Editing History of Tuvalu (section)

==Land ownership==
[[Donald Gilbert Kennedy]], the resident District Officer in the administration of the [[Gilbert and Ellice Islands]] Colony from 1932 to 1938, described the ''[[Pulaka]]'' pits as usually being shared between different families, with their total area providing an average of about 40 square yards (36.576 square metres) per head of population, although the area of pits varied from island to island depending on the extent of the [[Lens (hydrology)|freshwater lens]] that is located under each island.<ref name="DGK53">{{ cite journal|last= Kennedy|first= Donald Gilbert |title= Land tenure in the Ellice Islands |url= http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/Volume_62_1953/Volume_62%2C_No._4/Land_tenure_in_the_Ellice_Islands_by_Donald_Gilbert_Kennedy%2C_p_348-358/p1?page=0&action=searchresult&target=|year= 1953|volume= 62|issue=4 |journal= Journal of the Polynesian Society|pages= 348–358 }}</ref> Kennedy also describe the land ownership as having evolved from the pre-European contact system known as ''Kaitasi'' (lit. “eat-as-one”), in which the land held by family groups under the control of the senior male member of the [[clan]] – a system of land based on kinship-based bonds, which changed over time to become a land ownership system where the land was held by individual owners -  known as  ''Vaevae'' (“to divide”).<ref name="DGK53"/>  Under the ''Vaevae'' system, a pit may contain numerous small individual holdings with boundaries marked by small stones or with each holding divided by imaginary lines between trees on the edge of the pits. The custom of inheritance of land, and the resolution of disputes over the boundaries of holdings, land ownership and inheritance was traditionally determined by the elders of each island.<ref name="DGK53"/><ref name="PIM1954-12">{{cite web| last =| first =  | work= XXV(5) Pacific Islands Monthly |title=Conflict of Old And New In Ellice Islands  |date =1 December 1954|url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-319422396/view?sectionId=nla.obj-373938314&partId=nla.obj-319511443#page/n121/mode/1up| access-date=2 October 2021}}</ref>