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In this chapter we look at the long, varied, and frequently contentious history of land. Because the topic is so vast, we have restricted our analysis in the ¤rst part to just one of the divisions of highland Eritrea and in particular the region known before the administrative reforms of 1995 as Akele Guzai. This is a particularly illuminating comparative study because two of the largest ethnies, the Tigrinya and the Saho, are involved. Although their land use practices are much different, by and large the two communities have coexisted peacefully for many generations . A traveler writing 150 years ago called it “a most perfect entente cordiale.”2 This may be overstating the case. Over the generations, the Saho undoubtedly have absorbed some traditions from their neighbors, just as the Tigrinya have adopted some of Saho culture, not always voluntarily . The problems that arose were largely due to the encroachment of nomadic Saho onto the land of the settled Tigrinya. For our purposes this forms a useful example of the dynamic interaction of two actors at the micro level. Collective liability and common ownership over land are among the typical features of small, kinship-based societies.3 Both are rooted¤rmly within kinship organization: disputes on land title usually involve descent of one of the litigants, as well as lineage rights and duties. These rights and duties, as we have seen in the previous chapter, are also fundamental in legal relations arising as a consequence of a murder, where the survival of the kin group and its own independence are the main concerns.4 Nadel has remarked of the African that “he does not possess his land but is possessed by it.”5 That this is particularly true 105 Six Land Tenure on the Highland Plateau The magic of PROPERTY turns sand into gold. —Sir Arthur Young1 for Eritrea is shown in an old Tigrinya proverb: “property should be defended, women too should ¤ght for it, and even an inch shall never be surrendered.”6 Land dominated people’s lives for countless generations, and in the next chapter we discuss some of the numerous disputes this has caused. We contrast two systems of traditional law, one of which existed in a less centralized and nomadic lifestyle and the other in a sedentary one, and we compare the reactions of two ethnies, both of whom are small, kin-based groups, to the superimposition (or attempted superposition) of centralized colonial and post-colonial structures.7 This particular case study of traditions in a relatively small area is extremely useful in a wider context. We are indebted to Bohannan, who forcibly argued for a theory of land tenure that ¤ts the African pattern and not one that is crafted in the light of Western concepts and assumptions about property law and land ownership.8 Traditional societies can be extremely diversi¤ed.9 Our comparison between Tigrinya and Saho shows differences of language, religion (one ethnie being mainly Christian, the other almost entirely Muslim), and political structure (the Tigrinya in Akele Guzai had a federal republican structure for many generations, while the Saho were more decentralized ).10 The Saho clan is endogamous; each Saho marries a member of the same clan, usually a cousin, whereas Tigrinya are rigidly exogamous .11 Other differences are analyzed in more detail in the chapter on gender. As we see in the next chapter, land disputes have frequently been violent and bloody, partly because the Saho, who were originally nomads , have in the past century mostly settled down to a pastoral life of farming and become uneasy neighbors of Tigrinya. Many of them were to be found on transhumance routes as they led their herds to pasture in a good season to the borders of Akele Guzai and beyond. For many centuries they controlled much of the important trade route from the port of Adulis to the Tigray border. The most assertive branch of the Saho, the Asaorta, was especially alienated from Abyssinia (and the Tigrinya) as a result of the repeated raids it suffered.12 The Asaorta was eventually subdued on behalf of the Italian colonizers by Bahta Hagos, a Tsenadegle Tigrinya from Segeneiti.13 Among the Saho, it has been said that there was “no trace of serf and master caste” such as was found in the Tigrinya.14 In each clan (are), an assembly of men elected a resanto (chief), and they decided what powers he should have and how long he should rule. Each sub...

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