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MORRIS I. BERKOWITZ
while 21 said that they chatted "very often.” Thirteen indicated they also talk very often with new neighbors and tenants. Early in the research project we had done a great deal of intensive non-participant observation and had noted that it was a rare thing to see a woman, or a man for that matter, walking alone towards the market. In addition to the frequent social interaction on the streets, in the market and around the resettlement area, there is a lot of informal visiting in apartments, but most of it only if the people involved knew one another prior to resettlement. Table III summarizes this data, but it is incomplete in that it fails to show that twice as many (24) villagers see their former intimate friends in their homes than out of them (12).
TABLE III
WHERE CHAT WITH NEW NEIGHBORS AND TENANTS*
BY KNOWLEDGE OF PRESENT NEIGHBORS BEFORE REMOVAL
Inside flat Outside flat Knew present neighbors before removal? Did know 16 10 Didn't know 3 4Village Power Structure
Evidence from these villages tends to indicate that, before removal, decisions by individual families were taken by the father of the family, when he was present, with occasional reference to elder male members of the village in a rather loose but nevertheless effective decision-making process. The villages each had village heads who were not elected, but nominated to their positions by consensus of the family heads. The source of their power seems to have been wealth and age. The dissemination of information in the villages verified this --- 21 villagers asserted that "gossip" was their sole source of news about important happenings in the village or the world. Nine said that more formal village contacts (village representative or village meetings) were involved
* Where respondent replied that visiting took place both inside and outside, the reply was scored in the Inside category.