208 RANCI-7I DISTRICT
Maharajas in course of time made large grants of land for the main-
tenance of their relatives, military supporters, and political or domestic
favourites, who fell into financial difficulties and admitted the dikku
or alien adventurer to prey upon the land. To one or other of these
stages belong all the tenures of the District. They are very numerous,
but can be generally classified under four heads: the Raj or Chota
Nagpur estate ; tenures dependent on the Maharajas and held by
subordinate Rajas ; maintenance and service tenures ; and cultivating
tenures. The second and third classes of tenures are held on a system
of succession peculiar to Chota Nagpur, known as putraputridik,
which renders tbem liable to resumption in case of failure of male heirs
to the original grantee. As the Chota Nagpur Raj follows the custom
of primogeniture, maintenance grants are given to the near relatives of
the Maharaja. The chief service grants are: bdraik, given for military
service and the upkeep of a militia; bhuiyd, a similar tenure found in
the south-west of the District; ohdur, for work done as diwdn ; ghdt7edl,
for keeping safe the passes ; and a variety of revenue-free grants, brdhm-
ottar or grants to Brahmans, and debottar or lands set apart for the
service of idols. Cultivating tenures may be classified as privileged
holdings, ordinary ryoti land known as rajhas, and proprietors' private
land or man/hihas. The privileged holdings are those which were in
the cultivation of the aboriginal settlers before the advent of the Hindu
landlords and the importation of cultivators alien to the village. They
include bhuinharl, with the cognate tenures known as bhutkheta (land
set aside for support of devil propitiation), ddlikatdH, pahnai, and
mahati. The last two are lands held by the pahn and mahato, the village
priest and headman. In some parts the privileged lands of the old
settlers are known as khunthhatti, and include the pahn khunt, mundd
khunt, and the mahato khunt. The mundd is the village chief respon-
sible for the payment of the khuntkhatti rents to the mrinki of the circle
of the villages, while the mahato, a later importation, is the headman
from the point of view of the Hindu landlord, whose interests he guards
by assisting in the realization of the rent of the rajhas and cultivation of
the manjhihas lands. These latter include bethkhetd, or land set aside
for the provision of labour for cultivation of the remaining private lands.
As in other parts of Bengal, attempts to add to private lands are con-
stantly made ; but the tendency received a salutary check from the
demarcation, mapping, and registering of bhuinhari and private lands
under the Chota Nagpur Tenures Act of 1869. By the original custom
of the country, now gradually passing away, rent was as a rule assessed
only on the low lands or dons. On an average of ten villages in the
Government estates in 1897, the rates per acre for low lands were found
to range between Rs. 1-2-3 and RS. 2-1-6, and for high lands between
r 2 and 4 annas. These rates are very much lower than those prevalent
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