Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/815

 INFLUENCE OF SUPERSTITION ON PROPERTY RIGHTS 8oi

protection of property have not been as yet reported. We find them, however, in adjoining regions. Among the Eastern Islanders of Torres Straits a reddish powder called kamer, found in rotten driftwood, had great potency in magic. It was espe- cially effective in deterring people from robbing gardens. Little theft occurred on the lands of those who knew how to prepare kamer. "When bananas or other food-stuffs were ripe, the man was supposed to secretly prepare kamer and to doctor the food. As the thief was not certain which tree had been poisoned he was afraid to risk it and so left the food alone."^®

Among many of the Melanesian Islands these taboos flourish exceedingly and the rights of private property appear accordingly to be well fortified. Thus in the Solomon group an observer tells us that every one of the myriad islets has its recognized owner. Not only are cocoanut groves and taro patches protected by taboos, but even hunting privileges over another man's land will be similarly safeguarded.^^ At New Georgia the preventive against all trespass and robbing is the erection of hopes. These property marks are fashioned in accordance with well-known principles of sympathetic magic. At the entrance to his cocoanut plantation the owner will set up a single stick, three or four feet in length, with its top cleft for a short distance. In the opening are placed a bunch of dead leaves, a piece of fern root, and a wisp of grass. Sometimes the whole will be crowned with a skull, the piece of an ant's nest, or a large shell. The intending thief, gazing on this complicated structure has an awesome picture of the fate in store for him : according to the emblem of sanctity exhibited will he wither away like the grass, become as hopelessly moribund as the original owner of that skull or perish like the ants which once lived in the nest or the fish which once dwelt in the shell.^^ At Rubiana, another of the Solomon Islands, a practice of compounding has arisen and what was once a blood-feud has passed into the milder form of the blood-price.

" Haddon in Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits (Cambridge, 1908), VI, 226.


 * Somerville in Journ. Anihrop. Inst. (1897), XXVI, 404 f.
 * " Somerville, ibid., p. 387.