Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/87

] but the father was there of right, and the son has strictly no right; he therefore gives money to the natural heirs, his father's sister's children. In order to make a transaction of this kind secure, the son will put the money for the redemption of the garden upon his father's corpse when he is laid out for burial; the nephews and heirs of the deceased take the money from their dead maraui in the presence of the assembled people, and never can deny that they have given up their right. If a man's children at his death are not rich enough to redeem the whole utag they redeem a part. It is a part of the acknowledgment of the right of the sister's children, and a part of the satisfaction for it, that fruits and other produce are allowed them for a time out of the garden; for these are the labour of the deceased, whose heirs his nephews and nieces of his own kin are; the products of the new owner's work will not be claimed. Property in trees is distinct from that in land, and goes to the planter's children. In case therefore of a sale of land there is much variety in the title to the parcels of ground and in the ownership of the fruit-trees, the knowledge of which is most minute and accurate. The exact limits of each bit of property are known, and the value of the right to be extinguished is discussed and settled by common consent.

The town lots in the vanua, the house sites, tano ima, are held in the same way. When a young man makes his own home he builds on the property of his kin, his mother's or his maternal uncle's. It happens naturally that the elder sons