TY - JOUR AU - Atran, Scott PY - 1986 DA - 1986// TI - Hamula organisation and Masha'a tenure in Palestine JO - Man (N.S.) SP - 271 EP - 295 VL - Vol. 21 IS - no. 2 PB - [Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, etc.] CY - [London] KW - Palestinian Arabs KW - Palestinians KW - Real property KW - Acquisition and relinquishment of property KW - Avuncular and nepotic relatives KW - Clans KW - Community structure AB - Based on historical sources, the author examines the Palestinian land tenure system (MASHA'A) and assesses its vulnerability to outside interference and land dispossession. The MASHA'A was a system of communal land tenure in which land was redistributed every one to five years, depending on region, in order to share risk among cultivators. Atran discusses cultivation practices and the social composition of the villages. In the second part of the article, he focuses his attention on the history of two hill villages and shows the close 'organic' relationship between village social organization and agrarian regime. He argues against claims that this system was unproductive and susceptible to land alienation. SN - 0025-1496 UR - https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=m013-027 LA - English N1 - Scott Atran ID - m013-027 Y1 - 2022-08-12 ER -