Atra peunoelang — also harta peunoelang — was the Atjehnese institution by which a father, or other wali, gave property to his married daughter or ward on the occasion of the birth of her first child. D. W. N. de Boer identified it with the Batak indahan arian and described it as a form of possession which the chairman of a moesapat or landschapsgerecht not infrequently encountered.
Occasion
The gift was made at the moment when the couple’s time had come to establish themselves independently — peungkleh (Batak mandjaë) — and when the young pair also received their own dwelling.
Composition
The atra peunoelang usually consisted of a rice field and a head of plough cattle, and sometimes other things besides. It counted as adat that the value of the goods given with the couple by the father of the bride should be twice as great as the djinaméë (Batak sinamot, the bride-price) paid by the father of the bridegroom at the conclusion of the marriage.
Purpose
The purpose, De Boer explained, was that if the husband should die first there would remain enough for the wife to procure herself the maintenance required by her rank and station — Mohammedan inheritance law allotting the widow only a small share of her husband’s estate. What she managed to save from the yield of the harta peunoelang she might regard as her own property. On the earlier death of the wife, the husband also inherited from this harta.
Relation to the estate of the giver
The atra peunoelang was not deducted from the estate of the wife’s father, either on the division of the estate during his lifetime — atra boeloeng — or on the division of the estate after death.
See Also
- Atra boeloeng
- Djinamee (Atjehnese marriage gift)
- Harta seuhareukat
- Peungkleh
- Wali
- Ahli waris
- Toba-Bataklanden
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.