Kawom (also kawöm, kaum, soekèë; from Arabic qawm, “people” or “tribe”) was the Acehnese clan or tribal grouping — a kinship-based social unit encompassing all descendants of one stamvader (founding father) in the male line, whose members bore collective and several liability for bila (blood money) in cases of killing or wounding. The kawom was a tribal, not a territorial, institution, standing apart from the gampong-mukim-uleebalang hierarchy of territorial administration.
The four kawöm’s
Originally, the Atjèhnese population was divided into four kawöm’s (tribes), whose members had common rights and duties especially for bila (blood revenge) and diët (blood money). Kreemer records the four original kawöm’s as:
- Lhèë reutöïh (“the Three Hundred”) — federated with two other kawöm’s against the dominant Imeum peuët; has contributed to the Oelèëbalang families and holders of high offices
- Dja Sandang (or Tjoet- or To’ Sandang) — the sagi-head Panglima Pölém of the XXII Moekim’s belongs to this kawöm
- Dja Batèë (or To Batèë) — federated with Lhèë reutöïh and Dja Sandang against the Imeum peuët
- Imeum peuët (“the Four Imeum’s”) — the most numerous and powerful kawöm; the other three federated against it. Marriage between the federated three and the Imeum peuët remained prohibited. No member ever rose above the modest rank of mukim-head.
Collective Liability
All members of a kawom were jointly and severally liable as concerns bila, so that a blood-feud might keep two clans in a state of mutual hostility for years. Should the influence of the panglima kawom (clan leader) or the pressure of the higher territorial powers succeed in preventing the feud and inducing the injured party to accept blood money, then the guilty party — most often unable to make up the required sum — considered himself entitled to demand contributions from all his well-to-do fellow tribesmen, or if he belonged to one of three allied kawoms, from all the members of those three tribes.
The Panglima Kawom
The head chosen by members of one kawöm living together in a kampoeng to manage their common interests was called the panglima kawöm — especially for bila (blood revenge) affairs. The panglima kawöm was confirmed by the Oelèëbalang, who gave him a set of clothes and weapons (seunalén). A territorial head was never chosen as panglima kawöm. Blood feuds were decided without interference from the territorial authorities, simply under the direction of the panglima kawom — who was a tribal, not a territorial, chief. Exceptions occurred through the authority of some unusually energetic uleebalang or unusually influential ulama.
Blood Money
The ordinary blood money for causing death in Acheh was 500 Spanish (Mexican) dollars. The highland blood-debtor, given a period of one or two years to pay off the diët (blood payment), would go on a journey “to collect subscriptions” (chö’ ripë, also called tjo ripè) from fellow tribesmen, sometimes coming down into the lowlands to apply for contributions from those connected with his tribe. The tjo ripè was the formal collection of contributions from kawöm-genooten (clan-members) to pay fines imposed by the administration, but above all to pay diët — the non-bloody form of revenge for manslaughter or wounding.
Decline
By Kreemer’s time (the early 1920s), the kawöm system was largely extinct, with only the name remembered. The best preserved memory was in the XXII Moekim’s, where the sagi-head Panglima Pölém still belonged to the Dja Sandang kawöm. The Dajasche landschappen — partly populated from the XXII Moekim’s — still had all four kawöm’s represented, with the Imeum peuët by far the most numerous.
Account from Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (D. W. N. de Boer, 1931) — kawom, soekëë and rights in land
D. W. N. de Boer invoked the kawom and the soekëë to establish the negative proposition on which his whole account of Atjehnese land law rested: that neither clan nor village had any role in rights in the soil of Atjeh.
He quoted De Atjehers, Vol. I, p. 62, on the decisive step in Atjehnese political development — the step “die hoofden of vorsten (Oeléébalang) tot gezaghebbers over bewoners van een zeker gebied maakte zonder onderscheid van kawoms of soekëë,” which made chiefs or princes into authorities over the inhabitants of a certain territory without distinction of kawom or soekëë. From that moment the Atjehnese keradjaäns were territorial rather than genealogical bodies.
The consequence for the law of land was direct. Unlike the Toba-Batak Radja Hoeta, who depended on binding to himself picked kinsmen of his own marga and therefore had to wield an anxiously vigilant beschikkingsrecht, the Atjehnese oeléëbalang was genealogically independent. It mattered little to him, De Boer wrote, “welke rajat, van welke kawom of soekëë ook, en waarvandaan” — which subject, of whatever clan or sub-tribe and from wherever — took waste land into use in his territory, provided it was not done in secret; nor did mutations of landholding among his own subjects particularly interest him. His concern was rather the growth of his wathé revenues, for which free immigration was desirable.
Accordingly no Atjehnese clearer of waste land was subjected to any requirement of clan or village membership — a point on which De Boer cited Van Vollenhoven’s Adatrecht, pp. 190 and 200 — and no Atjehnese parallel existed to the Batak parripean lands, the holdings by which a Batak radja bound clients to himself.
See Also
- Bila
- Diët
- Gampong
- Uleebalang
- Adat
- Great Acheh
- Panglima Pölém
- Panglima kawöm
- Waréh
- XXII Moekim’s
- Panglima Pölém
- Gampöng
- Beschikkingsrecht in Atjeh
- Keradjaan
- Radja Hoeta
- Parripe
- Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (De Boer)
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, § 4, pp. 44–58.
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.
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.