Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 253
and fallow land. This means that further away, but still nearer to the 'stomach of a settlement',
was firstly kla pana (outer terrace fields) as the more developed 'cultivated land', and further
away still was susiye. We translate susiye to mean 'uncultivated bushland' even though parts
were used as bush fields (siye). All three types of land listed here were generally referred to as
gwihe, meaning 'farmland'. Our very schematic illustration includes the agglomeration of the
farmsteads into gwihe, and therefore we think the word also means 'farm' in general. It would
be misleading however to think of it as a farm with connected farmland outside a hamlet and
its infields. Kla pana in particular, but also susiye, would surely in reality have been more
spread out across a hillside and beyond, while the infields (vde) were always closely linked to
the farmsteads.
Plate 15a: View over terrace fields of Ghwa'a from Durghwe, with house platforms visible
Plate 15b: Kla pana fields in the foreground (the valley of Kunde in the background)
We need to imagine that hamlets, as the smallest settlement units, were not necessarily
formed of the extended family homes of 'sons' of the same grandfather (jije), but that they
most likely consisted of much less closely related neighbours who had sections of kla pana
land spread apart, even in more than one neighbourhood. People might also have leased out
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