Among the villagers, though people sometimes claim to hold the deeds, no one appears to take them very seriously. When land changes hands at the death of the owner, or by purchase, people do not go through the costly bureaucratic and legal procedure of altering the deeds, so that these are normally out of date.
Tax receipts are much more important. The land had been assessed for tax about 1938, by visiting officials working with the headman and a committee of villagers. Recognition as owner both by the State and the village is binding, unless misappropriation is subsequently established in court.
The legal provision that any land held in undisputed possession for twenty years becomes automatically the legal property of the possessor is known to the villagers, but not regarded as of much importance. In fact, it provides the main basis for rendering legal the de facto situation. What matters to a villager is simply whether he can in practice plough a certain piece of land without trouble, and this depends not on his legal rights, but on the acceptance of his customary rights by his local community. Only when he is challenged is a villager interested in establishing legal rights, in order to be able to defend himself with the power of the State. By this provision, his undisturbed holding, outside the law, of a piece of land for twenty years automatically confers full legal rights should he require them. To establish formally evidence of such rights is, however, costly and complex, unless he is prepared to wait for the next tax assessment and declare the land for tax for ever after. For this reason, most villagers do not have established legal rights to all the land they regard as theirs.
Household holdings of land vary greatly. In Elbashï a few