1 202 APPENDIX— BOUNDARY DISPUTES.
2 and decided by a convention of neighbouring Zumeendars,
3 selected to draw a line of demarcation, and bound by
4 a solemn oath to act impartially.* The litigants made
5 choice of an equal number of Moonsifs or arbitrators, in
6 some cases one each, in others two to three each. These
7 committees would prolong their sittings for weeks and
8 months, being all the while fed and paid by the parties,
9 caressed and threatened by their chiefs, their relatives
10 and friends, influenced by party spirit, governed by fear,
11 and little verifying the saying common amongst them of
12 " Punch men Purmesur." Five different modes of
13 accommodation were in general adoption amongst these
14 Punchayts — 1st, An equal division of the land in dis-
15 pute.— 2nd, The Punchayt selected the oldest and most
16 respectable member of their committee to define the
17 limit, the others consenting to abide by his award. — 3rd,
18 A moiety of the line of demarcation was drawn by the
19 arbiters of the one party, and the remaining portion by
20 those of the other. — 4th, The Punchayt referred the
21 final adjustment to an old inhabitant of a neighbouring
22 village, upon whose local knowledge and experience they
23 placed more reliance than on their own limited informa-
24 tion.— 5th, It sometimes occurred to the Punchayt to
25 leave the division in the hands of one of the disputants,
26 whose probity and reputation were established in the
27 vicinity.
28 Village boundary disputes, attended with aggravating
29 circumstances, between the Chiefs and cultivators of
30 * The oath administered to the person who erects the boundary pillars,
31 if a Hindoo, is the Gunga-Jul, or the Chour, or raw hide of the cow, or
32 swearing by his son. If a Moossulman, the Qoran, or the placing his
33 hands on his son's head. The Chour, and swearing by his own child,
34 are the most binding.