1 CASTE IN THE PANJAB. 33
2 tribes hold compact temtoriesj even where the village communities are
3 strongest. Where this is the case the viUageg of the tribe constitute one or
4 more thapas, or trilial groups of village commnuities held together by feudal
5 ties and by the fact or fiction of common ancestry. Under the Mughals the
6 revenue adjniuistrat'on used to be based upon these tJuqms, the revenue being
7 assessed upon the group of villages as a whole, and being distributed among
8 them by the headmen of the collective villages under the presidency of
9 the headman of the parent callage. So too, till our time the definite bound-
10 aries which now separate each village fi-om its neighbours were very indefi-
11 nitely marked even in the cultivated tracts, as is proved by the manner in
12 which they zig-zag in and out among the fields ; while in the common
13 pastures they were probably almost unknown, as to this day the cattle of
14 ueigh'oouring villages belouging to the same tribe graze in common without
15 reference to boundaries. The following description of the thapa organisation
16 is taken fi'om my settlement report of Karnal. The vigorous organisation
17 of the priestly and menial castes, based upon the tribal organisation of their
18 clients and masters, is especially interesting with reference to the remarks
19 made in sections 351-5^. It would be interesting to know whether the same
20 holds good with the mercantile castes.
21 " A tribal cominunity baving obtained possession of a tract, in course of time it would be
22 " incunvenient lor tbem all to live together, and a part of the community would found a new
23 " village, always on tbe edge of a drainage line from wbicb their tanks would be filled. This pro-
24 " cess would be repeated till the tract became dotted over with villages, all springing originally
25 " from one parent village. Tlce people de-cribe tbe facts by saying that of several brothers one
26 " settled in one village and one in another ; but this no doubt means that the parts of the com-
27 '' muuity that migiatcd consisted of integral iamilies or groups of families descended in one
28 / " common branch from the ancestor. In this way were divided the many villages known by the
29 ) " same name, with (be addition of tbe words kiltin and Jchurd (big and little). This by no means
30 / ■■ implies that kalau is larger than kliurd, but only that the elder branch settled in kalau.
31 j " The group of villages eo bound together by common descent form a thapa, and are con-
32 1 '• nceted by sub-feudal ties which are stUl recognized, the village occupied by the descendants of
33 j " the common ancestur in the elde-t line being, however ^mall or reduced in circumstances, still
34 ) ■' acknowledged as the luad. To thi; day when a headman dies the other villages of the thapa
35 " asbemblo to instal his heir, and t)ie turban of the parent village is first tied on his head. When
36 " BraJMnans and the brotherhood arc fed on the occasion of deaths, &c., it is from the thapa
37 I " villages that they are collected; and t lie Brahmans of the head village are fed first, and receive
38 '■ double fees. So among tbe menial castes, who still retain an internal organization of far greater
39 -' " vitality than the higher ctt-tes now poses, the representative of the head village is always the
40 " foreman of the caste ,iury which is assembled from the t'lapa villages to bear and decide disputes.
41 " In old days the subordinate villages used to pay some small feudal fees to the head village on
42 " the day of the great Diwali. The head village is stiU called ' the great village,' the ' turban
43 " ' village, ' ' the village of origin,' or ' the tika village,' tika being the sign of authority formally
44 " impressed in old days on the forehead of the heir of a deceased leader in the presence of the
45 " assembled thapa. In one case a village told me that it had changed its thapa because there
46 " were so many lirahmans in its original thapa that it found it expensive to teed them. I spoke
47 " to the original tika village about it, and they said that no village couhl change its thapa, and
48 " quoted the proverb' ' A son may forget his sonship ; but not ' a mother her motherhood.' "
49 It is curious to note how the fiction of common descent is preserved when
50 strangers are admitted into these tribal groups or village communities. The
51 stranger who receives by gift a share of another's land is called a bhumbkdi or
52 y " earth brother ; " and if a landowner of a tribe other than that of the
53 original owners is asked how he acquired propei-ty in the village, his invariable
54 answer is " they settled me as a brother."
55 357. Marriage and intermarriage between tribes. — The restrictions upon
56 intermarriage will be given in some detail in Part II of Chapter VII in
57 ' Mr. Douie notes that the members of all the villages included in the thapa make ofFeringi
58 once a year at the Satti of the tika village. (See paragraph 220 supra.)