Milik (Malay milik, “property, ownership”) was the Atjehnese term for the hereditary individual right of possession — the Inlandsch bezitsrecht or indigenous ownership — which a clearer of waste land acquired in Atjeh if he was left undisturbed in clearance and exploitation. It ranked, in the scheme of Van Vollenhoven’s Adatrecht, immediately below the beschikkingsrecht.
Acquisition
D. W. N. de Boer stated the rule simply: if the clearer was not disturbed in clearance and exploitation, he acquired on the land the hereditary individual right of possession, the indigenous ownership, milik. The acquisition was completed by the sequence of acts that constituted lawful occupation — prior notice to the oeléëbalang or his wakil, payment of the haq radja taléë, measurement of the parcel with the rope, and undisturbed working of the ground.
Marking of occupation
Occupation was indicated in the first instance by planting ordinary stakes at the corners of the terrain and connecting them by a rintisan (boundary path); at a later stage by complete fencing, pageue. In the landschap (territory) Pidië-proper (onderafdeeling (subdivision) Sigli) it was the ancient custom to bury posts in the ground at the corners of sawah’s — the oendja ateueng, the “boundary-post of the ateueng” — which served also as a foundation for dikes and dams, and which could at any time be dug up to furnish conclusive evidence in a boundary dispute.
Restrictions
The holder of milik was bound only by two limitations: the prohibition on alienation to persons outside the landschap, and the neighbour’s right of preference on a sale. For the fuller description of the Inlandsch bezitsrecht De Boer referred the reader to Adatrecht, p. 197 ff., rather than repeating it, remarking only that the “eigenaardige recht” mentioned by Van Vollenhoven at pp. 196 and 198 — the customary grazing usage — was in reality no right at all but a bare economic usage.
Difference between directly governed and self-governing territory
The position of the clearer in the Gouvernementsgebied (Groot-Atjeh) differed from that in the zelfbesturende landschappen, in step with the locally divergent form of the right of avail. In the directly governed territory the right of avail was barely discernible and the indigenous inhabitant was practically free to clear outside the gampong boundaries wherever no rights of others were apparent. In the self-governing territories, by contrast, prior notice of the intention to clear had to be given, in order so far as possible to prevent boundary disputes.
See Also
- Beschikkingsrecht in Atjeh
- Haq radja taléë
- Oendja ateueng
- Pageue
- Rintisan
- Adatrecht (Van Vollenhoven)
- Groot-Atjeh
- Zelfbesturende landschappen
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.