Identifier: naturalistswande01forb (find matches)
Title: A naturalist's wanderings in the Eastern archipelago; a narrative of travel and exploration from 1878 to 1883
Year: 1885 (1880s)
Authors: Forbes, Henry O. (Henry Ogg), 1851-1932
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York, Harper & brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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eculiar customs, towhich the people adhere with hereditary tenacity. In the olddays each rnarga, and possibly each kampong (village) had acopy of its oondang-oondang, or laws, written on bamboo-stems,or on lontar (Borassus) palm leaves, which were preservedas heirlooms from generation to generation, till eaten up by asmall boring beetle—which can in a very short time reduce thestoutest bamboo to powder if it is not looked after—or tilldestroyed in the fires by which every village has been periodi-cally wiped out, when it would be reinscribed from the memorybf some old villager, and again transmitted. In very rare casesonly would the bamboo record be applied to, for in every vil-lage there was always some one, as now, who knew its con-tents with perfect accuracy, to whom it had been taught whena child by his father, as he in like manner had been taught byhis; so that when a case arose in which the adat (custom) wasin question, recourse would be had to the living repository, as ^ t*
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IN SUMATRA. 143 the quickest means of settling the point; for their reading, liketheir act of inscribing, was, even as now, a painfully slow anddifficult affair to the most learned. Now-a-days these interest-ing relics are very rare, and almost impossible to procure. Each marga, as a rule, has in it several villages, each with achief. Each village community is a collection of families,either related or not to each other by the ties of blood—con-sisting of the original family or nucleus of the village andthose descended from it, and of the companies of immigrantswho have come from different places, and at different times,with their descendants. Each of these companies, or families,was called a suku, and each selected one of their number torepresent them in all matters affecting their interests. Sothen a village community consisted, and still more or lesscompletely consists, of several sulcus, each with its head, allsubject to the village chief, who would, in the first instance,be the

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