مارِث, from, as is supposed, مَرَسَه, a rope. Some believe, and I rather incline to this view, that the word maress originates from meerath, ميراث, an inheritance. The plural of maress—a line, or rope, is marasaat; that of maress or mareth—a portion of land, is mawareth, the same plural is used by Felaheen for inheritance, مَوارِث, mawareth, inheritances. The maress is under the sole control of the villager to whom it has been allotted, from the day he begins to plough to the day that he has removed the harvested crop from it. His individual right over that piece of land then ceases.
The Turkish laws which have been introduced within the last few years in Palestine with reference to land tenure, and which are being rigorously enforced, are changing all these ancient laws and customs, much against the will and the wish of the people.
The lands are divided by an Imperial Commissioner into various portions and given to individual villagers. They receive title-deeds for individual ownerships, and each one is at liberty to sell his portion to whoever he pleases, either to a member of the village or to a stranger. The villager then sells his Hak el Muzarâ'a right of cultivation in the land; not as mulk, but as ameeriyeh, and subject to taxes as such; the object of the government being to break down the old custom of musha'á.
When the government will have attained this object, which it is doing fast, in spite of the resistance of many of the village communities, the old customs above referred to will die out and be forgotten.
The small plots of land which lie among rocks or in stony places, and which cannot be ploughed in the ordinary way by a ô'od and a pair of oxen, are generally given to the poorer villagers who possess neither one nor the other, and who dig such a piece of land with a faass فاس, a pickaxe, an iron instrument with a pick at one end and a spade or hoe at the other (see Quarterly Statement, July, 1893, p. 200; see also Isaiah vii, 25).
The waste lands of a village, خَرَاب, kharāb, used for pasture, are all masha'â—held in common—so is the thrashing floor.
Ploughed and sown lands are called عَمار, ammar, built, i.e., cultivated.
Fallow and uncultivated lands are called خَرَاب, kharāb, ruined, i.e., waste.
A furrow is called تِلم, tilm. The dividing furrow between one maress and another is called تخم, takhem. Such a takhem is generally a furrow double in width to the ordinary one, and marks the division of one man's crop from his neighbour's; but as this mark or boundary furrow frequently disappears after heavy rains, stones are placed at the time it
