1 Para. 357.
2 Chap. V1.
3 THE RACES, CASTES, AND TRIBES OF THE PBROPLE.
4 Part 1—Caste in the Panjab.
5 355. The tribal organisation of the people.—An extensive collection of facts bearing upon the tribal
6 organisation of the people, together with a most valuable dissertation on the general subject, will be found
7 in Vol. Il of Mr. Tupper’s treatise on Panjdé Customary Law. The Panjab affords a peculiarly complete
8 series of stages between the purely tribal organisation of the Pathd4n or Biloch of the frontier hills and
9 the village communities of the Jamna districts. The territorial distribution of the frontier tribes in the
10 fastnesses of their native mountains is strictly tribal. Each clan of each tribe has a tract allotted to it;
11 and within that tract the families or small groups of nearly related families either lead a semi-nomad life, or
12 inhabit rude villages round which lie the fields which they cultivate and the rough irrigation works which
13 they have constructed. In these they have property, but beyond them there are no boundaries in the
14 common pasture lands of the clan. Where the tribe or clan has occupied a tract within our border in
15 sufficient numbers to undertake its cultivation, the distribution differs little from that obtaining beyond the
16 border. We have indeed laid down boundaries which mark off areas held by groups of families ; but these
17 boundaries are often purely artificial, and include hamlets which are united by no common tie and sepa-
18 rated from their neighbours by no line of demarcation save one based upon administrative convenience.
19 When however the tribe conquered rather than occupied the tract, and its cultivation is still in the hands
20 of the people whom they subjugated, we find that they did almost exactly what we have done in the case
21 last described. They drew arbitrary boundaries which divided out the land into great blocks or village
22 areas, and each clan or section of a clan took one of these blocks as its share, left the cultivating popu-
23 lation scattered in small hamlets over the fields, and themselves occupied central villages of some strength
24 and size. These two types are found more or less prevailing throughout the Western Plains and Salt-range
25 Tract. But in the great grazing grounds we find, perhaps even more commonly than either of these, a third
26 type which is not based upon any sort of tribal organisation. A miscellaneous collection of cultivators
27 have broken up the land and so acquired rights in it, or have been settled by capitalists who acquired grants
28 of land on condition of bringing it under cultivation. ‘This form of settlement was especially encouraged
29 under Sikh rule; when the cardinal principle of administration was to crush the gentry, to encourage cul-
30 tivation, and to take so much from the actual cultivator as to leave nothing for the landlord.
31 356. [n the east of the Province we find the village community about which so much has been written ;
32 and nowhere perhaps in more vigorous perfection than in the south-eastern districts. But it isa great
33 mistake to suppose that the village community wholly supersedes tribal organisation. The tribal maps of
34 the Panjab when published will show how very generally tribes hold compact territories, even where the
35 village communities are strongest. Where this is the case the villages of the tribe constitute one or more
36 thapas, or triba) groups of village communities held together by feudal ties and by the fact or fiction of
37 common ancestry. Under the Mughals the revenue administration used to be based upon these thapas,
38 the revenue being assessed upon the group of villages as a whole, and being distributed among them by
39 the headmen of the collective villages under the presidency of the headman of the parent village. So too,
40 till our time the definite boundaries which now separate each village from its neighbours were very indefi-
41 nitely marked even in the cultivated tracts, as is proved by the manner in which they zig-zag in and out
42 among the fields ; while in the common pastures they were probably almost unknown, as to this day the
43 cattle of neighbouring villages belonging to the same tribe graze in common without reference to bound-
44 aties. The following description of the ¢hafa organisation is taken from my settlement report of
45 Karnal. The vigorous organisation of the priestly and menial castes, based upon the tribal organisation
46 of their clients and masters, is especially interesting with reference to the remarks made in sections 3§1-
47 52. It would be interesting to know whether the same holds good with the mercantile castes.
48 “ A tribal community having obtained possession of tract, in course of time it would be inconvenient for them all to live
49 “ together, and a part of the community would found a new village, always on the edge of a drainage line from which their tanks
50 « would be filled, Thie process would be repeated till the tract became dotted over with villages, all apringing originally from one
51 “parent villaga, The people describe the facts by saying that of several brothers one settled in one village and one in another ; bat
52 “ this no doubt means that tho parts of the community that migrated consisted of integral families or groups of families descended
53 “in one common branch from the ancestor, In this way were divided the many villages known by the same name, with the addition
54 * of the words kalda aud kAwrd (big and little). This by no means implies, that kaldn is Zerger than kburd, but only that the
55 “ elder branch settled in kaldn.
56 " The group of villages 60 boand together by common descont form a thapa, and sre connected by aub-fendal ties which are
57 “ gtill recognized, the village oeeupied by the descendants of the common ancestor in the eldest line being, however small or reduced
58 in. cireumatances, still acknow! Bed as the head. To this day when u headman dies, tho other villages of the ¢hapa assomble to
59 insta} his heir, and the turban of the parent village is first tied on his head. When Bréhmans and tho brother! are fed on the
60 occasion of deaths, &e,, it is from the thapa villages that they aro collected ; and tho Bréhmans of the head village are fed first, an-t
61 “ yeeoive double fe So among the menial castes, who still retain an internal organization of far greater vitality than the higher
62 “ castes now possess, the represontative of the head villago is always the foreman of the caste jury which is assembled from the
63 “ ¢hapa villages to hear and docide disputes, Tn otd days tho subordinate villages used to pay doresamall feudal fees to the head
64 “ village on the dey of tho great Diwdli. The head village ili called * the great village,” the “ tarban village,” “ the vill
65 “of origin,” or“ the tka village,” éééa being the sign of authority formally impressed ip old days on the forehead of the heir
66 “ of w decensed loader in the prescnce of the assembled thupa. In ono case a village told me that it had changed its ¢hapa because
67 “ there wera so many Brdbmane in its original ¢hapa that it found it expensive to feed them. I spoke to the original ¢tta village
68 “ about it, and they said-that no village could change ite thopa, sud quoted the proverb! ‘A son maty forget his sonship ; but not
69 ‘a mother her motherhood.’ ”
70 It is curious to note how the fiction of common descent is preserved when strangers are admitted into
71 these tribal groups or village communities. The stranger who receives by gift a share of another's land is
72 called a dhzmbhdi or “earth brother;” and if a landowner of a tribe other than that of the original
73 owners is asked how he acquired property in the village, his invariable answer is “ they settled me as 2
74 rother.”
75 357. Marriage and intermarriage between tribes.—The restrictions upon intermarriage will be
76 given in some detail in Part Il of Chapter VII in treating of civil condition; and it is unnecessary to
77 Tepeat the information here. The custom as to intermarriage in the hills will be found described in the
78 ? Mr. Doule notes that the members of all the villages included in the ¢hapaimake offerings once @ year at the Setti of the tfka
79 village. (See paragraph 220 supra), H
80 183