Aneu’ seuneubô was the Atjehnese term for the resident settler of a pepper plantation in Atjeh — the planter engaged by a capitalist contractor under the pepper planter’s contract.
The term
D. W. N. de Boer glossed the compound: aneu’, Malay anak, child; seuneubô, pepper garden. On the analogy of anak negeri, “children of the land,” and anak kampong, the inhabitants of the village, aneu’ seuneubô denoted the opgezetene(n) — the resident settlers — of a pepper plantation.
Engagement
The aspirant planter had himself engaged or enrolled orally, either directly with a peutoeha pangkaj (capitalist contractor) or with one of his overseers, the peutoeha djaga or peutoeha parang. He then received through the peutoeha djaga an advance normally comprising two goentja of padi, some clothing, the necessary tools and some cash, amounting in total to no more than twenty to twenty-five dollars or guilders per thousand vines he undertook to plant, disbursed in step with the progress of the work.
Obligations
Repayment was usually in instalments beginning after the first normal harvest, in the third or fourth year; in Idi the whole advance might be called in at once in the fifth or sixth year. Whatever the manner or pace of repayment, and even after full discharge, the planter owed the pangkaj-giver, so long as the garden remained productive, the wathé pangkaj — a tenth of the harvest, the peutoeha parang’s honorarium included. Under the later government tariff he rendered one guilder per picol as wathé pangkaj and fifty cents per picol as wathé peutoeha, besides the guilder per picol payable to the oeléëbalang on export.
Ownership and forfeiture
The aneu’ seuneubô was nevertheless the owner of the planting, and lost that ownership only through complete neglect of the garden, in which case he could claim nothing for the labour he had performed. In practice deprivation was rare; instead the garden was regularly inspected and valued, and on deterioration through the planter’s fault the difference between two successive valuations was demanded of him in addition to the customary tenth.
See Also
Source
Het recht op den grond 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.