REMARKS ON, AND ELUCIDATION OF, THE VARIOUS LAWS AND CUSTOMS.
MODES OF PLEADING.
NATURE OF EVIDENCE.
OATHS.
INHERITANCE.
OUTLAWRY.
THEFT, MURDER, AND COMPENSATION FOR IT.
ACCOUNT OF A FEUD.
DEBTS.
SLAVERY.
REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LAWS.
The foregoing system of the adat, or customs of the country, being
digested chiefly for the use of the natives, or of persons well
acquainted with their manners in general, and being designed, not for an
illustration of the customs, but simply as a standard of right, the
fewest and concisest terms possible have been made use of, and many parts
must necessarily be obscure to the bulk of readers. I shall therefore
revert to those particulars that may require explanation, and endeavour
to throw a light upon the spirit and operation of such of their laws
especially as seem most to clash with our ideas of distributive justice.
This comment is the more requisite as it appears that some of their
regulations, which were judged to be inconsistent with the prosperity of
the people, were altered and amended through the more enlightened reason
of the persons who acted as the representatives of the English company;
and it may be proper to recall the idea of the original institutions.
MODE OF PLEADING.
The plaintiff and defendant usually plead their own cause, but if
circumstances render them unequal to it they are allowed to pinjam mulut
(borrow a mouth). Their advocate may be a proattin, or other person
indifferently; nor is there any stated compensation for the assistance,
though if the cause be gained a gratuity is generally given, and too apt
to be rapaciously exacted by these chiefs from their clients, when their
conduct is not attentively watched. The proattin also, who is security
for the damages, receives privately some consideration; but none is
openly allowed of. A refusal on his part to become security for his
dependant or client is held to justify the latter in renouncing his civil
dependence and choosing another patron.
EVIDENCE.
Evidence is used among these people in a manner very different from the
forms of our courts of justice. They rarely admit it on both sides of the
question; nor does the witness first make a general oath to speak the
truth, and nothing but the truth. When a fact is to be established,
either on the part of the plaintiff or of the defendant, he is asked if
he can produce any evidence to the truth of what he asserts. On answering
in the affirmative he is directed to mention the person. This witness
must not be a relation, a party concerned, nor even belong to the same
dusun. He must be a responsible man, having a family, and a determinate
place of residence. Thus qualified, his evidence may be admitted. They
have a settled rule in respect to the party that is to produce evidence.
For instance; A. sues B. for a debt: B. denies the debt: A. is now to
bring evidence to the debt, or, on failure thereof, it remains with B. to
clear himself of the debt by swearing himself not indebted. Had B.
acknowledged that such a debt had formerly subsisted but was since paid,
it would be incumbent on B. to prove the payment by evidence, or on
failure it would rest with A. to confirm the debt's being still due, by
his oath. This is an invariable mode, observed in all cases of property.
OATHS.
As their manner of giving evidence differs from ours so also does the
nature of an oath among them differ from our idea of it. In many cases it
is requisite that they should swear to what it is not possible in the
nature of things they should know to be true. A. sues B. for a debt due
from the father or grandfather of B. to the father or grandfather of A.
The original parties are dead and no witness of the transaction survives.
How is the matter to be decided? It remains with B. to make oath that his
father or grandfather never was indebted to those of A.; or that if he
was indebted the debt had been paid. This, among us, would be esteemed a
very strange method of deciding causes; but among these people something
of the kind is absolutely necessary. As they have no sort of written
accounts, nor anything like records or registers among them, it would be
utterly impossible for the plaintiff to establish the debt by a positive
proof in a multitude of cases; and were the suit to be dismissed at once,
as with us, for want of such proof, numbers of innocent persons would
lose the debts really due to them through the knavery of the persons
indebted, who would scarce ever fail to deny a debt. On the side of the
defendant again; if he was not permitted to clear himself of the debt by
oath, but that it rested with the plaintiff only to establish the fact by
a single oath, there would be a set of unprincipled fellows daily
swearing debts against persons who never were indebted to any of their
generation. In such suits, and there are many of them, it requires no
small discernment to discover, by the attendant circumstances, where the
truth lies; but this may be done in most instances by a person who is
used to their manners and has a personal knowledge of the parties
concerned. But what they mean by their oath, in those cases where it is
impossible they should be acquainted with the facts they design to prove,
is no more than this; that they are so convinced of the truth of the
matter as to be willing to subject themselves to the paju sumpah
(destructive consequences of perjury) if what they assert is believed by
them to be false. The form of words used is nearly as follows: "If what I
now declare, namely" (here the fact is recited) "is truly and really so,
may I be freed and clear from my oath: if what I assert is wittingly
false, may my oath be the cause of my destruction." But it may be easily
supposed that, where the punishment for a false oath rests altogether
with the invisible powers, where no direct infamy, no corporal punishment
is annexed to the perjury, there cannot fail to be many who would makan
sumpah (swallow an oath), and willingly incur the guilt, in order to
acquire a little of their neighbour's property.
Although an oath, as being an appeal to the superior powers, is supposed
to come within their cognizance alone, and that it is contrary to the
spirit of the customs of these people to punish a perjury by human means,
even if it were clearly detected; yet, so far prevalent is the opinion of
their interposition in human affairs that it is very seldom any man of
substance, or who has a family that he fears may suffer by it, will
venture to forswear himself; nor are there wanting apparent examples to
confirm them in this notion. Any accident that happens to a man who has
been known to take a false oath, or to his children or grandchildren, is
carefully recorded in memory, and attributed to this sole cause. The
dupati of Gunong Selong and his family have afforded an instance that is
often quoted among the Rejangs, and has evidently had great weight. It
was notorious that he had, about the year 1770, taken in the most solemn
manner a false oath. He had at that time five sons grown up to manhood.
One of them, soon after, in a scuffle with some bugis (country soldiers)
was wounded and died. The dupati the next year lost his life in the issue
of a disturbance he had raised in the district. Two of the sons died
afterwards, within a week of each other. Mas Kaddah, the fourth, is
blind; and Treman, the fifth, lame. All this is attributed to, and firmly
believed to be the consequence of, the father's perjury.
COLLATERAL OATHS.
In administering an oath, if the matter litigated respects the property
of the grandfather, all the collateral branches of the family descended
from him are understood to be included in its operation: if the father's
effects only are concerned, or the transaction happened in his lifetime,
his descendants are included: if the affair regards only the present
parties and originated with them, they and their immediate descendants
only are comprehended in the consequences of the oath; and if any single
one of these descendants refuses to join in the oath it vitiates the
whole; that is, it has the same effect as if the party himself refused to
swear; a case that not unfrequently occurs. It may be observed that the
spirit of this custom tends to the requiring a weight of evidence and an
increase of the importance of the oath in proportion as the distance of
time renders the fact to be established less capable of proof in the
ordinary way.
Sometimes the difficulty of the case alone will induce the court to
insist on administering the oath to the relations of the parties,
although they are nowise concerned in the transaction. I recollect an
instance where three people were prosecuted for a theft. There was no
positive proof against them, yet the circumstances were so strong that it
appeared proper to put them to the test of one of these collateral oaths.
They were all willing, and two of them swore. When it came to the turn of
the third he could not persuade his relations to join with him, and he
was accordingly brought in for the whole amount of the goods stolen, and
penalties annexed.
These customs bear a strong resemblance to the rules of proof established
among our ancestors, the Anglo-Saxons, who were likewise obliged, in the
case of oaths taken for the purpose of exculpation, to produce a certain
number of compurgators; but, as these might be any indifferent persons,
who would take upon them to bear testimony to the truth of what their
neighbour swore, from an opinion of his veracity, there seems to be more
refinement and more knowledge of human nature in the Sumatran practice.
The idea of devoting to destruction, by a wilful perjury, not himself
only, but all, even the remotest branches, of a family which constitutes
his greatest pride, and of which the deceased heads are regarded with the
veneration that was paid to the dii lares of the ancients, has doubtless
restrained many a man from taking a false oath, who without much
compunction would suffer thirty or a hundred compurgators of the former
description to take their chance of that fate. Their strongest prejudices
are here converted to the most beneficial purposes.
CEREMONY OF TAKING AN OATH.
The place of greatest solemnity for administering an oath is the krammat
or burying-ground of their ancestors, and several superstitious
ceremonies are observed on the occasion. The people near the sea-coast,
in general, by long intercourse with the Malays, have an idea of the
Koran, and usually employ this in swearing, which the priests do not fail
to make them pay for; but the inland people keep, laid up in their
houses, certain old reliques, called in the Rejang language pesakko, and
in Malayan, sactian, which they produce when an oath is to be taken. The
person who has lost his cause, and with whom it commonly rests to bind
his adversary by an oath, often desires two or three days' time to get
ready these his swearing apparatus, called on such occasions sumpahan, of
which some are looked upon as more sacred and of greater efficacy than
others. They consist of an old rusty kris, a broken gun barrel, or any
ancient trumpery, to which chance or caprice has annexed an idea of
extraordinary virtue. These they generally dip in water, which the person
who swears drinks off, after having pronounced the form of words before
mentioned.* The pangeran of Sungei-lamo has by him certain copper bullets
which had been steeped in water drunk by the Sungeietam chiefs, when
they bound themselves never to molest his districts: which they have only
done since as often as they could venture it with safety, from the
relaxation of our government. But these were political oaths. The most
ordinary sumpahan is a kris, and on the blade of this they sometimes drop
lime-juice, which occasions a stain on the lips of the person performing
the ceremony; a circumstance that may not improbably be supposed to make
an impression on a weak and guilty mind. Such would fancy that the
external stain conveyed to the beholders an image of the internal. At
Manna the sumpahan most respected is a gun barrel. When produced to be
sworn on it is carried to the spot in state, under an umbrella, and
wrapped in silk. This parade has an advantageous effect by influencing
the mind of the party with a high idea of the importance and solemnity of
the business. In England the familiarity of the object and the summary
method of administering oaths are well known to diminish their weight,
and to render them too often nugatory. They sometimes swear by the earth,
laying their hands upon it and wishing that it may never produce aught
for their nourishment if they speak falsely. In all these ceremonies they
burn on the spot a little gum benzoin--Et acerra thuris plena, positusque
carbo in cespite vivo.
(*Footnote. The form of taking an oath among the people of Madagascar
very nearly resembles the ceremonies used by the Sumatrans. There is a
strong similarity in the articles they swear on and in the circumstance
of their drinking the consecrated water.)
It is a striking circumstance that practices which boast so little of
reason in their foundation, which are in fact so whimsical and childish,
should yet be common to nations the most remote in situation, climate,
language, complexion, character, and everything that can distinguish one
race of people from another. Formed of like materials, and furnished with
like original sentiments, the uncivilized tribes of Europe and of
India trembled from the same apprehensions, excited by similar ideas, at
a time when they were ignorant, or even denied the possibility of each
other's existence. Mutual wrong and animosity, attended with disputes and
accusations, are not by nature confined to either description of people.
Each, in doubtful litigations, might seek to prove their innocence by
braving, on the justice of their cause, those objects which inspired
amongst their countrymen the greatest terror. The Sumatran, impressed
with an idea of invisible powers, but not of his own immortality, regards
with awe the supposed instruments of their agency, and swears on krises,
bullets, and gun barrels; weapons of personal destruction. The German
Christian of the seventh century, more indifferent to the perils of this
life, but not less superstitious, swore on bits of rotten wood and rusty
nails, which he was taught to revere as possessing efficacy to secure him
from eternal perdition.
INHERITANCE.
When a man dies his effects, in common course, descend to his male
children in equal shares; but if one among them is remarkable for his
abilities above the rest, though not the eldest, he usually obtains the
largest proportion, and becomes the head of the tungguan or house; the
others voluntarily yielding him the superiority. A pangeran of Manna left
several children; none of them succeeded to the title, but a name of
distinction was given to one of the younger, who was looked upon as chief
of the family after the father's decease. Upon asking the eldest how it
happened that the name of distinction passed over him and was conferred
on his younger brother, he answered with great naivete, "because I am
accounted weak and silly." If no male children are left and a daughter
only remains they contrive to get her married by the mode of ambel anak,
and thus the tungguan of the father continues. An equal distribution of
property among children is more natural and conformable to justice than
vesting the whole in the eldest son, as prevails throughout most part of
Europe; but where wealth consists in landed estate the latter mode,
beside favouring the pride of family, is attended with fewest
inconveniences. The property of the Sumatrans being personal merely, this
reason does not operate with them. Land is so abundant in proportion to
the population that they scarcely consider it as the subject of right any
more than the elements of air and water; excepting so far as in
speculation the prince lays claim to the whole. The ground however on
which a man plants or builds, with the consent of his neighbours, becomes
a species of nominal property, and is transferable; but as it costs him
nothing beside his labour it is only the produce which is esteemed of
value, and the compensation he receives is for this alone. A temporary
usufruct is accordingly all that they attend to, and the price, in case
of sale, is generally ascertained by the coconut, durian, and other
fruit-trees that have been planted on it; the buildings being for the
most part but little durable. Whilst any of those subsist the descendants
of the planter may claim the ground, though it has been for years
abandoned. If they are cut down he may recover damages; but if they have
disappeared in the course of nature the land reverts to the public.
They have a custom of keeping by them a sum of money as a resource
against extremity of distress, and which common exigencies do not call
forth. This is a refined antidote against despair, because, whilst it
remains possible to avoid encroaching on that treasure, their affairs are
not at the worst, and the idea of the little hoard serves to buoy up
their spirits and encourage them to struggle with wretchedness. It
usually therefore continues inviolate and descends to the heir, or is
lost to him by the sudden exit of the parent. From their apprehension of
dishonesty and insecurity of their houses their money is for the most
part concealed in the ground, the cavity of an old beam, or other secret
place; and a man on his death-bed has commonly some important discovery
of this nature to make to his assembled relations.
OUTLAWRY.
The practice of outlawing an individual of a family by the head of it
(called lepas or buang dangan surat, to let loose, or cast out with a
writing) has its foundation in the custom which obliges all the branches
to be responsible for the debts contracted by any one of the kindred.
When an extravagant and unprincipled spendthrift is running a career that
appears likely to involve his family in ruinous consequences, they have
the right of dissolving the connexion and clearing themselves of further
responsibility by this public act, which, as the writ expresses it, sends
forth the outcast, as a deer into the woods, no longer to be considered
as enjoying the privileges of society. This character is what they term
risau, though it is sometimes applied to persons not absolutely outlawed,
but of debauched and irregular manners.
In the Saxon law we find a strong resemblance to this custom; the kindred
of a murderer being exempt from the feud if they abandoned him to his
fate. They bound themselves in this case neither to converse with him nor
to furnish him with meat or other necessaries. This is precisely the
Sumatran outlawry, in which it is always particularly specified (beside
what relates to common debts) that if the outlaw kills a person the
relations shall not pay the compensation, nor claim it if he is killed.
But the writ must have been issued before the event, and they cannot free
themselves by a subsequent process, as it would seem the Saxons might. If
an outlaw commits murder the friends of the deceased may take personal
revenge on him, and are not liable to be called to an account for it; but
if such be killed, otherwise than in satisfaction for murder, although
his family have no claim, the prince of the country is entitled to a
certain compensation, all outlaws being nominally his property, like
other wild animals.
COMPENSATION FOR MURDER.
It seems strange to those who are accustomed to the severity of penal
laws, which in most instances inflict punishment exceeding by many
degrees the measure of the offence, how a society can exist in which the
greatest of all crimes is, agreeably to established custom, expiated by
the payment of a certain sum of money; a sum not proportioned to the rank
and ability of the murderer, nor to the premeditation, or other
aggravating circumstances of the fact, but regulated only by the quality
of the person murdered. The practice had doubtless its source in the
imbecility of government, which, being unable to enforce the law of
retaliation, the most obvious rule of punishment, had recourse to a
milder scheme of retribution as being preferable to absolute indemnity.
The latter it was competent to carry into execution because the guilty
persons readily submit to a penalty which effectually relieves them from
the burden of anxiety for the consequences of their action. Instances
occur in the history of all states, particularly those which suffer from
internal weakness, of iniquities going unpunished, owing to the rigour of
the pains denounced against them by the law, which defeats its own
purpose. The original mode of avenging a murder was probably by the arm
of the person nearest in consanguinity, or friendship, to the deceased;
but this was evidently destructive of the public tranquillity, because
thereby the wrong became progressive, each act of satisfaction, or
justice, as it was called, being the source of a new revenge, till the
feud became general in the community; and some method would naturally be
suggested to put a stop to such confusion. The most direct step is to
vest in the magistrate or the law the rights of the injured party, and to
arm them with a vindictive power; which principle the policy of more
civilized societies has refined to that of making examples in terrorem,
with a view of preventing future, not of revenging past crimes. But this
requires a firmness of authority to which the Sumatran governments are
strangers. They are without coercive power, and the submission of the
people is little other than voluntary; especially of the men of
influence, who are held in subjection rather by the sense of general
utility planted in the breast of mankind, attachment to their family and
connexions, and veneration for the spot in which their ancestors were
interred, than by the apprehension of any superior authority. These
considerations however they would readily forego, renounce their fealty,
and quit their country, if in any case they were in danger of paying with
life the forfeit of their crimes; to lesser punishments those ties induce
them to submit; and to strengthen this hold their customs wisely enjoin
that every the remotest branch of the family shall be responsible for the
payment of their adjudged and other debts; and in cases of murder the
bangun, or compensation, may be levied on the inhabitants of the village
the culprit belonged to, if it happens that neither he nor any of his
relations can be found.
The equality of punishment, which allows to the rich man the faculty of
committing, with small inconvenience, crimes that bring utter destruction
on the poor man and his family, and which is in fact the greatest
inequality, originates certainly from the interested design of those
through whose influence the regulation came to be adopted. Its view was
to establish a subordination of persons. In Europe the absolute
distinction between rich and poor, though too sensibly felt, is not
insisted upon in speculation, but rather denied or explained away in
general reasoning. Among the Sumatrans it is coolly acknowledged, and a
man without property, family, or connexions never, in the partiality of
self-love, considers his own life as being of equal value with that of a
man of substance. A maxim, though not the practice, of their law, says,
"that he who is able to pay the bangun for murder must satisfy the
relations of the deceased; he who is unable, must suffer death." But the
avarice of the relations prefers selling the body of the delinquent for
what his slavery will fetch them (for such is the effect of imposing a
penalty that cannot be paid) to the satisfaction of seeing the murder
revenged by the public execution of a culprit of that mean description.
Capital punishments are therefore almost totally out of use among them;
and it is only par la loi du plus fort that the Europeans take the
liberty of hanging a notorious criminal now and then, whom however their
own chiefs always condemn, and formally sentence.
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.
Corporal punishment of any kind is rare. The chain, and a sort of stocks,
made of the pinang tree, are adopted from us; the word pasong, now
commonly used to denote the latter, originally signifying and being still
frequently applied to confinement in general. A kind of cage made use of
in the country is probably their own invention. "How do you secure a
prisoner (a man was asked) without employing a chain or our stocks?" "We
pen him up," said he, "as we would a bear!" The cage is made of bamboos
laid horizontally in a square, piled alternately, secured by timbers at
the corners, and strongly covered in at top. To lead a runaway they
fasten a rattan round his neck, and, passing it through a bamboo somewhat
longer than his arms, they bring his hands together and make them fast to
the bamboo, in a state rather of constraint than of pain, which I believe
never is wantonly or unnecessarily inflicted. If the offender is of a
desperate character they bind him hands and feet and sling him on a pole.
When they would convey a person from accident or otherwise unable to walk
they make a palanquin by splitting a large bamboo near the middle of its
length, where they contrive to keep it open so that the cavity forms a
bed, the ends being preserved whole, to rest upon their shoulders.
The custom of exacting the bangun for murder seems only designed with a
view of making a compensation to the injured family, and not of punishing
the offender. The word signifies awaking or raising up, and the deceased
is supposed to be replaced, or raised again to his family, in the payment
of a sum proportioned to his rank, or equivalent to his or her personal
value. The price of a female slave is generally more than that of a male,
and therefore, I heard a chief say, is the bangun of a woman more than
that of a man. It is upon this principle that their laws take no
cognizance of the distinction between a wilful murder and what we term
manslaughter. The loss is the same to the family, and therefore the
compensations are alike. A dupati of Laye, in an ill hour, stepped
unwarily across the mouth of a cannon at the instant it was fired off for
a salute, and was killed by the explosion, upon which his relations
immediately sued the sergeant of the country-guard, who applied the
match, for the recovery of the bangun; but they were cast, and upon these
grounds: that the dupati was instrumental in his own death, and that the
Company's servants, being amenable to other laws for their crimes, were
not, by established custom, subject to the bangun or other penalties
inflicted by the native chiefs, for accidents resulting from the
execution of their duty. The tippong bumi, expiation, or purification of
the earth from the stain it has received, was however gratuitously paid.
No plea was set up that the action was unpremeditated, and the event
chance-medley.
The introduction of this custom is beyond the extent of Sumatran
tradition, and has no connexion with, or dependence on, Mahometanism,
being established amongst the most inland people from time immemorial. In
early ages it was by no means confined to that part of the world. The
bangun is perfectly the same as the compensation for murder in the rude
institutions of our Saxon ancestors and other northern nations. It is the
eric of Ireland, and the apoinon of the Greeks. In the compartments of
the shield of Achilles Homer describes the adjudgment of a fine for
homicide. It would seem then to be a natural step in the advances from
anarchy to settled government, and that it can only take place in such
societies as have already a strong idea of the value of personal
property, who esteem its possession of the next importance to that of
life, and place it in competition with the strongest passion that seizes
the human soul.
The compensation is so regularly established among the Sumatrans that any
other satisfaction is seldom demanded. In the first heat of resentment
retaliation is sometimes attempted, but the spirit soon evaporates, and
application is usually made, upon the immediate discovery of the fact, to
the chiefs of the country for the exertion of their influence to oblige
the criminal to pay the bangun. His death is then not thought of unless
he is unable, and his family unwilling, to raise the established sum.
Instances, it is true, occur in which the prosecutor, knowing the
European law in such case, will, from motives of revenge, urge to the
Resident the propriety of executing the offender rather than receive the
money; but if the latter is ready to pay it it is contrary to their laws
to proceed further. The degree of satisfaction that attends the payment
of the bangun is generally considered as absolute to the parties
concerned; they receive it as full compensation, and pretend to no
farther claim upon the murderer and his family. Slight provocations
however have been sometimes known to renew the feud, and there are not
wanting instances of a son's revenging his father's murder and willingly
refunding the bangun. When in an affray there happen to be several
persons killed on both sides, the business of justice is only to state
the reciprocal losses, in the form of an account current, and order the
balance to be discharged, if the numbers be unequal. The following is a
relation of the circumstances of one of these bloody feuds, which
happened whilst I was in the island, but which become every year more
rare where the influence of our government extends.
ACCOUNT OF A FEUD.
Raddin Siban was the head of a tribe in the district of Manna, of which
Pangeran Raja-Kalippah was the official chief; though by the customs of
the country he had no right of sovereignty over him. The pangeran's not
allowing him what he thought an adequate share of fines, and other
advantages annexed to his rank, was the foundation of a jealousy and ill
will between them, which an event that happened a few years since raised
to the highest pitch of family feud. Lessut, a younger brother of the
pangeran, had a wife who was very handsome, and whom Raddin Siban had
endeavoured to procure, whilst a virgin, for HIS younger brother, who was
in love with her: but the pangeran had contrived to circumvent him, and
obtained the girl for Lessut. However it seems the lady herself had
conceived a violent liking for the brother of Raddin Siban, who found
means to enjoy her after she was married, or was violently suspected so
to have done. The consequence was that Lessut killed him to revenge the
dishonour of his bed. Upon this the families were presently up in arms,
but the English Resident interfering preserved the peace of the country,
and settled the affair agreeably to the customs of the place by bangun
and fine. But this did not prove sufficient to extinguish the fury which
raged in the hearts of Raddin Siban's family, whose relation was
murdered. It only served to delay the revenge until a proper opportunity
offered of gratifying it. The people of the country being called together
on a particular occasion, the two inimical families were assembled, at
the same time, in Manna bazaar. Two younger brothers (they had been five
in all) of Raddin Siban, going to the cockpit, saw Raja Muda the next
brother of the pangeran, and Lessut his younger brother, in the open part
of a house which they passed. They quickly returned, drew their krises,
and attacked the pangeran's brothers, calling to them, if they were men,
to defend themselves. The challenge was instantly accepted, Lessut, the
unfortunate husband, fell; but the aggressors were both killed by Raja
Muda, who was himself much wounded. The affair was almost over before the
scuffle was perceived. The bodies were lying on the ground, and Raja Muda
was supporting himself against a tree which stood near the spot, when
Raddin Siban, who was in a house on the opposite side of the bazaar at
the time the affray happened, being made acquainted with the
circumstances, came over the way, with his lance in his hand. He passed
on the contrary side of the tree, and did not see Raja Muda, but began to
stab with his weapon the dead body of Lessut, in excess of rage, on
seeing the bloody remains of his two brothers. Just then, Raja Muda, who
was half dead, but had his kris in his hand, still unseen by Raddin
Siban, crawled a step or two and thrust the weapon into his side, saying
"Matti kau"--"die thou!" Raddin Siban spoke not a word, but put his hand
on the wound and walked across to the house from whence he came, at the
door of which he dropped down and expired. Such was the catastrophe. Raja
Muda survived his wounds, but being much deformed by them lives a
melancholy example of the effects of these barbarous feuds.
PROOF OF THEFT.
In cases of theft the swearing a robbery against a person suspected is of
no effect, and justly, for were it otherwise nothing would be more common
than the prosecution of innocent persons. The proper proofs are either
seizure of the person in the fact before witnesses, or discovery of the
goods stolen in possession of one who can give no satisfactory account
how he came by them. As it frequently happens that a man finds part only
of what he had lost it remains with him, when the robbery is proved, to
ascertain the whole amount, by oath, which in that point is held
sufficient.
LAW RESPECTING DEBTS.
The law which renders all the members of a family reciprocally bound for
the security of each others' debts forms a strong connexion among them,
and occasions the elder branches to be particularly watchful of the
conduct of those for whose imprudence they must be answerable.
When a debtor is unable to pay what he owes, and has no relation or
friends capable of doing it for him, or when the children of a deceased
person do not find property enough to discharge the debts of their
parent, they are forced to the state which is called mengiring, which
simply means to follow or be dependent on, but here implies the becoming
a species of bond-slaves to the creditor, who allows them subsistence and
clothing but does not appropriate the produce of their labour to the
diminution of their debt. Their condition is better than that of pure
slavery in this, that the creditor cannot strike them, and they can
change their masters by prevailing on another person to pay their debt
and accept of their labour on the same terms. Of course they may obtain
their liberty if they can by any means procure a sum equal to their debt;
whereas a slave, though possessing ever so large property, has not the
right of purchasing his liberty. If however the creditor shall demand
formally the amount of his debt from a person mengiring, at three several
times, allowing a certain number of days between each demand, and the
latter is not able to persuade anyone to redeem him, he becomes, by the
custom of the country, a pure slave, upon the creditor's giving notice to
the chief of the transaction. This is the resource he has against the
laziness or untoward behaviour of his debtor, who might otherwise, in the
state of mengiring, be only a burden to him. If the children of a
deceased debtor are too young to be of service the charge of their
maintenance is added to the debt. This opens a door for many iniquitous
practices, and it is in the rigorous and frequently perverted exertion of
these rights which a creditor has over his debtor that the chiefs are
enabled to oppress the lower class of people, and from which abuses the
English Residents find it necessary to be the most watchful to restrain
them. In some cases one half of the produce of the labour is applied to
the reduction of the debt, and this situation of the insolvent debtor is
termed be-blah. Meranggau is the condition of a married woman who remains
as a pledge for a debt in the house of the creditor of her husband. If
any attempt should be made upon her person the proof of it annuls the
debt; but should she bring an accusation of that nature, and be unable to
prove it to the satisfaction of the court, and the man takes an oath in
support of his innocence, the debt must be immediately paid by the
family, or the woman be disposed of as a slave.
When a man of one district or country has a debt owing to him from the
inhabitant of a neighbouring country, of which he cannot recover payment,
an usual resource is to seize on one or more of his children and carry
them off; which they call andak. The daughter of a Rejang dupati was
carried off in this manner by the Labun people. Not hearing for some time
from her father, she sent him cuttings of her hair and nails, by which
she intimated a resolution of destroying herself if not soon released.
SLAVERY.
The right of slavery is established in Sumatra, as it is throughout the
East, and has been all over the world; yet but few instances occur of the
country people actually having slaves; though they are common enough in
the Malayan, or sea-port towns. Their domestics and labourers are either
dependant relations, or the orang mengiring above described, who are
usually called debtors, but should be distinguished by the term of
insolvent debtors. The simple manners of the people require that their
servants should live, in a great measure, on a footing of equality with
the rest of the family, which is inconsistent with the authority
necessary to be maintained over slaves who have no principle to restrain
them but that of personal fear,* and know that their civil condition
cannot be altered for the worse.
(*Footnote. I do not mean to assert that all men in the condition of
slaves are devoid of principle: I have experienced the contrary, and
found in them affection and strict honesty: but that there does not
result from their situation as slaves any principle of moral rectitude;
whereas every other condition of society has annexed to it ideas of duty
and mutual obligation arising from a sense of general utility. That
sublime species of morality derived from the injunctions of religion it
is almost universally their fate to be likewise strangers to, because
slavery is found inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel, not merely
as inculcating philanthropy but inspiring a principle of equality amongst
mankind.)
There is this advantage also, that when a debtor absconds they have
recourse to his relations for the amount of his debt, who, if unable to
pay it, must mengiring in his room; whereas when a slave makes his escape
the law can give no redress, and his value is lost to the owner. These
people moreover are from habit backward to strike, and the state of
slavery unhappily requires the frequent infliction of punishment in that
mode. A slave cannot possess independently any property; yet it rarely
happens that a master is found mean and sordid enough to despoil them of
the fruits of their industry; and their liberty is generally granted them
when in a condition to purchase it, though they cannot demand it of
right. It is nothing uncommon for those belonging to the Europeans to
possess slaves of their own, and to acquire considerable substance. Their
condition is here for the most part less unhappy than that of persons in
other situations of life. I am far from wishing to diminish the horror
that should ever accompany the general idea of a state which, whilst it
degrades the species, I am convinced is not necessary among mankind; but
I cannot help remarking, as an extraordinary fact, that if there is one
class of people eminently happy above all others upon earth it is the
body of Caffres, or negro slaves belonging to the India Company at
Bencoolen. They are well clothed and fed, and supplied with a proper
allowance of liquor; their work is by no means severe; the persons
appointed as their immediate overseers are chosen for their merit from
amongst themselves; they have no occasion of care or anxiety for the past
or future, and are naturally of a lively and open temper. The
contemplation of the effects which such advantages produce must afford
the highest gratification to a benevolent mind. They are usually seen
laughing or singing whilst at work, and the intervals allowed them are
mostly employed in dancing to their rude instrumental music, which
frequently begins at sunset and ceases only with the daylight that
recalls them to their labour. Since they were first carried thither, from
different parts of Africa and Madagascar, to the present hour, not so
much as the rumour of disturbance or discontent has ever been known to
proceed from them. They hold the natives of the island in contempt, have
a degree of antipathy towards them, and enjoy any mischief they can do
them; and these in their turn regard the Caffres as devils half
humanized.
The practice said to prevail elsewhere of men selling themselves for
slaves is repugnant to the customs of the Sumatrans, as it seems to
reason. It is an absurdity to barter anything valuable, much more civil
existence, for a sum which, by the very act of receiving, becomes again
the property of the buyer. Yet if a man runs in debt without a prospect
of paying, he does virtually the same thing, and this in cases of
distress is not uncommon, in order to relieve, perhaps, a beloved wife,
or favourite child, from similar bondage. A man has even been known to
apply in confidence to a friend to sell him to a third person, concealing
from the purchaser the nature of the transaction till the money was
appropriated.
Ignorant stragglers are often picked up in the country by lawless knaves
in power and sold beyond the hills. These have sometimes procured their
liberty again, and prosecuting their kidnappers have recovered large
damages. In the district of Allas a custom prevails by which, if a man
has been sold to the hill people, however unfairly, he is restricted on
his return from associating with his countrymen as their equal unless he
brings with him a sum of money and pays a fine for his re-enfranchisement
to his kalippah or chief. This regulation has taken its rise from an idea
of contamination among the people, and from art and avarice among the
chiefs.