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The demand for blood-vengeance (bila) or a blood-price (diët) by the next of kin of a slain man, which is very common in the lowlands, need not be gone into here in our description of institutions strictly Achehnese, as it is universal in all Mohammedan communities.
The Tunòng or highlands of Great-Acheh are, comparatively speaking, up to the present time the true sphere of the kawōm. Here we find the four great tribes (kawōm or sukèë) to one or other of which every true highlander regards himself as belonging, and from which it is generally asserted that every Achehnese must be descended[1]. Here a strained relation between two tribes may result in a hostile attitude, be it only such as that of the Bedouins, a war without battles, but marked by many thievish raids and treacherous attacks, and sometimes actual homicide.
To learn for himself all that there is still to find out about these kawōms the enquirer should devote a considerable time to personal investigation in the Tunòng. From the actual popular traditions of the place he would be able to deduce—not how the four tribes originated, for that is known to none, and still less the course of their history even in modern times—but what the mutual relations are which subsist between the tribes themselves. By examining actually existing disputes and the manner of their settlement, he would come to know what the adats are which really control the tribal life—which never can be learnt from the answers of the highlanders to the questions put to them, since each one is apt to try and show off by his answers his own wisdom and the greatness of his own kawōm or sukèë.
There are many arguments against the theory of the descent of all Achehnese from the four sukèës, leaving aside the question as to how these latter originated. For instance we find that many of the lowlanders are absolutely ignorant as to which of the sukèës they can claim to belong to; then again we know that there has been from early times a considerable intermixture with foreign elements in spite of all racial pride. The Sultans of Acheh were in part Malayan, in part
- ↑ The number four is a favourite one in these genealogical subdivisions. It is known that the sukus (the word actually indicates the fraction ¼) of the Měnangkabau people are also based on the number four. Anyone at all versed in genealogical legends is aware that all such tables of descent are as regards their uppermost part artificial or mythical or in brief fictitious, while the really traditional or more reliable elements must be sought for in the most recent branches. In the earlier portions we find represented in genealogical form units which history shows to have really been gathered from the four winds.
