| caption: |
Chapter five: land tenure and agriculture |
| caption: |
dividings between holdings |
| note: |
footnotes indicated by boxes within square brackets |
| text: |
Within the circuit of the heram-rai all cultivable and potentially cultivable land is subject to rights which are vested either in individuals or in tsami. The land is divided into holdings of varying sizes. Where possible these are defined by natural features; where none exist, boundary-stones and boundary- cairns are erected. According to Nzemi tradition these holdings were first claimed and delimited by the earliest Nzemi settlers on the village site or sites, but, while some of the holdings whose rights are vested in autochthonous tsami may in fact have been associated with them since the founding of the village, the greater part of the agricultural land has long been subject to transfer and subdivision. |
