ABSTRACT
A man or woman have rights over a given territory in virtue of the fact that their ancestress in matrilineal filiation emerged from the soil at a definite sacred spot situated in that territory. The system of matrilineal descent, therefore, combined with what readers might call the doctrine of first emergence, constitutes the legal and mythological foundation of Trobriand land tenure. The belief, combined with the principles of matrilineal descent, furnishes the charter of citizenship and land tenure to every Trobriander. The law of exogamous and patrilocal marriage is independent of the doctrine of first emergence. It affects land tenure in a two-fold manner: It separates the woman from her own land, while her rights in the ancestral soil are recog-nised in the institution of urigubu. It constitutes her and her offspring into non-citizen residents of her husband's community, and through that it entitles them to join the gardening team, i.e. the group of agricultural producers in the husband's community.
