174 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
manager from outside the village. The writer of the report 
assumed that in these cases the original Brotherhoods had 
been ousted at some distant date by the Chief, but this is 
speculation, unsupported by evidence, and the hypothetical 
date may, for all we know, lie far beyond the Moslem 
conquest. The most significant feature of the Chief's 
tenure is that at his death his rights were not as a rule dis- 
tributed according to the Hindu law of inheritance. A new 
Chief succeeded, chosen according to whatever custom 
prevailed in the family, and he usually provided for the 
necessities of his collateral relatives, but the cadets of the 
family had to “look to their own exertions for sub- 
sistence.”’ 
This succession of an individual to the undivided rights 
appears also in the traditional histories of some of the Chiefs 
in Oudh,! and it is a fact with which we must reckon. It 
points to a recognised distinction between property,” 
which under the developed Sacred Law is ordinarily divided 
at death, and ‘Chiefs’ Right,” which is not divided, and 
must be regarded rather as a survival of sovereignty. The 
fact that a Chief had acknowledged the supremacy of a 
Moslem dynasty at Delhi or elsewhere made no difference 
to his position within his own domain, so long as he was 
allowed to retain possession of it; when his rights were 
terminated, it was by superior force. This interpretation 
of the facts is, even now, in accordance with the popular 
attitude in Chiefs’ country; the Chief's domain is still the 
Raj or kingdom, and within it his will may be very nearly 
law: and while the tradition has gradually weakened, and is 
bound to weaken further, I think its existence must be 
accepted by the historian as definite evidence of a claim to 
sovereignty, a claim which probably rests on the facts of a 
more or less distant epoch, though records of the facts may 
not have survived. 
This conclusion must not, however. be extended to the 
1 See, for instance, History of the Sombansi Raj, by Bishambar Nath 
Tholal (Cawnpore, 1900). This interesting little book traces the tradi- 
tional history of the Chiefs of Partabgarh back to the thirteenth century, 
when Lukhan Sen carved out a domain for himself, and recounts the 
succession of Chiefs for twenty generations. See also, Benett’s Chief 
Clans of the Roy. Bareilly District (revised edition, Lucknow. 1895); and 
Elliott's Chronicles of Oonao (Allahabad. 1862)