Thiwa (Malay sewa) was the lease of a rice field in Atjeh for a fixed rent in padi, as distinguished from the share-cropping contract mawaih; the act of leasing out was peuthiwa.
Preference of the landholder
D. W. N. de Boer recorded that the landholder gave his sawah out in thiwa rather than in mawaih, because under mawaih he was dependent on the diligence, the ability and the luck of the cultivator, whereas under thiwa a fixed return was stipulated which was due even in the event of crop failure.
Rate in Keumangan
In the landschap (territory) Keumangan (Sigli) the rent for good sawah’s amounted to two goentja of padi per naleh of bidjeh.
Assessment of the rent
De Boer set out the basis for a proper appreciation of that figure:
- the size of a rice field in Atjeh was expressed by the quantity of bibit (seed padi) needed on average to plant it, measured in goentja, naleh, gantang and areh — one goentja being ten naleh, eighty gantang, one hundred and sixty areh;
- with one naleh about 1,600 square metres were planted;
- the yield of good sawah’s averaged fifty times, and of poor fields fifteen times, the quantity of seed.
The rent therefore amounted on average to two-fifths of the normally budgeted return.
Regional distribution
Because a mawaih contract was safer for the planter — taking 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. A factor of significance was, self-evidently, whether a rice field could be irrigated well, badly or not at all, and whether it lay in a place more or less safe from bandjirs (floods).
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.