The following extract from a description of the Maratha villages by Grant Duff [53] may be subjoined to this passage: "The inhabitants are principally cultivators, and are now either Mirasidars or Ooprees.

These names serve to distinguish the tenure by which they hold their lands.

The Oopree is a mere tenant-at-will, but the Mirasidar is a hereditary occupant whom the Government cannot displace so long as he pays the assessment on his field.

With various privileges and distinctions in his village of minor consequence, the Mirasidar has the important power of selling or transferring his right of occupancy at pleasure.

It is a current opinion in the Maratha country that all the lands were originally of this description." As regards the internal relations of clans and village groups, Sir H.Maine states: "The men who composed the primitive communities believed themselves to be kinsmen in the most literal sense of the word; and, surprising as it may seem, there are a multitude of indications that in one stage of thought they must have regarded themselves as equals.