The tribals of the Nagar Haveli jungles had never known what plenty was, though what they had was adequate. The more affluent among them had small plots of land to till, although these plots grew smaller with each passing generation as they were divided between brothers. In the good years, the single crops of nangli and arahar (finger millet and a pulse, respectively) that they produced, even after the chauth (tax) the Patel took away, lasted them through most of the year.
They had hens and goats, so milk and eggs were aplenty, and they could hunt if food fell short. On good days, when someone managed to snare a fat hare or a deer, the entire community would rejoice, drink, dance under the banyan tree and thank Waghdev for the life they had. When the rains failed, they managed to survive by working in the fields of the Patels and the landlords, whose areas were irrigated with water from the Daman Ganga River.
All this changed when the fanaga, or foreigner, came. The Patels suddenly started demanding half the crop as chauth, claiming that it was the law of the fanaga. In reality, the Portuguese had little interest in the territories and maintained only a skeletal presence, relying entirely on the Patels for revenue collection.
Given free rein, the Patels began to exploit the tribals and appropriate the tiny parcels of land they owned. The standard procedure was to understate the produce from their own fields, overstate that of the small tribal landowners and extract taxes from.