Adat

Adat (from Arabic ʿādah / cadah; Gayo: ödöt; Alas: adat) is the unwritten customary law of the Acehnese — the body of indigenous legal tradition governing social, family, and community life, distinct from but coexisting with Islamic law (hukom / hoekom, from Arabic ḥukm). It coexisted with hoekom, with each domain having its own guardians: the keuchi’ and uleebalang for adat, and the teungku for hukom. Beyond the village and territory, the term was also used by G. W. T. Dames to describe the distinctive customary atmosphere of the colonial tangsi — the barracks culture of the K.N.I.L. — which formed its own adat distinct from that of the kampong.

In Kreemer’s framing, adat and hoekom were the two pillars of Atjèhnese law: adat was the local, unwritten customary law that developed in connection with the whole of folk life, while hoekom was the “holy law” (Islamic law).

The folk sayings

According to a folk saying, adat and hoekom are inseparable: “hoekom ngöti adat hati djeuët tjré” — a saying expressing their interdependence. Another saying holds: “adat is the older brother, hoekom the younger.” In practice, adat takes priority over hoekom, except in religious life in the narrower sense.

Nature of Acehnese Adat

C. Snouck Hurgronje emphasised that the Acehnese adat was genuinely indigenous and wholly suitable to the state of civilisation in which the Acehnese had moved as long as they had been known. He disputed the claim — made by some Dutch officials — that the Acehnese had once possessed an orderly past resting on the basis of Mohammedan law, with a disorderly present caused by a creeping in of adat. This comparison was “entirely chimerical and rests on false or inexactly stated data.” The Adat Meukuta Alam — the legendary fundamental law of the kingdom — belonged, he argued, to the realms of legend.

The wholly unlettered Teuku Malikön Adé as supreme judge of the kingdom was cited as an example of the ignorance of the chiefs in regard to Mohammedan law — an ignorance shared with the rulers of most Mohammedan countries.

Synonyms of adat

Adat had many synonyms in Atjèhnese, including: biasa, oeto’, qaïm, deureuhém, reusam, atoeran, kanoen, kaidah. Combined forms included “adat kanoen” (inherited customs) and “adat deureuhém nanggröë” (land customs).

The sources

In folk tradition, the sources of adat and hoekom are attributed to different figures:

Adat is attributed to Pöteu Meureuhöm / Sultan Iskandar Moeda (reigned 1607–1636)
Hoekom is attributed to Teungkoe Siah di Koeala, i.e. Abdoerraoef van Singkel, the 17th-century Malay scholar who introduced the Sjattarijjah tarikat to the Archipelago

Scope

Adat governed:

Blood feuds and vengeance (bila — blood money)
Land rights and transactions (sale of rice fields, sugarcane gardens, court yards)
Village governance (the powers and duties of the Keuchi’)
Marriage, family, and inheritance (covered in detail in Chapter III of The Achehnese)
Commercial and fishing customs (pantang rules at sea)
Clan relationships (kawom solidarity and liability)

Adat and Islam

The relationship between adat and Islam in Acheh was one of the central questions addressed by Snouck Hurgronje. While Acehnese political adventurers and teungkus sometimes sought to mobilise Islam against the existing order, the everyday adat was in most respects prior to and independent of Mohammedan law, with Islamic provisions overlaid in specific domains such as inheritance, marriage, and prayer.

Adat and hoeköm in the colonial system

The relationship of adat and hoeköm — customary law and Islamic law — is the foundational legal polarity of Atjehsche society. The gampong administration embodies it: the Keutjhï, the “vader” (father) of the gampong, is the keeper of adat, while the Teungkoe, the “moeder” (mother), is the keeper of hoeköm. De Buitenbezittingen, following Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers, records that “hoewel adat en hoeköm onafscheidelijk van elkaar heeten” — although adat and hoeköm are called inseparable — “heeft de eerste toch steeds de overhand” — the first, however, always prevails.

The colonial legal system of the Gouvernement preserved the voorrecht der eigen rechtspleging — the privilege of native jurisdiction — for “verreweg het grootste deel der inlandsche bevolking” (by far the greater part of the native population). The native courts — the moesapat (in the Onderhoorigheden, the rapat in Singkel) — followed, “zooveel mogelijk de adat,” modified where Dutch concepts of justice required it. Godsoordeelen (ordeal) and mutileerende straffen (mutilating punishments) were wholly forbidden. In civil cases — inheritances, estates, land disputes, sawahs, plantations — the adat was followed “zuiver” (purely).

Adatrecht

Adatrecht was the Dutch colonial legal term referring to indigenous customary law, comprising adat (customs) plus the decisions of the hoekom (holy law). Subject of Van Vollenhoven’s classic work Het adatrecht van Nederlandsch Indië. In Atjèh, adatrecht applied to material private law; criminal and procedural adat had been displaced by Dutch law.

Van Vollenhoven’s analysis

Mr. C. van Vollenhoven analyzed Atjèhsche kinship as a parenteel (cognatic) system with matrilineal and patrilineal remnants. He provided the theoretical framework for adatrecht, distinguishing grondenrecht (land law), schuldenrecht (debt law), and delictenrecht (criminal law).

Regional variations

The adat varied considerably across the regions of the Gouvernement. The Groot-Atjehsche adat, described in detail by Snouck Hurgronje, was the most fully developed; it was found “vrijwel ongeschonden” (virtually intact) in Pedir and, in modified form, in the Atjehsche parts of the Westkust. The Menangkabau adat — strongly modified but still recognisable — prevailed in the Malay colonies of the Westkust south of Meulabôh. The Gayo and Alas adats — based on genealogical kawöm and méréga (clan) organisation — were again distinct, as were the adats of Tamiang.

The adat of the tangsi

In the colonial army, adat took on a different meaning. G. W. T. Dames, in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., uses the word to describe the customary law and customary atmosphere of the tangsi — the barracks — as distinct from the adat of the kampong. “De anak-kolong konden de oude adatsfeer van de kampong missen, de tangsi gaf hen een eigen sfeer, een eigen adat, een eigen stijl…” The anak-kolong — the children of the barracks — could miss the old adat atmosphere of the kampong; the tangsi gave them their own sfeer, their own adat, their own stijl.

Additional account from Beginselen en Stelsel (1950) — the Atjeh rechtskring

B. ter Haar BzN, in his Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht (first ed. 1939; 4th ed. 1950), places the rechtskring Atjeh — the legal circle of Atjeh — first among the nineteen legal circles (rechtskringen) into which he divides the archipelago, comprising Groot-Atjeh, the Westkust of Atjeh, Singkel, and Simeuloet. The atjehse gampong (meunasah) — the Atjehnese village, with its meunasah — is cited by Ter Haar as a typical example of a territorial community in which the genealogical factor has no significance, alongside the Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, and Balinese désa, the villages of the Malay region, and the negorijen of the Minahasa and Ambon. The principal source for the Atjeh legal circle is identified as Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers (1893–1894); the work of J. Kreemer, Atjeh (1922–1923), is noted as bringing, “na Snouck Hurgronje en Van Vollenhoven geen nieuws.” The full account is treated in Atjeh adatrecht (Ter Haar account).

Account from Atjèh by J. Kreemer (Deel II)

Kreemer provides the following account of adat and hoekom (Islamic law) in Atjèh.

Adat (Gayo: ödöt; Alas: adat; Arabic cadah) and Hoekom (Gayo and Alas: id.; Arabic hoekoem) were the two pillars of Atjèhnese law: adat was the local, unwritten customary law that developed in connection with the whole of folk life, while hoekom was the “holy law” (Islamic law). In practice, adat takes priority over hoekom, except in religious life in the narrower sense.

The relationship between the two was expressed in folk sayings: “hoekom ngöti adat hati djeuët tjré” — expressing their interdependence. Another saying holds: “adat is the older brother, hoekom the younger.”

In folk tradition, the sources of adat and hoekom are attributed to different figures: Adat is attributed to Pöteu Meureuhöm / Sultan Iskandar Moeda (reigned 1607–1636); Hoekom is attributed to Teungkoe Siah di Koeala, i.e. Abdoerraoef van Singkel, the 17th-century Malay scholar who introduced the Sjattarijjah tarikat to the Archipelago.

Adatrecht was the Dutch colonial legal term referring to indigenous customary law, comprising adat (customs) plus the decisions of the hoekom (holy law) — the subject of Van Vollenhoven’s classic work Het adatrecht van Nederlandsch Indië. In Atjèh, adatrecht applied to material private law; criminal and procedural adat had been displaced by Dutch law. Kreemer’s Atjèh (1922–1923) is noted by Ter Haar as bringing, “na Snouck Hurgronje en Van Vollenhoven geen nieuws” (after Snouck Hurgronje and Van Vollenhoven, no news).

Account from De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893) — the bangoen as adat institution

Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract draws on the bangoen — the customary blood-price payable under adat by the killer’s community to the victim’s — as the most prominent example of an adat institution the colonial state operationalised for its own purposes. The disputes at Gighen and Samalanga in 1880 — the killings of the Dutch emissaries Said Abdellah and Soetan Maharadja, for which the bangoen was owed but repeatedly delayed — were the test-case for Scherer’s kruisboot-bangoen method: anchoring a cruiser before the harbour of a recalcitrant negeri to enforce, by the levy of import and export duties, the payment of the bangoen owed for the killing.

The bangoen is, in Van Heutsz’s diagnosis, the standard adat-law form of regulating homicide: the compensation payment substitutes for the vendetta that would otherwise follow the killing, and the obligation falls not on the individual killer alone but on his community — the negeri or mukim of which he is a member — that is collectively responsible under adat for the acts of its members. The Dutch colonial state’s exploitation of the bangoen — by Scherer’s kruisboot method — was the operational prototype of the scheepvaartregeling: the systematic contrôle of in- and out-flow through Dutch-occupied harbours that Laging Tobias formalised in May 1883. The bangoen thus illustrates the typical pattern by which the colonial state exploited adat institutions: the adat supplied the obligation (the bangoen payment owed for the killing), and the colonial state supplied the enforcement mechanism (the kruisboot’s economic coercion) that brought the adat obligation into operational practice.

Account from Zelfbestuursverordeningen Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden (1930) — the regulation record

The Zelfbestuursverordeningen compilation of 1930 records numerous operational encounters with adat in the regulatory framework of the Zelfbestuur-period oeleebalang government. The adat was, in this framework, the operative legal tradition within which the oeleebalang — as Zelfbestuurder — exercised his authority under the Korte Verklaring: the colonial state recognised the oeleebalang’s authority and bound him to the colonial state, but the oeleebalang exercised his authority through adat, the indigenous legal tradition that the anak negeri (the indigenous subjects of the landschap) recognised as binding.

The Voorwoord of the compilation records that “de vaststelling van ver-ordeningen in het gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden steeds collectief geschiedt” — the establishment of ordinances in the gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden always takes place collectively — meaning that all oeleebalang of an onderafdeeling issued their regulations jointly, in their own Malay, and on the basis of their own adat. The collective vaststelling practice was, in this sense, the operational expression of the adat’s authority under the Zelfbestuur system: the oeleebalang legislated adat-based regulations, in their own name and in their own Malay, and the Civiel en Militair Gouverneur supplied the goedkeuring.

The woeker (usury) regulation of 9 December 1926

The woeker (usury) regulation of 9 December 1926 — Reg. No. 1 of the compilation — opens with a recital that grounds the regulation explicitly in both colonial statute and Islamic legal tradition:

“Menimbang bahasa perloe oentoek sekalian pendoedoek negeri akan menetapkan satoe peratoeran oen- toek pentjegah riba seperti ditetap- kan dalam Stantshlad 1916 No. 643”

— “Whereas it is necessary for all the inhabitants of the negeri to establish a regulation for the pentjegah riba (prevention of usury) as established in Staatsblad 1916 No. 643.” The Malay riba — the Quranic prohibition on interest, drawn from the same Arabic root (ribā) that underlies the metropolitan anti-woeker statute — is here invoked as the substantive object of the regulation, alongside the colonial Staatsblad 1916 No. 643 that supplies the legal framework.

The Meureudoe marriage regulation

The marriage regulation of the onderafdeeling Meureudoe — Reg. No. 10 — likewise preserves the adat isti’adat tiap-tiap tempat (the local customs of each place) in the appointment of marriage-officiants, while grounding the substantive marriage law in “hoekoem agama Islam” (the law of the Islamic religion). The adat-hukom dualism is, in this regulation, the legal framework within which the Zelfbestuur’s verordeningen of Atjeh operated throughout the 1910s and 1920s.

The Bireuën heerendienst regulation

The heerendienst regulation of Bireuën — Reg. No. 14 — preserves the adat exemptions for the families of oelebalang, keuchi’, and ulama: “Familie dari kepala-kepala jang terseboet jang menoe-roet adat tiada dikenakan rodi (hal ini dipotoeskan semoepakat met Ambtenaar Europa)” — “Families of the chiefs mentioned who according to adat are not subject to rodi (corvée) (this is decided in agreement with the European official).” The adat exemption from heerendienst for the chiefly families was, in this regulation, the institutional form by which the Zelfbestuur system preserved the adat hierarchy of the landschap within the colonial framework of public-works obligation.

Significance of the regulation record

The 1930 compilation’s significance for the adat record is that it documents the operational framework within which adat was the legal tradition the oeleebalang applied, that the verordeningen codified, and that the Civiel en Militair Gouverneur’s goedkeuring brought into operational force. The adat-hukom dualism — the basic legal structure of the Acehnese order — was, in this framework, the legal framework within which the Zelfbestuur’s verordeningen of Atjeh operated throughout the 1910s and 1920s.

Account from Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (D. W. N. de Boer, 1931) — the customary land law

The fullest practitioner’s description of the adat of the soil in Atjeh was written by D. W. N. de Boer, a former chairman (Voorzitter) of Atjehnese moesapat and landschapsgerechten courts, and dated at Scheveningen in November 1931. De Boer described his work as a résumé of data gathered “te hooi en te gras” — haphazardly, as occasion offered — over many years on the bench, published in the hope that “even this modest contribution to the study of the adatrecht may be of use, if only by giving occasion for criticism, correction and commentary.”

The village plays no part in rights in land

The governing thesis of De Boer’s account, stated at the head of his study and reasserted throughout, was that the gampong played no role whatever in the Atjehnese law of rights in land. He grounded this on the territorial rather than genealogical origin of the Atjehnese keradjaäns, citing De Atjehers, Vol. I, p. 62: once the great step in political development had been taken which made chiefs or princes (oeléëbalang) into rulers over the inhabitants of a defined territory “without distinction of kawom or soekëë,” no chief depended for his position on a following of kinsmen. Unlike the Batak Radja Hoeta, therefore, the Atjehnese chief had no need of a watchful, defensive beschikkingsrecht (right of avail). De Boer noted the striking practical consequence: so far as was known, village boundary disputes never occurred in Atjeh, although boundary disputes between the zelfbesturen were common.

Scope of the land adat

De Boer’s survey covered the right of avail and the milik (the indigenous hereditary right of possession); the customary charges on clearance and cultivation — the haq radja taléë, the boeët oemòng land rent, the adat glé with its padi lintjah and thiploeëh-tha tithe, and the adat moeda fine; the thiplah-tano contract; the remedies of the courts (haq padjoh asoé, padé kandoeri, haq toeleuèng, haq tano, and the obsolete haq thilangkob); the share-cropping and lease contracts mawaih and thiwa; the contract of the Atjehnese pepper planter; the securities gala (pledge) and borok (mortgage); the marital and inheritance institutions harta seuhareukat and atra peunoelang; and the introduction of verjaring (prescription) in 1911.

Disagreement with Van Vollenhoven

At two points De Boer set his findings expressly against Van Vollenhoven’s Adatrecht. Where Van Vollenhoven had written at p. 196 that “a faded or sleeping right of avail does not exist here,” De Boer answered that this was “not correct” as regards the zelfbesturende landschappen, where the right was actively exercised through the measuring-out of land, the levy of recognition fees, and the control of territorial boundaries. And where Van Vollenhoven had recorded the Atjehnese grazing usage as “the peculiar right,” possibly surviving from a village right of avail (pp. 196, 198), De Boer held it was no right at all but “a sober exchange of economic goods” — giving the cattle-owner free pasture near his gampong and the field-owner free manuring of his soil. He referred to the Adatrecht by page throughout: pp. 164 (the wathé revenues), 190 and 200 (no requirement of village membership imposed on a clearer), 197 ff. (the right of possession), 198 (its restrictions), and 202 (the neighbour’s right of preference).

The recording of antiquities

De Boer defended his recording of institutions already obsolete — notably the haq thilangkob, the right of the felling-length — on the ground that the noting-down of “adatrechterlijke antiquiteiten” (antiquities of customary law) could be of use for a comparative or explanatory study of the adat law of other regions.

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Customary law regulating many aspects of life: wild karbouwen belong to Oeléëbalang; no liability for cattle grazing on sawahs during open-veld season; strict liability when sawahs planted; governs rights and obligations.keutjhi’ in the gampong; basis of many Atjeh institutions. The adatis grounded in many points on Islamic law.hukum / Islamic law).

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 349, 350.

Sources

The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906. Chapter I, §§ 1–9, throughout.

De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Aflevering 2: Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), pp. 39–47, 50–53, 126–128. Citing C. Snouck Hurgronje, De Atjehers, Vol. I, pp. 74, 106 e.v.

Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapter “Tangsi en Tante” and chapter “De buitenpost.”

Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht, door Mr. B. ter Haar Bzn. Vierde ongewijzigde druk. Groningen, Djakarta: J. B. Wolters, 1950. Pp. 17 (gampong), 29 (minangkabause koloniën), 51 (vorsten), 52 (sultanaat), 63 (wang pemasoeqan), 98, 100 (sanbod-aanname), 124 (buffalo-slaughtering partnerships), 148 (dubbelunilaterale trek), 168, 169, 178, 192 (djinamée), 171 (teruggeven van huwelijksgift), 192 (inkomsten van den man), 205 (peungklēh), 213 (voorkeur aan de dochter), 245–246 (sources), 256–257 (overzicht van de rechtskringen).

Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Tweede Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1923. Identifier: Delpher MMKB02B:000001798; PPN 395084288. Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. pp. 22, 25–27 (the bangoen episode at Gighen and Samalanga). OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.

Zelfbestuursverordeningen Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. Serie A No. 9 of the Mededeelingen van de Afdeeling Bestuurszaken der Buitengewesen van het Departement van Binnenlandsch Bestuur. Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1930, regulations passim, esp. Reg. No. 1 (the woeker verordening of 9 December 1926 for Lhoksoekon, recital and Eenig artikel), Reg. No. 10 (the marriage regulation for Meureudoe, Artikel 1(2) on adat isti’adat tiap-tiap tempat), and Reg. No. 14 (the heerendienst regulation for Bireuën, § 2 on the adat exemptions from corvée). OCR-filename: 20260719_030404_DLP-112-Zelfbestuursverordeningen_Atjeh_en_onderhoorigheden_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.

Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (“The Right to the Soil in Atjeh”), by D. W. N. de Boer, dated Scheveningen, November 1931, pp. 59-80. Offprint DLP-141, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, ‘s-Gravenhage; Bibliotheek KITLV accession 0060 4460 60 081470 428.

Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 349, 350.

Account from Atjeh by H.C. Zentgraff (1938)

Zentgraff dwells on adat as the living atmosphere of both the Atjehsche kampong and the colonial tangsi. Schmidt kende de Atjehsche taal en adat als niemand anders, zoodat de legende van zijn mystieke gaven zich nog versterkte; velen kwamen bij hem om raad in lastige adatzaken en persoonlijke kwestiés. The oeléëbalang and the keuchi’ were keepers of the adat; Van Daalen drew by hand the stamboomen (family trees) of the principal oeléëbalang families teneinde meer kennis te krijgen van de onderlinge verhouding tusschen de hoofden en hunne vrouwen.

The moesapat court applied both adat and Dutch law: a kampongman had struck the son of the oeléëbalang of Titeuë because the latter had interfered with his wife or property; in the eyes of the Atjehsche heads the kampongman should simply have accepted this, want zij waren de oude heeren des lands, wien naar adat en gebruik een ieder zich had te onderwerpen. The moesapat weighed the matter differently.

The number 44 — amput ploh peuëh — recurs in Atjehsche adat: the madeuëng (smoking of the mother after birth) was kept for 44 days; the 44-gerechten rijsttafel of the 40-year jubilee of the Korps Maréchaussée on 2 April 1930 echoed it; the Mengamat attack of 1927 may have used 44 men — het kan best zijn dat hij er 44 man (het welgevallige getal) voor heeft gezonden. The adat of the tangsi was the corps’s imitation of kampong custom: the tamoe-fonds, the gast der officieren rule, the five strokes on the bivak clock for a returning patrol, the lontjeng maréchaussée cycade.

Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia.

description	The customary law (adat) of the Acehnese — the unwritten, indigenous legal tradition governing social life, distinct from but coexisting with Islamic law (hikum/hukom/hoekom), and maintained primarily by the keuchi' and uleebalang; also the customary atmosphere of the colonial tangsi.
tags	concept, law, culture, achehnese, colonial, legal, religious, precolonial, customary-law, atjeh, zelfbestuur, 20th-century, land-law, grondenrecht
aliases	Adat Acheh, Customary Law, Acehnese Custom, Adat, Adat-law, Customary law, Adats, adat, custom, traditional law, Adat and Hoekom, hoekom, ödöt, customary law and Islamic law in Aceh, adat-law, Adat Acheh, Acehnese adat, adat-hukom dualism, Atjehsch adatrecht, adatrecht of Atjeh, Atjehnese customary land law

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