Aréë was a landschap in the onderafdeeling (subdivision) Sigli, afdeeling (district) Pidië, of Atjeh, described by D. W. N. de Boer as “‘n land van handelaren” — a land of traders — whose commercial character shaped the terms on which its rice fields were worked.
Share-cropping terms
Under the mawaih bahagi lhée form of mawaih, the holder of a rice field supplied ground, plough cattle and bibit and contributed half of the oepah poela (planting wage), the cultivator retaining one-third of the crop. In Aréë, however, the mawaih-giver sometimes contributed two-thirds of the planting wage, because he could otherwise find no one to work his rice fields. De Boer explained the peculiarity by the occupational structure of the landschap (territory): its inhabitants being traders, such of them as were also sawah-owners had to offer more favourable conditions in order to draw men from other landschappen (territories) to work their fields.
Significance
Aréë illustrates, within a single onderafdeeling, how the adat of share-cropping was modified by local labour scarcity: the customary shares were not fixed but responded to the competition for cultivators between neighbouring landschappen.
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.