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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
In the Journal of this Society for July, 1897 (pp. 628–641), an interesting communication was made by Mr. J. F. Hewitt regarding the existence of a real community of ownership in land, among the earliest Kolarian and Dravidian village settlers. I had hoped to see this followed up by some further local and other details, as the matter is one of great importance, and one that cannot be elucidated except by the aid of such special local knowledge as Mr. Hewitt, from his long residence on the Central Provinces and in Chutiya Nāgpur, undoubtedly possesses.
page 607 note 1 Largely owing to the impulse given by Sir H. Maine's writings to systematic inquiry. It is to this distinguished author's method and principles, rather than to his tentative theory, that we owe so great a debt.
page 608 note 1 London, Longmans & Co., 1896.
page 609 note 1 Mr. Hewitt writes ‘muta,’ but the word is surely ‘muṭthā,’ and means ‘a handful,; a group’; it has nothing to do with ‘mother’ or parent-village, as far as the meaning of the word goes.
page 611 note 1 In other words, it is not the existence of the pancayat that distinguishes the joint or landlord village, it is the absence of the headman. Sir H. Maine does not refer to the tribal constitution but to the joint village constitution (as he understood it).
page 611 note 2 But the extract has no direct reference to the state of things in question. It refers to a village form in which the holdings are distinct and individual, and the point is that each holder does not conceive himself entitled to the whole produce of his toil; he recognizes that the rājā, the headman, the servants, the Brahman, etc., has each his customary right to some portion of the heap. And it is the division of the grain heap that is in practice the foundation of various interests connected with the soil. But those dues paid, each holder enjoys the balance in complete severalty.
page 612 note 1 Both these words are ‘Hindī’; but as they have no Sanskrit originals, and not even any probable Prakrit derivation, may they not be Dravidian words originally? Were the “northern immigrants” ‘Nāgā’ tribes who introduced the modified Dravidian idea ?
page 613 note 1 Introducing the plan of setting apart a ‘lot’ for the support of the king or chief, etc. This is well explained in Mr. Hewitt's paper read to the Society of Arts (May 6, 1887, p. 622), also in Asiatic Quart. Review for 1887, p. 403.