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DECEMBÁR, 1907.)
A REPORT ON THE PANJAB HILL TRIBES.
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286. This they do not receive by right of superiority, but by right of service. Siz monthly grants are fixed as remuneration for their services.
287. This is only the reward of service.
288. The Brahmans, barbers, Taris, Kolts, and Rehrs have hereditary rights. Other monials can be dismissed or re-employed. This right is termed shikóthd.
LXXXVI. - Increase of Agriculture. 289. There is no reason to believe that the forefathers of the agriculturists were of the same caste or tribe as themselves. Neither can this be admitted nor denied. Only so much is certain that in ancient times agriculturists were very few.
200. No such marks are to be found in any tribe or caste as to show likeness between villages or villagers. Distinction between cultivators is necessary. It is not to be found among the followers of any other profession.
201. No tradition worthy of mention is available.
292. Agriculture is increasing day by day, and every tribe is taking to it. Even the Rajpûts, Brahmans, goldsmiths and barbers, who shrank from cultivating land, have adopted agrioulture and are trying hard to improve their lands, 293. Want is not the reason.
LXXXVII. - Pasture. 294. This is a general custom in the hills. The culturable land situated near the village is either divided and cultivated or is possessed separately. In villages where pastare grounds to graze cattle are scarce the banjar (barren land) is neither divided nor cultivated, for the want of pasture injures the increasing value of land. But this custom is going out of use nowadays, for the agriculturists have been declared the owners of culturable lands, while the Chief or the British Government owns the uncalturable lands. However, the shdmldt (common land) is in possession of the villagers.
295. All the pasture lands of the hills belong to the Chief of the place. But the inhabitants of villages are privileged to graze their cattle in pastures situated within the boundary of their respective villages. None have such a right except the natives of the villages. If the Chief thinks any area to be more than sufficient for the purposes of pasturage, and wants to improve it, then he can give it to any one of the nativer of the village for improvement on a fixed rent. The farmers can sell or mortgage the land which they own as the maliks, but they cannot do so with the pasture lands, and can use them only for private purposes.
LXXXVIII. - Distribution of Land. 296. There is no arrangement for social communion of tribes. However, the subdivisions of a tribe have social intercourse with one another. No custom prevails as to the redistribution of a tribe or religion. The distribution already effected cannot be cancelled.
297. Portions of land are fixed for sowing particular grains for particular crops. For instance, wheat is sown for the rabí crops, and rice, etc., for the kharif, and a limited aes of land is set aside for each crop.
LXXXIX. - Water. 298. Divisions of watering-places and habitations in a village are according to the tribes. High castes have their houses, watering-places, and cremation-grounds in one part of the village, and in the same manner every tribe or sub-division thereof has its separate places. Every tribe has also & fixed place in the village to be used at times of marriages and deaths. This partition of the villages by tribes is of long standing, but it has no concern with partition of land. The land is divided into fields.
299. The partition into fields effects all kinds of land, whetber it be the individual property of any person or the common land of the village.
