| caption: |
inability of Bopungwemi village to pay punishment fines and taxes |
| text: |
14th To Henima. On the way I turned aside to count first Tesenmi and then Bopungwemi, adding some four miles perhaps to a 16 miles march, but though I left at 8.0 I did not get in till 5 pm, and was on my feet for nearly all the time. Bopungwemi have rebuilt their village fairly well but are miserably off. There is practically no rice in it nor even millet, and I do not see how they can possibly pay off any more punishment rice before the harvest. They have paid no revenue for the last year and have no money to pay with. The revenue for the year before that was apparently borrowed, no doubt at a high rate of interest, from one Zapusilhu, one of the most grasping money lenders in Khonoma. This village (Bopungwemi, I mean) has always been a poor village ever since I have known it, and much addicted to stealing from the fields of its neighbours, and in particular from the stores of paddy reaped and not yet carried to the village granaries. At present, and probably the allegation is true, its members are accused in one case of stealing from a house actually inside the Sailhim village. Agricultural loans given them in the past have more than once had to be largely remitted. |
