physically attractive to the Mokil people. It is, however, much less
crowded and has therefore been available as at least a partial answer to the
land scarcity of Mokil. But the major factor that has tied the two together
as regards landownership is an event that took place in 1911-the establish-
ment of Mokil Village in the Jokaj District of northwestern Ponape.
The background of the movement to Ponape may be briefly summarized.
In 1910 the people of the Jokaj District rebelled against the German govern-
ment. By 1911 the rebellion had been suppressed and the natives of the
district exiled to the Palau Islands. The German government then offered the
land thus vacated to people from various island groups in the vicinity of
Ponape. The Mokil people were offered contiguous pieces of land, and some
14 families, most of them parts of patrilocal extended families and not the
whole family, moved to Jokaj Island, which is part of the larger district of
Jokaj. The area in which they settled is called Mokil Village, just as the
Jokaj District also has a Pingelap Village, a Ngatik Village, and so on (Fig.1I).
The establishment of a settlement in 1911 on Ponape would be of little
interest in this study of landownership in Mokil if the migrating group had
broken away completely from their relatives on the atoll, but such is far
from the case. Some 18 more or less distinct family units now reside in
Mokil Village, Ponape, and most of these families are still tied in some
degree to patrilocal extended families of Mokil. The bossman of a piece of
land in Mokil Village may also be bossman of a Mokil family and may live
on the atoll. Or he may live in Mokil Village and have a son or a brother in
charge of his atoll holdings. Thus the center of gravity of the family may
be in Mokil Village or it may be on the atoll, and there is constant travel
back and forth. A daughter's dowry or a son's share of the family land may
be all or in part in Mokil Village.
612 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

The story of landholdings outside the atoll does not stop with Mokil
Village. T; a smaller extent Mokil families have pieces of land elsewhere
in Ponape, and these lands may be occupied by a son of the family or be tied
in some other way into the landownership system of the patrilocal extended
family of Mokil. O f course, not all the families of the atoll have holdings
in Mokil Village or elsewhere in Ponape, and many such holdings are small.
O f the 40-odd families of Mokil, probably a few less than half have some
member or members on land in Ponape (Table I). Land connections with
islands or island groups other than Ponape are few, though there are cases
of people who have land rights by inheritance in Pingelap or elsewhere if
they wish to return there.

Although there are no recorded laws in Mokil governing the ownership

and inheritance of land, there are, as may have been inferred from the
preceding pages, certain customs that public opinion attempts to enforce.
These customs are not much like our own land laws, but they are the key to
an understanding of landownership in Mokil.
The following customs are listed by way of illustration: (I) Land cannot
be bought or sold. The growing scarcity seems to have increased the rigidity
of application of this rule. (2) Land can be inherited or otherwise acquired
only by people with Mokil blood. '(3) Land can be exchanged, but the
writer heard of no case of exchange with the purpose of consolidating
scattered holdings. (4) When a girl marries, she ordinarily goes to live with
her husband's family, and her own family gives her title to one or more
pieces of coconut land and to several rows of taro. ( 5 ) If there are no boys
in a family, the oldest daughter's husband may come to live with her family,
and he becomes bossman when her father dies. This practice is called pela
murin li, which is translated "follow the woman." (6) Adoption gives a
child the same land rights as a member born into the family. (7) When
either a boy or a girl is given in adoption, the original farmly ordinarily
gives taro rows and coconut land with the child, much as a dowry is given.
(8) Through advance agreement by the bossmen of two families, a boy and
a girl from one family may marry a girl and a boy from another without
property exchange, since the dowries cancel each other. In one family whose
land history the writer recorded, this practice was carried to two sons and
two daughters from each family. (9) Land on Ponape may be used for a
daughter's dowry or may form part or all of the share of a son. (10) When a
bossman leaves Mokil for a prolonged period, he must turn over his property
 A MICRONESIAN ATOLL 613

to someone else, generally a brother, to keep for him while he is away.

Theoretically, he or his descendants may reclaim this land at any time.
(I I ) Before the bossman of a family dies, he indicates who is to be the new
bossman and how the family land is to be divided. When he dies, the family
may either remain a unit under the new bossman or divide into smaller
families, each of which is the beginning of another patrilocal extended
family. These are only a few of the many customs that, through long ob-
servance, have become essentially an unwritten code of land laws.

The study of landownership in Mokil leads ultimately to the chief

problem of the atoll-overcrowding. It is not so much overcrowding so fir
as the taro land is concerned, but the people have advanced far from the
days when sheer subsistence on taro was e n ~ u g h They . ~ have become ac-
customed to flour and rice and sugar, and to various articles of clothing from
the store. T o get these luxuries, they must sell copra, and the increasing
.population means an ever decreasing amount of coconut land to a person.
It is when measured in this way that the plight of the islands becomes ap-
parent.
One possible solution lies in the expansion of landholdings on Ponape.
The usable land in the MokilVillage section is f d y allotted, but other parts
of the island have desirable land that is available for settlement. Some Mokil
families are taking advantage of this possibility. For example, as a result of a
family decision, Obet's fourth son, Ezra, has arranged to settle on a piece of
land in the interior of Ponape. In general, however, interior locations do
not attract the amphibious Mokil people.
Late in the field season of 1947 the possibility arose of relieving the
congestion in Mokil and on the neighboring atoll of Pingelap by the removal
of parts of certain of the patrilocal extended families to Ujelang atoll, north-
east of Ponape.Io The number who wished to go far exceeded the space
9 The first record of the number of people in Mokil is for 1852, at which time there were only
87 residents (see Eilers, op. cit., p. 365). But there were legends of a much earlier period when the popu-
lation may have numbered five or six hundred. If this total did exist on the atoll, it was probably on a
subsistence basis, with all the energy of the people devoted to the production of food.
InThe plan was conceived by the Military Government on Ponape after it had beeh informed
that Ujelang, the westernmost atoll of the Marshalls, was to come under itsjurisdiction. But, unfortunate-
ly for the people of Mokil and Pingelap, such plans are subject to sudden change. At the time the writer
reached Guam on his return from the eastern Carolines, in late September, the newspapers carried a
report that the Bikini natives, who had been moved to Rongerik atoll when Bikini was needed for
atom-bomb tests, were starving because of the poverty of their new abode. In answer to this came a
Navy announcement that the former Bikini natives would be moved to Ujelang. Still later it was decided
to use Eniwetok, in the northwestern Marshalls, for further atom-bomb tests, and the people of that
614 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

available. The writer was asked, on the basis of his maps and other data,
to say which of the larger Mokil families were worst off and should therefore
be given first consideration. Planimeter calculations now make possible a
fairly definite answer. The picture is somewhat complicated where there
are landholdings on Ponape, but certain families stand out clearly as cases
of extreme need (Table I).

The landownership study of Mokil was intended chiefly as a type study.

To the anthropologist it may suggest the value of mapping as a basis for
investigating social organization. For the administrators of the islands such
a study is recommended as a practicable method of attacking one of the
greatest problems facing the United States in Micronesia-landownership.
OF course, the value of a study of this kind, directly usable though it
may be, is limited by the small area involved. But the work presented here
is just a beginning. T o the administrators of the islands every island group
may seem to be unique in its land customs; in reality the picture is not as
complicated as that. Many similarities may be noted, especially between
islands that are neighbors and are of similar physical type. The customs of
Mokil, for example, are remarkably similar to those ofpingelap and Ngatik."
The writer believes that it should be possible to make a rough classi-
fication, that the hundred-odd islands and island groups of the United States
Trust Territory of Micronesia could be divided into a relatively few classes
within each of which the customs of landownership and land inheritance
would be essentially similar. Such a classification would greatly simplify
the problems of island government. The project would require extensive
field work in addition to the utilization of all information now available
or being made available by studies that are under way. Much could be done
through conferences with representatives of the various island units at
government bases. Ideally, the work would be a joint enterprise of geog-
rapher and anthropologist. It would be of unquestionable scientific value
a i d at the same time have the virtue of being of immediate and direct use
in the administration of these new charges of ours in the Pacific.
atoll instead of those from Bikini were sent to Ujelang. Early in 1948 the Bikini natives were reported
as being in temporary quarters on Kwajalein, from which they were scheduled to be moved in a few
months to a permanent home, probably in the southern Marshalls. At any rate, settlement on Ujelang
had ceased to be a possible answer to overcrowdig in Mokil and Pingelap.
r1 The writer made a brief visit to Pingelap in 1945. In September, 1947, he spent several days at

the Ponape Military Government office discussing landownership and inheritance customs with people
from Pingelap and Ngatik.