From the Pages of the Defter (ص 223)

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From the Pages of the Defter (ص 223)

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families.°° Khalil’s plot had been registered in the tapu in the name of Hamdan Bashir al-
Salimt and his group (the phrase used was wa-jamd’atihi), among which numbered Khalil’s
father, Muhammad Salame.2*"
Here, too, as in the Taffuh case, we can understand that tapu records (and
certificates) had not been updated since the date of the initial registration (the date of
which, unfortunately, was not a detail recorded in the court record, since it was not relevant
to the dispute at hand). While we do not know how long the search in the tapu records took,
the orderliness of the record books is hinted at in the court record. It informs us that plots
were organized and recorded according to geographical units and subunits. As the court
record also makes clear, one who wished to demarcate on the ground the land’s borders
based on the relational-border system employed in the tapu register would require the
cooperation of the villagers. On the other hand, however, there was no effective way to be
more precise in the open countryside. If you, the reader, were now sitting with me, the
author, over a cup of tea, | might try to emphasize this point by way of analogy to present-
day Guam, where | was perpetually lost until | learned to recognize the landmarks by which
locals navigate around the island and with which they peppered their answers to my
389 See also Atlas of Palestine 1917-1966, sheet 473.
38 As we will see below, Hamdan clarifies that this group was his extended family (hamula).Mundy and
Saumarez-Smith likewise found this form of joint ownership-registration occurring in the Transjordanian
hill village of Khanzira (today Ashrafiya). While all the shareholders were listed by name in the tapu
register of 1884, in the tax register of 1895 only one name appeared in relation to the lands. Mundy and
Suamarez-Smith: 181-182.
206

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From the Pages of the Defter

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Susynne McElrone

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