Mawaih was the Atjehnese contract of deelbouw (share-cropping), by which the possessor of a rice field or garden in Atjeh made it over to another for working against a stipulated share of the produce. D. W. N. de Boer recorded that it still occurred very frequently in Atjeh at the time of writing, although the form was beginning to decline.
Decline under the pacification
De Boer attributed the decline of mawaih to “de steeds dieper inwerkende pacificatie” — the ever more deeply penetrating pacificatie — and enumerated its effects: a gradually complete regulation, by budget, of the fixed incomes of the chiefs, and by tariffed decisions of their emoluments; an increasingly effective protection of the small man, also against the other great landholders and those richly endowed with worldly goods; the countering of usury, through the credit system alongside the application of the Woekerordonnantie; an increasing mutual market traffic; and the emancipation of the formerly so dependent rajat, who was now learning to understand his own right of existence and to defend it, and gradually freeing himself from a more or less disguised slavery or serfdom.
Even so, the ratio between the number of share-croppers and that of mawaih-givers — on average five to one — still pointed clearly, in his judgement, to an existing large landholding.
The three forms of sawah mawaih
Mawaih of sawah land occurred in three distinct figures:
I. Mawaih bahagi doea. The landholder made his rice field available against delivery by the mawaih-taker of half the product.
II. Mawaih bahagi lhée. The rice-field holder supplied the ground together with the plough cattle needed for working it, further supplied the bibit, and finally contributed half of the oepah poela (planting wage); in this case the cultivator might retain only one-third of the product and had to cede two-thirds to the mawaih-giver. Lhée is Javanese teloe, three. Sometimes the mawaih-giver contributed two-thirds of the planting wage, because otherwise he could find no one to work his sawah’s. So, for instance, in the landschap (territory) Aréë (onderafdeeling (subdivision) Sigli), a land of traders who, so far as they were also sawah-owners, had to offer more favourable terms in order to draw men from other landschappen (territories) to work their rice fields. In the landschap Ndjong (Sigli) this form of share-cropping was also called boeloeng lhéé.
III. Aboen meu’oeë. The giver supplied the ground as well as the plough cattle and the bibit, bore in addition the whole of the oepah poela alone, and further defrayed the most necessary belandja — clothing, food and smoking materials — of the mawaih-taker. In such a case the “landlord” received four-fifths and the cultivator of the sawah only one-fifth of the harvest. The term aboen meu’oeë — roughly, the putting out to contract of the working (meu’oèé, the working of sawah’s) — expressed the relation between the parties clearly enough.
Supervision and measurement of the harvest
The mawaih-giver — the peumawaih — concerned himself no further with the course of affairs until the harvest was in; then he or his authorised representative attended the measuring of the harvest, in order to withhold the portion due to him.
Mawaih of gardens
Mawaih of gardens was usually entered into for the exploitation of still uncultivated ground. One party gave a piece of land, the bibit, the material and labour costs for laying out the pageue (fence), and some money in advance — the pangkaj (Malay pangkal), a small starting capital to meet the provisional costs of subsistence; the other party 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 such as pigs and elephants — was the actual mawaih contract concluded: the garden was left in the planter’s further care against delivery of half the product (mawaih asoë, division of the yield, from asoë, Malay isi, contents or yield), or else the garden was divided into two equal parts (mawaih tano, division of the ground). From that moment, too, the repayment of the pangkaj took place in instalments, corresponding as a rule with the harvest times of the crop grown.
In connection with the redemption of the pangkaj a third, contrasting form occurred here and there, intended to settle at one stroke the planter’s debt to the pangkaj-giver: the garden was divided into two unequal parts, the share falling to the pangkaj-giver being larger in proportion to the credit he had extended.
Mawaih of gardens taken back by the pledgor
A pledgor of land under gala was often seen to take the pledged ground back at once in deelbouw, working it himself in the following season — not only to retain a source of income but also so as not to break at once and entirely the bond with land alienated for half its sale value, in the hope of one day redeeming the debt resting on it.
Mawaih in the re-issue of neglected gardens
Where the owner of a garden or ladang within the gampong boundaries, or his ahli waris, failed despite warning to maintain it properly, the radja might give it out to an applicant in mawaih asoë, under obligation to share the produce with the owner or his heirs.
Mawaih in the pepper economy
In the pepper economy, an oeléëbalang who had ejected a defaulting planter could give the garden out to others in deelbouw on far more favourable terms, namely against delivery of half the total yield: meudoewa laba, or mawaih asoë, or mawaih boh (boh, Malay boeah, fruit). Under the free-planter system, the garden was divided in two after the first harvest — mawaih tano or mawaih plah tano — and it was virtually the rule that the pangkaj-giver left his half in the planter’s hands on mawaih asoë terms.
Preference for lease
De Boer noted that the landholder preferred to give his sawah out in thiwa (lease) rather than in mawaih, since under mawaih he depended on the diligence, skill and luck of the cultivator, whereas under thiwa a fixed return was stipulated, due even in the event of crop failure. The lease sum averaged about two-fifths of the normally budgeted return. Since, however, a mawaih contract was safer for the planter, because it took account of the actual return, the mawaih form occurred far more frequently — or even almost exclusively — in districts with extensive rice complexes such as the afdeeling (district) Pidie, while leasing (peuthiwa) was found rather in districts short of rice fields.
See Also
- Aboen meu’oeë
- Thiwa
- Pangkaj
- Gala
- Sawah
- Aree
- Ndjong
- Oepah poela
- Rajat
- Woekerordonnantie
- Pacification of Atjeh
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.