58
yet as holders of important offices impregnate all Acheh with their savour. Still more does he prefer to offer you another edition which clearly shows how the Imeum Peuët has through the united power of the other three clans been excluded from all high offices and has thus become subject to the latter so far as territorial supremacy is concerned. In this version the first verse runs as follows:
Sukèë Lhèë Reutoïh
ulèëbalang.
Sukèë Ja Sandang
jeuët keuraja.
"The clan of the Three Hundred are ulèëbalangs, that of Ja Sandang may become rajas"[1].
Before taking leave of the kawōms, the survivals of the Bedouin-period of the Achehnese people, we must notice one other important alteration introduced in their mutual relations by the territorial subdivision of Acheh which has gradually come into being. Although the members of a kawōm are and remain united for the purposes of exacting vengeance for blood, of protection against others who demand such vengeance or for the collection of the blood-money—in territorial or political contests the importance of the kawōms is entirely driven out of the field. We now find members of the Imeum Peuët fighting side by side like brothers with those of the other clans, and vice versa, in two forces hostile to one another men can be found who belong to one and the same kawōm[2].
§ 5. The Gampōng, its Government and Adats.
The Gampōng.Next to the house and its enclosure, the smallest territorial unit is the Gampōng (Malay kampung) or village, the external appearance of which we have to some extent described above. There are the courtyards, part of which are utilized as gardens, containing one or more
- ↑ The word raja which is chosen for the sake of the rhyme and of variety has here exactly the same meaning as ulèëbalang. We shall presently see that the ulèëbalangs are as a matter of fact the rajas of Acheh.
- ↑ [An official enquiry recently made has elicited the fact that the tribal life has lost its force to a great extent in the XXII Mukims also. In the quarrels and petty wars of the highlands in the last century the kawōms have played but a secondary part. It is a suggestive fact that as regards more than one chief in this district the very kawōm to which he belongs is a matter of controversy.]
