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Inefficient sorting of the medals; ruling on property and divorce disputes |
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To Tekhubama, where I heard cases all the afternoon. The bridle path is slipping badly in many places. Kaluma complained about not being paid for clearing slips etc., but apparently Mr. Mills gave orders that no minor work of this sort was to be paid for unless it took ten coolies to do it. This is rather equivocal in the form stated here as it is not clear what happens if 10 coolies go and clear a slip which could be done by 3 men working all day. Nor whether there is any provision for repeated small slips in the same place. |
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Mesolozumi came in for their medals. When I opened the packet labelled "Mesolozumi" I found it contained medals for quite different men. They turned out to be Mesetsu, and as there is no packet labelled Mesetsu it is impossible to tell what has happened to the Mesolozumi medals; no doubt they have been given to someone else, but why Dikhri and Vipunei, who did the distribution could not get right the village of their own tribe, written absolutely distinctly in the register, I do not know. Anyhow it would have saved a great deal of trouble if the medals had been left unsorted - at least by those that "sorted" them. Medals are claimed by two men also of Tekhubama who went as substitutes for Mesolozumi but their medals are not with the Tekhubama lot. |
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As a result of a disputed property case here, I told Chaduma and Tekhubama, who intermarry, that in future disputes as to property would be governed by the custom of the village in which the property in dispute is found. Thus if a woman of Tekhubama married a man of Pfesa-Chaduma and is then divorced, any property found in the latter village will be divided by the custom of that village which is Khizami. |
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I find that in the Khizami villages - or at any rate the group between Tekhubama and Khizakenoma - the office of the first Reaper is hereditary, passing from a man to the heir who inherits his house - and does not go, as in the Tengima villages to a woman nor by appointment. |
