Data Processing

C. Other Sources.

Apart from general observation, and occasional interviews, two other sources of identical data proved useful. First, the personal accounts of Selleya Pillai, a self-taught bookkeeper, a wetland and dryland farmer of Village A. Amongst numerous

other sets of accounts he had kept records of expenses and income of his lands from 1953 to the time of the survey, which gave exact details of all financial transactions. These included the dates and details of payments to labourers, and thus the production process. Secondly, a list of persons contributing to the harvest nongal after the second paddy harvest in Village A, who had taken part in the harvest under the organisation of Sinnadore, a kottukarin (labour contractor).

2.5 Data Processing

The aim of data processing was to gain as complete and

accurate as possible a picture of the changing values of variables identified within the three factors of change within the village (as defined in Section 1.3)*

Population indices were derived from the Count, Family Lineage Survey, and Census material. Categorised data were available from the Count for population composition, social organisation (caste and household), occupation and education

(viewed as an occupation). No data were collected for income.

Thus the quantitative analysis of income is omitted from this

thesis. The form of data collection allowed the crosstabulation of various population attribute categories, and the use of

population as a base for the subsequent analysis of the agricultural system of the village. Some aggregates for the Count (total

population, males and females, and households) formed an extension of past Census record totals (though past age and occupational compositions could not be derived from Census records). The estimated household totals from Family Lineage information could be checked against Census record totals, allowing the use of Family Lineage information for migration estimation. No systematic survey of fertility or mortality was carried out, and, as no past data existed at the village level, the analysis of growth relies on available decennial aggregates, combined with the use of migration estimates.

Production indices were derived from the Land Survey, the Well Survey, the Sample Household Survey, the Adangal, and the Chitta, supplemented by information from other survey and record data. Bearing in mind the definition of the village, it was necersary to collect information relating only to the

resident population, and thus data could not be related to a fixed area through time, but to a continually fluctuating area related to the relationship of production with population.

However, because of the difficulties of correlating past resource and population data for the whole village, aggregate change for some production indices for the village had to be defined according

1 . . .

to a village ownership zone within the village, justifiable because of the close past and present relationship between population and 1 For the sample of patrilineages, however, no such restrictions

were necessary.

5 •>

and production within that zone. The definition of this zone was indeed a "multiplex and complementary" process.

Spatial variations of resources were surveyed in the Land Survey, and the distinctive combinations of the use of resources, in the context of irrigation technology allowed the definition of landuse types. The distinctive production processes of the different landuse types allowed inferences to be drawn as to the changing nature of production in the villages. Information on production processes was derived from the Adangal, giving crop area for individual fields for different months (thus allowing, within certain constraints, the compilation of aggregates for

village-operated land, and the assumption of past cropping patterns). This information was supplemented by data from the Sample Household Survey, which also gave information on the use of production.

Correspondingly, the changing area under different landuse types could be calculated from the Adangal (because of known past cropping pattern combinations for different landuse types), from the Land Survey (; it was possible to see where previous changes in landuse type coiild have been possible), from the Well Survey, and from other record data including the chitta^.

No reliable information on exact production totals could be derived from the records. Nor was a systematic survey of production totals possible at the time of the survey. The 1 From the Sample Household Survey.

2. Although, except for the distinction between wetland, and dryland the Chitta carries no information on landuse types, the locations of owned land give clues as to its use.

quantitative analysis of production, therefore, like income is omitted from the thesis.

Distribution variables analysed included necessarily landownership, categorised into landuse types giving a simple but meaningful context of productivity and value to the

analysis of landownership. Past and present landownership were calculated using the multiplex techniques already outlined for population and production indices. The basis of the calculation

of "present" ownership was the Chitta, as interpreted by the village officials and informed residents, for ownership of land by households en umerated in the Count. Supplementary information from the Land Survey, the Sample Household Survey, and the Family Lineage Survey gave this interpretation a more accurate form. Past ownership was calculated (using present ownership, as a necessary base) from a combination of the Family Lineage Survey and the Chitta, checked against other sources.

indices of labour organisation were derived from the

Sample Household Survey. The changing proportions of population in various roles in the production process could be deduced from the observed relationships between landownership and occupational patterns, extended to past ownership totals.

The analysis of the co-distributions of "processable"

data was carried out both for the time of the survey, and over time. The nature of available data precluded a wholly systematic

1 More meaningful than aggregate area, a "rogue" variable

which is often used in village studies, having the disadvantage of overestimating the importance of less productive and

valuable land.

titne-series analysis of change; data are increasingly unavailable and unreliable with receding time. The earliest data concerning

either village is the population total in 188*1* Aggregate time- point data were available at the 1885 and 1915 Settlements, which show the changing nature of agricultural production, but it is not until 1926 for Village B and 19^7 for Village A that any

systematic quantitative analysis concerning distribution, as we11 as population and production variables is possible*

However, no definition of the period of analysis is made . It seems likely that significant change where it has occurred in the production process has been recent (i.e. in the period of 20 years before the survey, and therefore inferences as to the past (before 1926 in Village B and 19^7 in Village A)

relationships between distribution and production, and distribution and population variables may be drawn from available data after these dates.

Yearly aggregates, where available, refer to the Fasli, a year of the Muslim calendar used by the Revenue Department for accounting, which corresponds as closely as any definition to the agricultural year . In the text, the convention of referring to agricultural years as, for example 1972/7 3* will be modified to a single date, 1972.