in Pul Eliya these obligations are still imposed upon the holder of any gamvasama plot whether or not he chooses to lay claim to the title of Gamar&amp;amacr;la . as shown in map E ( p 152 ) each of three b&amp;amacr;ga has one elapata , one elapat panguva , one gamvasama and four ordinary pangu . according to Ievers the elapata , the elapat panguva and the gamvasama should all belong to the Gamar&amp;amacr;la , but this represents only an ideal initial situation . when detailed Pul Eliya records begin in 1886 the pattern had already diverged widely from this ideal . in that year , in each of the three b&amp;amacr;ga , the gamvasama , elapat panguva and elapata were in different hands . nevertheless the theoretical association of the elapata with the elapat panguva provides yet another example of the principle of fair shares . since the elapata constitutes the end of the field it therefore carries with it the obligation to build and maintain the whole of the end fence . this is about ten times more fencing than attaches to any ordinary panguva strip . because of this extra fencing obligation the owner of an elapata is excused from the duty of carrying out tank repair work . but the elapat panguva has no such privilege . thus the idea behind the doctrine that the elapata and the elapat panguva should always be owned by the same individual is simply to ensure that no one wholly escapes from the unpleasant obligation of carrying out tank repair r&amp;amacr;jak&amp;amacr;riya duty . this was felt to be particularly important since in the event of a breach in the bund all villagers must be equally responsible . in a comparable way , while the owner of an elapata and the owner of a gamvasama must both pay for the building of watch huts , the latter , as Gamar&amp;amacr;la , escapes the r&amp;amacr;jak&amp;amacr;riya duty of night watchman . but , unlike the owner of the elapata , the gamvasama owner must do his share of bund repair r&amp;amacr;jak&amp;amacr;riya along with the other shareholders . in Pul Eliya this carefully differentiated system of rights and obligations has been rigorously maintained even though the status of the Gamar&amp;amacr;la as a specialised class of individual is no longer formally recognised . the rights and duties attach to the land itself , not to the individuals who own it . contemporary practice in Pul Eliya . so much then for the theory behind the tenure of land in Pul Eliya old field . now let us consider the actual state of affairs as it existed in 1954 . according to present-day Pul Eliya tradition the old field originally contained 18 pangu , six for each b&amp;amacr;ga , but at some unspecified date in the past two extra pangu were added to the Pahala b&amp;amacr;ga by reducing the amount of land allocated to the Pahala elapata . the circumstances which brought this change about are not now remembered so I was fortunate that among the few nineteenth-century documents relating to Pul Eliya which still survive there are two tax returns which appear to confirm the tradition . the village Vel Vid&amp;amacr;ne still submits annually to the revenue administration a return purporting to show the exact amount of land cultivated throughout the village and the precise ownership of each plot . today this return is compiled for the purpose of crop statistics , but its form is just the same as that of the paddy tax census of the 1870-90 period . it is , therefore , easy to correlate surviving tax census documents with the layout of the modern field . table 4 has been drawn up from this documentary evidence to show the relationship between the 1954 old field holdings ( upper field ) and those of the years 1889 , 1890 . this table is analysed in detail in section B of the present chapter . the detailed analysis shows that the 1889 list is drawn up according to a scheme of 18 pangu ; the 1890 list on the other hand fits the present-day arrangement of 20 pangu . the story of the two extra pangu must therefore be correct and the alteration must have occurred shortly before 1890 . because of this satisfactory fit of documentary evidence with oral tradition I feel confident that map e ( which fits the present-day arrangement of strips to an original system of 18 pangu and three elapata ) is justified and correct . originally the field consisted of 3 b&amp;amacr;ga ; each b&amp;amacr;ga comprised a 40-fathom elapata and 6 pangu ; each panguva comprised 10 fathoms in the upper field and 10 fathoms in the lower field . such discrepancies as now exist result from the fact that shortly before 1890 two fathoms from panguva four of the Pahala b&amp;amacr;ga together with 22 fathoms from the Pahala elapata were reclassified as forming two extra pangu . since that date the Pahala b&amp;amacr;ga has been deemed to consist of 8 pangu as opposed to the 6 pangu in each of the other two b&amp;amacr;ga . the principal effect of this reclassification has been to alter the type of r&amp;amacr;jak&amp;amacr;riya obligation falling on owners of these plots of land . details are given at pp 207 f . bethma . the arrangement of the irrigation channels together with Vel Vid&amp;amacr;ne &apos;s assumptions concerning water allocation for the different parts of the field have the following implications : ( 1 ) . the upper field consists of two equal parts - the north half of the field and the south half of the field . ( 2 ) . the lower field is half the area of the upper field . thus the field as a whole is divided into three supposedly equal areas , each of which contains the same number of strips of the same width , owned in the same way . one-third of every holding falls into each of the three main parts of the field . this symmetry has important consequences . the north central province institution of bethma has received frequent comment . this is an arrangement whereby the shareholders in a field which is short of water may agree to cultivate only a proportion of that field and then share out the proceeds among themselves . the theoretical procedure , as recently described by Farmer is as follows : the village has an admirable system , known as bethma , under which , if the whole extent of the paddy field can not be cultivated for lack of water , as many of the tracts as can be irrigated are divided , regardless of their ownership , between the peasants in proportion to their several holdings , and thus cultivated as a compact block with minimum waste of water ( Farmer , 1957 , p 558 ) . the earliest reference to bethma in this form is in administration documents of the 1861-4 period . I have studied these entries with care , but they are unfortunately ambiguous . it is evident that the government agent of that date imagined that the system was supposed to work in the way that Farmer has described , and he on several occasions records the fact that he had ordered reluctant villagers to carry out bethma division in this way . but it seems to me probable that this form of bethma was the unintended invention of the British government agent himself ! at the present time different villages seem to work bethma in different ways , and there is no way of ascertaining which , if any , of these methods is the ancient traditional system . but what is quite clear is that the Pul Eliya method is very much simpler than that described by Farmer . furthermore it is bethma which provides the ultimate justification for fragmenting each individual holding in the complicated way I have described . for Pul Eliya the system is as follows . if the villagers are to cultivate rice in the old field during the Yala ( April &amp;sol; September ) season they will decide from the start either to cultivate the whole of the field or two-thirds of the field ( that is , the whole of the upper field only ) or just one-third of the field ( that is , the northern half of the upper field only ) . no pooling of proceeds or reallocation of holdings is necessary since the land is already divided up in such a way that each shareholder works the whole or two-thirds or one-third of his total holding as the case may be . in my limited experience this is the most common form of bethma in all this area . the ideal scheme described by Ievers , in which the total field is divided into two or more tracts ( pota ) , corresponds to the actual facts for all the villages in the Pul Eliya area . it is invariably the case that every strip or holding in the upper tract has a corresponding strip or holding in the lower tract , though the precise manner in which this is effected is not always the same . this fragmentation of individual holdings is always directly associated with the local practices regarding bethma . the relative size of the different tracts ( pota ) is such that when the water is scarce cultivation of the upper tract only , or of half the upper tract divided longitudinally , serves as a bethma . Farmer &apos;s description , which is the orthodox one , implies that individual Sinhalese farmers get on so well together that they can readily agree to a reallocation of land in times of water scarcity . I can only say that this does correspond to my experience ! cultivation areas . before proceeding , we may note one further feature of the tax lists ( table 4 ) . for the years 1889 and 1890 the areas of each individual holding are given in seed quantities ( P = pa&amp;symbol;la ; L = l&amp;amacr;ha : where 1 pa&amp;symbol;la = 10 l&amp;amacr;ha ) . but in the 1954 plot list areas are given in acres . the numerical totals at the bottom of the table are in each case nearly the same ; the 1889/90 tax lists show that the upper part of the old field had a sowing area of about 48 pa&amp;symbol;la , the 1954 returns show the same field as having an area of just short of 48 acres . the latter figure exaggerates the facts by about 50 per cent . the coincidence of numbers is no accident . the administration &apos;s requirement that the Vel Vid&amp;amacr;ne &apos;s crop returns should show cultivation areas in acres rather than in seed quantity dates from the early days of this century . the villagers , however , still reckon land areas in terms of seed sown and have no satisfactory method of converting one scale into the other . in making out his annual returns the Vel Vid&amp;amacr;ne now works to a simple rule of thumb . sinakkara land and badu land has been surveyed by government officials and hence the true acreage of such holdings is known and is entered accordingly . for the old field on the other hand , all that is really known is that it contains 20 pangu . now when the old field was originally surveyed in 1900 , the whole field was shown to be just over 40 acres . it thus became established that in Pul Eliya 1 panguva equals 2 acres and this tradition has stayed . today when working out the allocation of labour obligations for the purpose of r&amp;amacr;jak&amp;amacr;riya duty every 2 acres of sinakkara land and badu land counts as 1 panguva . in this way it was argued that at the beginning of 1954 there were 52 pangu in Pul Eliya in all . of these 20 were the old field pangu and 32 were represented by 64 acres of sinakkara and badu land . ( Cf 48 pangu ( table 5 ) plus plots 124 , 151-2 ( table 6 ) . ) the quite erroneous acreages shown in the 1954 plot list for the plots in the old field were arrived at by reversing this argument . every 6 pangu in the upper tract of the old field are reckoned as 12 acres . this leaves out of account both the elapata of the upper field and the whole of the lower field . consequently by the time the Vel Vid&amp;amacr;ne has completed his returns so as to show an acreage figure for each plot he has about 20 acres too many . Pul Eliya village , like all other villages in the area , has been submitting these bogus crop returns annually ever since the beginning of the century , and the same type of error has persisted throughout . for Pul Eliya the return for area cultivated has never been less than 15 per cent in excess and has often been over 50 per cent in excess . 