1 aa PANJAB CASTES.
2 custom of got Jcundla is said to obtain. Among the MusalmSns of the west
3 the tribe does not appear to change I >y marriage ; but if the wife is of standing
4 which is nearly but not quite equal to that of her husband, she is often ad-
5 dressed by courtesy as belonging to the tribe of the latter. The point is practi-
6 cally important in this way. The diversity of custom which prevails, added to
7 the mterference of the educated enumerator, makes the record of tribal divisions
8 for women of exceedingly uncertain value ; and it would have been better to
9 tabulate the males only for the several tribes and clans. At a future Census
10 the enumerator should be directed to record the clan or tribe of a married
11 woman as stated by her liusband, whether the same as his own or different.
12 355. The tribal organisation of the people. — An extensive collection of [P. isl
13 facts hearing upon the tribal organisation of the people, together with a most
14 valuable dissertation on the general subject, will be fomid in Vol. II of
15 ' Mr. Tupper's treatise on Punjab Cudomarif Laic. The Panjab affords a pecu-
16 liarlv complete series of stages lietween the purely tribal >rganisation of the
17 Pathan or Biloch of the frontier hills and the village communities of the
18 Jamna districts. The territorial distribution of the frontier tribes in the
19 fastnesses of their native mountains is strictly tribal. Each clan of each tribe
20 has a tract allotted to it; and within that tract the families or small groups of
21 nearly related families either lead a ?emi-nomad life, or inhabit nide villages
22 round which lie the fields which they cultivate and the rough irrigation works
23 which they have constructed. In these they have property, but beyond them
24 there are no boundaries in the common pasture lands of the clan. Where the
25 tribe or clan has occupied a tract within our liorder in sufficient numbers to under-
26 take its cultivation, the distribution differs little from that obtaining beyond the
27 border. TVe have indeed laid down boundaries which mark off areas held by
28 groups of families ; but these boundaries are often purely artificial, and include
29 hamlets which are united by no common tie and separated from theii- neigh-
30 boujs by no line of demarcation save one leased upon administrative conveni-
31 ence. When however the tribe conquered rather than occupied the tract,
32 and its cultivation is still In the hands of the people whom they subjugated,
33 we find that they did almost exactly what we have done in the case last
34 described. They drew arbitrary boundaries which divided out the land into
35 great blocks or village areas, and each clan or section of a clan took one of
36 these blocks as its share, left the cultivating population scattered in small
37 hamlets over the fields, and themselves occupied central villages of some
38 strength and size. These two types are found more or less prevailing tkrough-
39 out the Western Plains and Salt-range Tract. But in the great grazing
40 grounds we find, perhaps even more commonly than either of these, a third
41 type which is not based upon any sort of tribal organisation. A miscellaneous
42 collection of cultivators have broken up the land and so acquu-ed rights in it,
43 or have been settled by capitalists who acquired grants of land on condition
44 of bringing it under cultivation. This form of settlement was especially
45 encoui-aged under Sikh rule ; when the cardinal piinciple of administration
46 was to crush the gentry, to encom-age cultivation, and to take so much from
47 the actual cultivator as to leave nothing for the landlord.
48 356. In the east of the Province we find the village community about
49 which so much has been written ; and nowhere perhaps in more vigorous per-
50 fection than in the south-eastern districts. But It is a great mistake to
51 suppose that the village community wholly supersedes tribal organisation.
52 The tribal maps of the Panjab when published will show how very generally