ABSTRACT
T he main income of the villagers comes from the land; but because the land is limited and unevenly distributed, there are many villagers who have very little land or none at all. Those who have no land or an insufficient amount may continue farming by renting land. But the opportunities for renting land are also limited. Thus, there are poor villagers who are unable to acquire land either by renting it or in any other way. If they still persist in trying to make a living from agriculture, they must become hired laborers. In Yuts’un, however, there are many seasonal laborers who come from different parts and who are mainly aborigines with a very low standard of living. To compete with these men, the villagers must accept a very low wage. But, even when the villagers get employment, it is usually limited to three or four months in the year, and they cannot live a whole year on the wages they receive in this short period. Thus the outlook for them within agriculture is very bad. In Yuts’un there are some supplementary occupations, such as duck raising for the men and weaving for the women. However, in order to take up these occupations, the people must have a certain amount of capital. Moreover, the yearly income from these occupations is very low. People with no better prospects in the village than these must go somewhere else in order to find opportunities to earn more. In the preceding chapter we saw that the income these landless people receive from their own village amounts, to 59 per cent of their total earnings. This means that about one-half of their income must be sought outside. Only one-fourth of their total income comes from agriculture in the village. It appears that really indigent folk are not rooted to the land of the village but float, as it were, on the surface. In the foregoing chapter we mentioned twelve households that moved into the village. Some of them had been there as long as six years, the most recent one coming two years ago. But few of them had gained any land—had even rented; and those who had gained land had acquired so little that it was negligible. Thus they have no real bond with the village.
