Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

Part three | 10
in individual plots and plantings, with one set of people holding several distinct
plots (some with plantings, listed separately) and one or two members of the set
perhaps holding additional shares in other plots. Altogether some 186 distinct
individuals may be identified in the four lists, of whom 154 had a share in either
a house or plough land, eleven had a share in an individual plot without a share
in anything else, and sixteen had a share in a planting without anything else. One
hundred and five were named both in the house list and as shareholders in plough
land, while 35 had a share in plough land but not explicitly in a house.
The extent of holdings was thus more elaborate than in Kufr ‘Awan. But a
set of numbers and non-overlapping categories does not convey the interconnection
between individuals and families. Four issues are considered in comparison
with Kufr ‘Awan: the number of families without any kind of landholding; the
make-up of musha‘ holdings in terms of units of male labour (zalama); the
representation of partnerships in gardens; and the number of women named in
any of the lists.
Landless Of the 83 holdings of houses in 1884, 22 were shared by combinations
of people who had their own separate house. The basic holding unit was a set of
brothers or close agnates, without an explicit share being recorded, while houses
shared by a combination of such units had the shares specified. The principle of
inheritance among male heirs governed the holding of houses, the tenure being
mülk, in contrast to plough land and also to individual plots where other principles
operated in addition to inheritance. Some co-sharers of houses do not appear in
other lists but are not counted as landless if their brothers held shares in plough
land. On this definition only two people were landless in Khanzira in 1884. One
of the two appears again in the 1895 tax list without land of any kind, and in that
list his family name is given as Tushman, the name of several Christians in the
village. But he does not appear in the household census or civil register (nüfus) of
1910, of which the details of only the eleven Christian households survive. 22 The
other landless person in 1884 does not appear in any subsequent record.
Analysis of holdings in 1895 shows the same pattern. Of the 87 holdings with
houses, 27 did not have land. But 23 of these may be discounted because they
belonged to sons or brothers of people who did have a share in plough land
in another holding. Of the remaining four, one belonged to the Christian who
was landless in 1884; one belonged to another Christian who had had a share
in plough land in 1884 but in 1895 no longer did; the third and fourth cannot
be linked positively with others in the list. 23 The impression is confirmed that
in villages of the hills almost every resident male was allotted a share in the
common arable lands.
Unlike Kufr ‘Awan, however, not everyone who held a share in the common
plough land of Khanzira had a share in a house in the village (in their own name
or that of a close relative). There were at least two families in 1884 whose members
had a total of three shares in plough land out of 43¾, but which did not live in
houses of the village as defined for tapu registration. Both had houses registered
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