Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1979, Page 35

Land Tenure, Fowling Rights, and Sharing of the Catch
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to this rule: anyone who had caught less than forty puffins
might keep his catch for himself — minus the landpartur —
but then, of course, he did not share with the other parti-
cipants. This rule may be explained in a number of ways (and
will be treated in detail elsewhere).
Finally, in the village of Dalur on Sandoy the yearly village
meeting (grannaslevna) agreed upon a quota for the puffin
catch in the only lundaland belonging to the village. The total
land of the village is 23 merkur, i. e. 368 gyllin, and for each
gyllin the owner might catch V368 of the total catch allowed.
There are few sessir in the lundaland so each third of the
village spends two days of the week fowling. Each man goes
to the lundaland as long as his quota has not been filled. One
man is appointed accountant, each fowler reporting to him
when he leaves (so that only appropriate sessir are occupied)
and upon return (to report the number of puffins caught). As
accountant’s share he was paid 1 out of 100 puffins.
Fowling rights are automatically incident to land tenure —
often accompanied by limiting regulations (e. g. a "ban on solo
fowling). As the social structure was changed by population
growth this connection could not be maintained, and the rights
were secured by a ban on fowling without permission. Usually
permission was only granted provided a share of the catch was
paid as landpartur. In some villages the rein was slackened
totally, so that anyone might go fowling provided he paid
landpartur.
Finally it must be mentioned that a whole series of special
rules and agreements secured the bird population against over-
exploitation, but that will be the subject of a separate paper.
Other rights
Land tenure in general involving the use of commons and
sharing of the profit constitutes a complicated pattern which
will demand separate treatment (see e. g. Landhokommission,
1911). But the tending of the sheep shows immediate parallels
to fowling in the division of labour. In some villages each man