ABSTRACT
People at Caporotondo have taxable rights to more than a thousand hectares of land scattered throughout the countryside of Pisticci. They also have untaxable rights of cultivation. As tenants and sharecroppers they have use-rights enforceable at law; as kinsmen they have quasi-property rights which are informally ceded to them and which, for one reason or another, are not registered in the Cadaster. Vincenzo’s ‘patriarchal spirit’, as his neighbours and sons called it, provides people with a good starting point for this brief series of examples. Since he insisted on running an extended family household he had not dispersed his land, and people can see the effects of a long process of accumulation unaffected by marriage endowments. When Giambattista died his wife retained a life interest in his land. He left no will, but expressed the wish that it should be divided between Giuseppe and Maria.
