Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht (Ter Haar, 4th ed. 1950)

Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht — “Principles and System of Adat Law” — is the magisterial survey of the adatrecht (customary law) of the indigenous population of the Netherlands Indies, written by Mr. B. ter Haar BzN, in life Professor (Hoogleraar) at the Rechtshogeschool (Law School) at Djakarta. The work was first published in 1939; the fourth, unmodified edition — vierde ongewijzigde druk — was issued by J. B. Wolters of Groningen and Djakarta in 1950, with a foreword by Prof. Logemann and a voorbericht at the fourth edition by Soepomo. The book is the principal systematic account of the principles (beginselen) and the system (stelsel) of Indonesian adatrecht, and its treatment of the rechtskring Atjeh (legal circle of Atjeh) — placed first in the book’s overview of the nineteen legal circles of the archipelago — is the central doctrinal statement of the place of Atjehnese adatrecht within the wider Indonesian legal landscape.

Publication history

The first edition appeared in 1939. An unchanged second edition followed in 1941, the year of Ter Haar’s death in a German concentration camp on 19 April 1941. A third edition, erroneously called the “second unchanged edition,” was issued in 1946. The fourth edition — the one recorded here — was published in 1950, again with the text unchanged save for a supplementary literature list prepared by Mr. H. Th. Chabot. The work was translated into English and published in New York in 1948, with an introductory chapter on the ethnological background of adatrecht and on the place of adatrecht in the organisation of the legal system of the former Netherlands Indies, written by Professors E. Adamson Hoebel and A. Arthur Schiller.

Method and scope

In his Voorwoord (foreword), Ter Haar states that the work is “deze inleiding tot de studie van het adatrecht der inheemse bevolking van Nederlands-Indië” — this introduction to the study of the adatrecht of the indigenous population of the Netherlands Indies — and that it seeks to bring forward generalities in two respects: first, by describing the characteristic features of Indonesian legal institutions, legal relations, and legal acts so that the principles and system of adatrecht become visible; and second, by indicating the factors that act upon the state and the change of adatrecht — the social circumstances that promote or counteract particular features. At the same time, the work seeks to connect these generalities to the particular manifestation-forms of the institutions, relations, and acts, so as to give some idea of the concrete significance of the typologically described material.

The book’s method is thus both typological and exemplary: it describes the general types of Indonesian legal institutions and illustrates them with concrete local examples drawn from the various rechtskringen (legal circles) of the archipelago. The rechtskring Atjeh is one of the principal sources of these concrete examples, and Atjehnese legal terms — djinamée, wang pemasoeqan, peungklēh, sanbod-aanname — are cited throughout the work as illustrations of general Indonesian legal types.

The nineteen rechtskringen

The book closes with an Overzicht van de rechtskringen in de gebruikelijke volgorde — an overview of the legal circles in the usual order, with the names of the gouwen (regions), volken (peoples), plaatsen (places), and streken (districts) belonging to each circle. The Atjeh legal circle stands first:

Atjeh (Groot-Atjeh, Westkust van Atjeh, Singkel, Simeuloet).

Gajo-, Alas- en Bataklanden. …

The placement of Atjeh at the head of the list reflects the book’s ordering criterion: the legal circles in which the genealogical factor is strongest come first, and those in which the territorial factor works exclusively come last. The Atjeh legal circle — with its territorial gampong (village) and mukim (parish) — stands at the territorial end of the spectrum, but its placement first in the list reflects its position at the northwestern extremity of the archipelago and its priority in the Dutch colonial engagement with the outer possessions.

The Atjeh content

The Atjeh-related content of the work is distributed across the book’s systematic treatment of adatrecht. The principal Atjeh references are:

The rechtskring Atjeh (pp. 256–257 of the register overview): Atjeh, comprising Groot-Atjeh, the Westkust of Atjeh, Singkel, and Simeuloet.
The atjehse gampong (meunasah) (p. 17): the Atjehnese village, cited as a typical example of a territorial community in which the genealogical factor has no significance — alongside the Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, and Balinese désa, the villages of the Malay region, and the negorijen of the Minahasa and Ambon.
The sultanaat van Atjeh (p. 52): cited as one of the central indigenous sultanates — alongside Palembang, Djambi, the Oostkust-sultanaten, the powerful kingdoms of South Celebes (Bone, Gowa), Ternate and Tidore, Bali and Lombok, and the nagaragoeng of Java — in which the vernielend (destructive) influence of the central royal power worked on the communities around the royal residence, through the replacement of village heads by royal officials, the taking of land into the royal hand, and the issuing of small apanages.
The vorsten en vorstentelgen in Atjeh (p. 51): cited as one of the groups of princes and princely lineages — alongside the princes and prijaji of Java, the atjehse groten (Atjehnese grandees) in Padang, Javanese and indigenous nobility in Palembang and Djambi, and the nobility of the Malay region, Borneo, Celebes, Ternate, Tidore, the Timor group, Bima, Soembawa, Bali, and Lombok — that form the first group of persons living outside the village communities, within the vorstensfeer (princely sphere).
The minangkabause koloniën ter Westkust van Atjeh (p. 29): the Minangkabau colonies on the Westkust of Atjeh, cited as a typical example of large-scale uitzwerming (swarming-out) — the voluntary, large-group migration of Indonesians into areas inhabited by other peoples — alongside the Toba colony of 15,000 souls in Tapanoeli (Sajoermatinggi), the Boeginezen on Bali and Lombok, and the Bandjarezen in Indragiri.
The djinamée of Atjeh (pp. 168, 169, 178, 192): the Atjehnese huwelijksgift (marriage gift), cited as a typical example of a marriage payment that has become a validity requirement of the marriage — alongside the soenrang of South Celebes and the Muslim mas kawin — and distinguished from the bruidschat (bride-price) proper.
The wang pemasoeqan (Atjeh) (p. 63): the Atjehnese entree — the visible token paid at the commencement of the profit-taking by a stranger on another’s land — cited as a typical example of the formal recognition-payment required of community-foreigners who would profit from the beschikkingskring (the community’s sphere of disposal over land).
The sanbod-aanname (idjaab kaboel) in Atjeh (pp. 98, 100): the Muslim-derived offer-and-acceptance (idjaab kaboel) formula formally incorporated into the Atjehnese land-pledging and land-sale transactions, cited as a typical example of the local coloring that adat-law transactions receive in particular legal circles — without, however, the Indonesian character of the land transaction being thereby altered.
The peungklēh of Atjeh (p. 205): the Atjehnese uitzet (trousseau) given to marrying daughters, sometimes with great ceremony, cited as a species of toescheiding (allocation) — the assignment of property from the family estate to a child.
The maatschapjes tot het slachten van buffels in Atjeh (p. 124): the Atjehnese partnerships for the slaughtering of buffaloes, cited as a typical example of the voluntary associations (verenigingen) formed for reciprocal services-and-goods exchange.
The inkomsten van den man in Atjeh (p. 192): the rule that, in Atjeh, the husband’s income falls to him personally if the wife did not provide any material basis (a house-plot or a garden) for the household, or did not give him provisions for the road — a rule cited in the discussion of the goods-community of man and wife, and noted as possibly “a good talking of the community against the doctrine of the Islam, which does not know it.”
The vererving van bepaalde goederen van vader op zoon en van andere goederen van moeder op dochter (Atjeh) (p. 148): the traditional inheritance of particular goods from father to son and of other goods from mother to daughter, cited as a possibly dubbelunilaterale (doubly-unilateral) trait, alongside Savoe.
The voorkeur aan de (oudste) dochter in Atjeh (p. 213): the preference, in Atjeh, for the (eldest) daughter in the inheritance of the parental house — cited alongside the preference, in the Bataklands, for the youngest or eldest son.
The teruggeven van een gedeelte van de huwelijksgift in Atjeh (p. 171): the practice, in Atjeh, of returning a portion of the marriage gift upon the dissolution of the marriage — cited alongside similar practices in the Pasemah and Bali.

The sources for the Atjeh rechtskring

In his survey of the literature, Ter Haar identifies the principal source for the Atjeh legal circle as the work of Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, De Atjehers (1893–1894) — “dus van vóór den legger” (thus from before the [adatrecht] foundation) — which, “desalniettemin in dit verband niet mag ontbreken” (nevertheless, must not be absent in this connection). The work of J. J. Kreemer, Atjeh (1922–1923), is noted as bringing, “na Snouck Hurgronje en Van Vollenhoven geen nieuws” (after Snouck Hurgronje and Van Vollenhoven, no news). The Atjeh legal circle is thus one of the streken (regions) for which a full, whole-stoff-covering treatment of the adatrecht is available as part of a land-and-people description by a scholar not specifically trained in adatrecht — the category to which the Gayo legal circle (Snouck Hurgronje’s Het Gajoland, 1903), the Toba and Dairi Batak legal circle (Ypes, 1932), the Nias legal circle (Schröder, 1917), and the Toradja legal circle (Adriani and Kruyt, 1912, 1938) also belong.

Significance

For AcehWiki, Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht is significant as the principal systematic account of Indonesian adatrecht, and as the work that places the Atjehnese adatrecht — the rechtskring Atjeh — within the wider Indonesian legal landscape. The book’s treatment of the Atjeh legal circle — its placement first in the overview of the nineteen legal circles, its citation of Atjehnese legal terms as illustrations of general Indonesian legal types, and its identification of Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers as the principal source — makes it the central doctrinal statement of the place of Atjehnese adatrecht in the colonial legal science of the late Netherlands Indies. The book is also a document of the colonial legal science at its apogee: written by a Professor of the Rechtshogeschool at Djakarta, issued in four editions between 1939 and 1950, translated into English for the New York market in 1948, and — in the words of Logemann’s foreword — marked by the “zuiverheid, critisch gehalte, werkelijkheidszin” (purity, critical content, sense of reality) that warrant its survival beyond the colonial order that produced it.

Source

Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht, door Mr. B. ter Haar Bzn., in leven Hoogleraar aan de Rechtshogeschool te Djakarta. Vierde ongewijzigde druk. Groningen, Djakarta: J. B. Wolters, 1950. Voorwoord (Ter Haar), Voorbericht bij de vierde druk (Soepomo), and foreword by Logemann to the third edition. Register van adatrechttermen en zaakregister, and Overzicht van de rechtskringen, pp. 256–257.

tags	document, book, source, colonial, adatrecht, legal, 1939, 1950, ter-haar, wolters, groningen, djakarta, atjeh, rechtskring
aliases	Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht, Ter Haar Adatrecht, Beginselen Adatrecht, Ter Haar 1939, Ter Haar 1950, Principles and System of Adat Law, Adatrecht Ter Haar, 4e druk

Explorer