CONDITIONS OF TENURE. 163 



the owner could dispose of the oil obtained therefrom in 

 any way he pleased. 



6. The members of the Yoya families formerly married exclu- 

 sively amongst themselves. 



Such were their chief customs as they were described to me by 

 several twinzayos, and corroborative evidence of the truth of these 

 statements will be found in the two passages quoted above, but these 

 rules have lately been much infringed upon. Even at the time 

 when the members of the Mission to Ava visited Yenangyoung, com- 

 plaints about this were made. Later on the customary distance 

 between the wells was no longer observed and the wells were sold 

 and mortgaged to outsiders. 



A radical change took place when, about 1852, King Mindon 

 Min perceiving the traffic in petroleum would prove a good means 

 of filling his exchequer, declared the petroleum a royal mono- 

 poly. Petroleum could therefore no longer be disposed of at the 

 liberty of the producer but had to be sold at a fixed rate to the farmer 

 who rented the output from the king. The Burmese King thus 

 derived a very handsome revenue from the oil fields, which amounted 

 to about R6oo,ooo per annum between 1873 and 188,1, but fell to 

 about half the amount later on. Much interesting light is thrown 

 on the transactions between the twinzayos, the Burmese King and 

 the farmer who rented the output of the oil fields by the letter quoted 

 above (page 27). This letter is in fact the only document we possess 

 regarding these transactions. 



It is quite intelligible that from the time when the right of dis- 

 posal of the petroleum no longer rested with the producers, the other 

 customs which had hitherto been strictly adhered to were infringed 

 upon. A good many outsiders now possess wells, who in former 

 days could not have been able to own them. As it was, however, 

 necessary that some kind of settlement should be arrived at, and the 

 vested rights of the twinzayos be protected, a certain area near the 

 villages of Twingon and Berne was reserved, after a prolonged 



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