Wang pemasoeqan (Atjeh)

Properties2
tagsconcept, law, adatrecht, achehnese, land, beschikkingsrecht, entree, ter-haar, 1939, 1950, colonial
aliaseswang pemasoeqan, wang pemasukan, entree Atjeh, Atjehnese entree payment, recognition-payment Atjeh, wang pemasoeqan Atjeh

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The wang pemasoeqan — the Atjehnese entree — is the visible token (zichtbaar teken) paid, in the adatrecht of Atjeh, at the commencement of the profit-taking (profijt) by a community-foreigner (gemeenschapsvreemdeling) on land within the beschikkingskring (the community’s sphere of disposal over land). The institution is cited by B. ter Haar BzN in Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht (first ed. 1939; 4th ed. 1950) as a typical example of the formal recognition-payment required of community-foreigners who would profit from another community’s land — a payment that is the visible sign of the foreigner’s awareness that he is coming to profit on another’s land.

The beschikkingsrecht and the community-foreigner

Ter Haar introduces the wang pemasoeqan in his account of the beschikkingsrecht — the community’s right of disposal over the land within its territory. The beschikkingsrecht works, in its outward operation (werking naar buiten), by the rule that community-foreigners — persons from elsewhere, including those of the neighbouring village — may profit from the beschikkingskring only after permission from the community, against the payment of a recognition-sum in advance and a compensation afterwards. Within the beschikkingskring, the foreigner can in principle acquire no individual right to the land that lasts longer than the enjoyment, than one harvest (genotrecht — right of enjoyment); foreigners may not inherit, buy, or take in pledge the community’s building-fields, and even the entering of the beschikkingskring can adatrechtelijk be forbidden or made conditional.

Those who come from outside must apply to the village heads (volkshoofden) for permission. With that request, Ter Haar notes, “naar indonesischen trant, alreeds veelal een klein geschenkje te pas, om den weg te evenen voor het (gunstige) antwoord” — in the Indonesian manner, a small gift already often comes into play, to pave the way for the (favourable) answer. “Voorts is in sommige rechtskringen bekend een zichtbaar teken, als entree, wang pemasoeqan (Atjeh), mesi (Java), te betalen bij den aanvang van het profijt door den vreemde, een teken van het feit, dat men zich bewust is op andermans grond te komen profiteren” — furthermore, in some legal circles a visible token is known, as entree, the wang pemasoeqan (Atjeh), the mesi (Java), to be paid at the commencement of the profit-taking by the foreigner, a token of the fact that one is conscious of coming to profit on another’s land.

The wang pemasoeqan and the mesi

The wang pemasoeqan of Atjeh is paired, in Ter Haar’s account, with the mesi of Java — the two being cited as the principal named examples of the entree — the visible token of entry — paid by the community-foreigner at the commencement of his profit-taking on another’s land. The pairing places the Atjehnese institution within a wider Indonesian category: the entree is not unique to Atjeh but is, rather, the Atjehnese instance of a general Indonesian legal type, the recognition-payment that marks the foreigner’s awareness of his dependent position within another community’s beschikkingskring.

Significance

For AcehWiki, the wang pemasoeqan is significant as the Atjehnese entree — the visible token paid by the community-foreigner at the commencement of his profit-taking on Atjehnese community land — and as a key example in Ter Haar’s systematic account of the Indonesian beschikkingsrecht. The institution illustrates the working of the Atjehnese community’s land-right: the beschikkingskring of the gampong (village) and the mukim (parish) is not an open-access territory but a bounded sphere of disposal, within which the community-foreigner may profit only by permission and by the payment of the wang pemasoeqan — the visible token of his awareness that he comes to profit on another’s land. The institution complements the corpus’s existing entries on the Atjehnese land-right and on the beschikkingsrecht of the Indonesian communities, and it furnishes the doctrinal-legal characterisation of the Atjehnese entree within the colonial legal science of the late Netherlands Indies.

See Also

Source

Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht, door Mr. B. ter Haar Bzn. Vierde ongewijzigde druk. Groningen, Djakarta: J. B. Wolters, 1950. P. 63.

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