All rights reserved. Flocks and herds of villagers are pastured free only within village territory.
All villages are zealous in keeping other villages animals out of their territories.
The boundaries are known, and since 1924, they have been required to be registered with the local District Officer. Since the population and the cultivated areas were smaller, the land available for pasture was greater and the likelihood of clashes between villages therefore less, though undoubtedly disputes and fights over this issue occurred, as they still do. Anomalously, under the present law, the cultivated land within the village territory belongs outright to its private owners, who can dispose of it as they choose. In practice, land is not often sold, and when it is, it is normally sold to close kin or to neighbours. Moreover, the exercise of the individual rights involves de facto co-operation with other villagers.