Bonnemaison, Joël

Horizon / Pleins textes

Chapter 1 
Social and Cultural Aspects 
of Land Tenure  . -   
Joel Bonnemaison 
It is of fundamental importance in Melanesian culture for a man to  
have d e e p  roots in his land. Even the colonisation and recent history of 
Melanesia have not been able to  change this attitude. What is called 
custom was obviously changed in some important ways, but even before 
the first contacts with Europeans, Melanesian custom was evolving. 
Custom is not a legal system which was set once  and for all, but a system of 
attitudes and values which are differently expressed in different islands at 
different times. However the relationship between a man and his land in 
Vanuatu is t he  most fundamental and most permanent  aspect of 
Melanesian culture. 
The unity and variety of the system o% land tenure 
In Vanuatu custom land is not only the  site of production but it is the 
mainstay of a vision of the  world. Land is a t  the heart of the operation of 
the cultural system. It represents life, materially and spiritually. A man is 
tied to  his territory by affinity and consanguinity. The clan is its land, just as 
the clan is its ancestors. 
Each man must have some place, some land which belongs to  him, 
Which is his territorv. I f  h e  does not control any land, he  has no  roots, 
O. R. S. T. O. M. Fonds Documentaire status or  power. In ;he most extreme case this means he is denied social existence. P 
1 PSEPT. NO 15. ‘$73 GW 1 
tete : ,f?~ 
LAND TENLlRE IN VANUATU 
In Melanesian custom every man belongs to a clan and every clan 
Owns a precisely fixed area of land which is centred around a stronghold 
which i s  sometimes sacred: a nakamal or tabou ples. The clan’s land, i t s  
ancestors and i t s  men are a single indissoluble reality -.a fact which must 
be borne in mind when it i s  said that Melanesian land is  not alienatale. 
A man derives his social status, his strength and moral feeling from his 
native land. Those who live on their own clan’s land are i ts  masters and 
control everything on it: the people, the buildings and the plantations. 
Anyone who lives on land belonging to a clan to whom he is  not related i s  
simply a dependant of the ‘really inan ples’. He may work on the land and 
even have some rights over it, but he must do it in the name of a man ples 
and act as his agent. 
There may be large inequalities in the land area held by different clans 
and in the land area held by different individuals in the same clan, but in 
the past these inequalities were not significant since the use of the land 
was virtually free to anyone within the territory. Agricultural production 
was based on gardens which were moved each year, the old gardens 
reverting to bush. One simply had to ask the traditional owners for 
permission to use their land. Morally they could not refuse. Custom 
recommends that you should work land belonging to other people, and 
allow s t i l l  others to work on yours so that the social ties uniting clan 
members are reinforced and relations with other clans strengthened. 
The tie which binds a man to the soil i s  essentially mystical, but it is also 
* cultural and i s  recognised by custom. That it had economic value was a 
by-product. Wealth was indicated by the number of pigs owned by the big 
man, or the number of men who owed him allegiance - not by the land 
he owned. In Tanna’it i s  said that a big man does not have to be a major 
landowner, since others work for him. It i s  sufficient for him to be the 
master of a sacred place or of a prestigious nakamal. It follows, therefore, 
that in custom land, disputes were almost unknown. Wars of territorial 
conquest were unheard of. It never occurred to anyone to dispute the 
ownership of land, or to quarrel over where the boundaries were, since 
these were usually indicated by a creek or by dense forest. There have 
been changes since. 
The arrival of Europeans overturned the old structure of the dis- 
tribution of men and the clans’ territories. Many clans died out as a result 
of the epidemics; mountain people came down to live near the shore; and 
missions persuaded Christians to live in groups near the shore. The land 
tenure system was abruptly disrupted. Some areas were overpopulated, 
particularly near anchorages and on the sea shores, while other areas were 
depopulated. 
New methods of production were introduced. People started planting 
coconut palms and cocoa trees and the old relationship of man to the soil 
was disrupted. Land hunger, which did not exist in traditional society, 
began to be felt. In this new world the relationship between a man and the 
soil, which was essentially mystical and cultural, became economic. And 
2 
Social and Cultural Aspects of Land Tenure 
so there were land disputes, which could not b e  settled according to  
custom. 
In traditional society there  was a very clear distinction between the 
clan’s ownership of land, which had religious significance, and the 
ownership of the  plants o n  the  land, which belonged to  the  individual 
who had planted them. When the  plants were perennial, as coconut palms 
are, planting them came to b e  a way of appropriating the land.This is o n e  
of the reasons why coconut palms were planted so quickly wherever 
possible, even as high as 300 metres above sea level. Planting trees became 
a way of making one’s ownership of the  land permanent and so increasing 
the family’s property, which could be  inherited. It was also a way of 
preventing Europeans from acquiring any available land. 
Traditional land tenure systems in Vanuatu vary from the North to  the 
South of the  Group. The main principles on  which each system is founded 
are  outlined below. 
land tenure in the Northern Islands 
North of a line drawn from South €pi to  Efate and in the  geographical 
area in which the nimangui grade system operates, systems of land tenure 
differ according t o  whether they are  matrilineal o r  patrilineal. The 
underlying principles are  the same, however. 
Every man belongs to a clan and to  a territory, which is sometimes 
identified with a totem (a plant o r  an animal) and is always centred around 
strongholds in the  territory. In traditional times the ground could be  used 
freely within the territory under the  supervision of the elders of the clan. 
Apart, therefore, from a few places appropriated by family segments, most 
land was held in common ownership and there was no  permanent 
distribution to  individuals. In each generation, according to its needs, 
there was a redistribution of land. Custom recognised the boundaries 
between clans which were set once  and for all and which ‘God created’, 
but custom does not recognise as final those boundaries which separate 
o n e  man’s land from another’s as h e  divides it in his lifetime. Such 
boundaries must be  negotiated and are  usually the cause of current land 
disputes. 
A typical ni-Vanuatu social structure, which is called ‘company’ in 
bislama, derives f rom communal use of the soil and from individual 
ownership of labour so that the land is worked by an association. In this 
grouping there can b e  land disputes but they seldom arise between 
individuals belonging to the same clan. They are  much more likely to  be  
quarrels between groups over group boundaries or over the  ownership of 
land belonging to  clans which are  now extinct who used to  b e  neighbours 
and rivals. Or there may be disputes when outsiders set themselves up  on 
land which belongs to  them through marriage rather than their own 
ancestral ties and then try to  establish their rights, which, a t  least according 
to strictly interpreted custom, are only secondarily derived. 
. 
3 
LAND TENURE IN VANUATU 
I 
I 
l ’  
I 
hand tenure in the Centra! and Southern islands 
South of the land line drawn from South Epi to Efate the system of land 
tenure is  less flexible, because land ownership i s  related to titles, that is  to 
names which are in the land (or in a nakamal). These names determine 
ownership of land. 
In other words there is  a territory corresponding to each clan 
(sometimes several clans form a group or tribe). Each clan owns a certain 
number of names (or titles) which have different relative status (there are 
titles for chiefs; magicians; ‘clever’; the chief of the canoe; the talking 
chief; the chief for peace; the chief for war; and so on). These titles are 
transmitted within the line. Apart from giving social status they also give 
rights to a number of plots of land often scattered in the clan’s territory. 
These plots are usually not very big: usually they are about the size of one 
or two big gardens, or about two or three thousand square metres. 
The clan has in i t s  power a number of titles (usually about ten or 
fifteen). The clan’s territory i s  divided by the traditional tenure system so 
that each plot of land belongs to the holder of each of these titles. In other 
words ownership of land is much more individual than in the North, and 
there are analogies with Polynesian social structure. 
The number of titles within the clan has been set for all time and so has 
the division of land into plots,each of which i s  held by a certain titleholder 
and in principle cannot be changed. If every title has been given within 
the clan the children born later just have names which are not linked to 
their social status or their land holdings. They can work on the land 
belonging to the clan, but only in the name of and with the permission of 
the legitimate title holder, to whom they thus became social dependants. 
This system of land tenure, which is  rigid in principle but in fact very 
flexible in i t s  application i s  the source of great inequalityin land holdings. 
Chiefs generally own much less land than their subjects. The more 
important the title i s  the less land goes with the title and the less land the 
titleholder controls. The demographic crisis in the last century means that 
some clans have a monopoly on the titles which used to belong to clans 
now extinct (and so hold the land which goes without the titles) while 
other clans have not had any titles to give for a very long time. 
These facts define the type of land dispute which i s  likely to  arise. 
Quarrels over titles which derive from extinct clans,for instance, are often 
initiated because the same name i s  given to several people, which in effect 
means that the same land rights are given to different people who usually 
belong to different clans. Elsewhere some clans refuse to give the titles 
whenever possible, thus granting to a few people avirtual monopoly of.all 
the land. 
Conclusions 
In traditional times custom evolved rapidly, but the way in which 
Melanesian clans are rooted in the land i s  a value tightly held in the heart 
4. 
I .  
Social and Cultural Aspects of Land Tenure 
of Vanuatu society today. Today land is the sensitive point in every village, 
often its main preoccupation. It is over land that allies are found and 
enemies are made. 
Today, as in traditional times, the  customary system of land tenure is 
based on a subtle mixture of individualism and community spirit. In some 
cases Vanuatu villages are  moving toward an individual structure, and 
land, particularly if it has been planted with coconuts, is divided. In others 
the villagers refuse to  divide the land which is used by the community, the 
‘company blong work’. The latter case is usually found where everyone in 
the  clan is of the same blood. Between these-two extremes there is a whole 
series of intermediary positions. 
Melanesian custom governing land tenure may be defined as having 
great strictness in principle and great flexibility in practice.The clan’s land 
is inalienable, but  in Vanuatu society today there is a movement toward 
the purchase and sale of land, particularly when people are moving from 
overpopulated to  underpopulated areas. These are, however, custom 
sales of land. Money alone cannot buy land. O n e  can only buy land if o n e  
is in some way related to  the clan who originally held that land, and the  
best way to  become related is to marry into it. According to  strict custom, 
only having the  clan’s blood can give o n e  a right to own land in its 
territory. At  present, purchases of land have given rise to many matri- 
monial arrangements the purpose of which is to  acquire land. 
So it may be said that the way in which the  clans are rooted in their 
land is in practice very flexible and varied. Generally speaking, land is 
negotiated and redistributed for each generation according to each 
family’s needs, while the inalienability of the clan’s land is respected. 
However, there are  problems in areas which are heavily populated, or 
where so many coconuts have been planted that there is not enough land. 
This is the situation in Paama and in Tongoa. The division of land and the  
disruption of the traditional land tenure system has sometimes given rise 
to  violent conflict. 
Finally, the  way in which Melanesians are rooted in their land is 
certainly one of the deepest values of their culture. Land is security in a 
changing world, but it is also this country’s unique cultural identity. The 
older order of how men lived on their land has been disrupted in the last 
century by historical events and by the  extension of coconut plantations. 
New solutions must be  found for these problems which will conciliate 
respect for the  traditional values of Melanesian culture, justice, and 
adaptation to  a new time. 
, 
* 
5 
..“- - 
c- 
I -  
' ,  
I 
f 
A huge Ban-yan tree. Many islands, particularly in the North are covered by dense 
bush. Photo by Coral Tours. 
Top: A taro garden on Efate: taro is the staple food of ni-Vanuatu. 
Below: Beef rearing has been an important part of the economy since the war. 


Land tenure in Vanuatu

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Horizon / Pleins textes