Gadja was the Atjehnese term applied to a newly cleared garden that had become safe from damage by wild animals — pigs and elephants — and thus ready for the conclusion of the definitive mawaih contract.
Function in the law of garden share-cropping
In mawaih of gardens, entered into for the exploitation of still uncultivated ground, one party supplied the land, the bibit, the material and the labour costs of the pageue and a pangkaj in advance, while the other offered only his bodily strength. Only when the parcel taken into clearance was considered to be gadja — that is, safe from damage by wild animals — was the actual mawaih contract concluded: the garden was then either left in the planter’s care against delivery of half the produce (mawaih asoë) or divided into two equal parts (mawaih tano). From that moment, too, repayment of the pangkaj began in instalments corresponding to the harvest times of the crop.
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.