The Pangkai was the advance-capital supplied by the oeléebalang (or another capitalist) to the pepper-planters of an Atjehnese landschap, by which the planters lived in the two or three years before their pepper-garden came into bearing. The institution is the principal credit-institution of the Atjehnese pepper-trade, and the principal means by which the oeléebalang bound the pepper-planters to himself. The pangkaigever — the pangkai-giver — was usually the oeléebalang or an oeléebalang tjoet; he received, in return, the wasé pangkai, a due on each picol of pepper produced. In Broersma’s account, the pangkaigever receives f 2.50 per picol, of which he gives the peutoeha f 0.50; the hacil or wasé oeléebalang is separate, at one guilder per picol. The pangkai was formerly about f 25 for each arriving pepper-planter; nowadays it is often f 100.
The 1915 Regulation
In 1915 the colonial government came with a new regulation, by which the customs-office no longer had any concern. The hacil tanah or wasé oeléebalang was to be divided fifty-fifty between the landschap and the pangkaigever and the peutoeha — the latter in the course of the years having grown from the leader of the pepper-planters into the kepala kampong, the village-head. That regulation too has not encouraged the pangkaigever.
Significance
The pangkai is the principal credit-institution of the Atjehnese pepper-trade, and the principal means by which the oeléebalang bound the pepper-planters to himself. The institution is the economic basis of the oeléebalang’s power in the pepper-lands, and the principal obstacle to the colonial government’s attempts to make the pepper-trade a free volkscultuur.
See Also
- Oeléebalang
- Wasé (hacil)
- Peutoeha
- Pepper cultivation in Atjeh
- Afdeelingsbank
- Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
- 1915
The Afdeelingsbank and Free Volkscultuur
To break the pangkaigever’s hold and make the pepper-trade a free volkscultuur, the colonial government attempted to establish credit through afdeelingsbanks at Langsa and elsewhere, offering loans without the requirement of pepper delivery. The banks, however, had no collateral to fall back on, suffered losses, and were forced to stay away from the pepper districts.
Source
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), chapter V, ‘Perlak, land van peper en olie’, pp. 31–33.
Atjeh als land voor handel en bedrijf, by Dr. R. Broersma (Utrecht: Gebrs. Cohen, 1925), pp. 29–33.