Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/143

 The elder: "This fellow is even as the flesh of buffaloes, it is permitted us to eat it! Let us cry aloud now all together, the name of this fellow is thief! Cry with one voice, let us kill the thief dead!"

These last words are loudly repeated by all present, and thus the case is concluded. It might be almost expected that at this last cry a simultaneous attack would be made upon the body of the thief, but now-a-days at least this does not take place.

Not till the conclusion of this ceremony can the thief be buried. Before the formal peusah the body may be moved to the extent of dragging it a few paces along the ground, but to raise it entirely from the earth would according to the adat have the effect of making the sentence impossible.

It is obvious that proofs such as those we have enumerated are not always forthcoming in all the numerous cases of theft in Acheh and especially in the highland districts, yet the adat with its peculiar rules of evidence demands "tanda" or tokens, and it is an established rule that where such tokens are wanting, no crime can be taken to be proved. On the other hand it often happens that all are morally convinced that a certain person is in the habit of stealing or has done so in a particular instance, without their being able with the best will in the world to adduce the requisite proofs.

It may for example be safely asserted, in view of the habits of life of the Achehnese, that any one who after nine o'clock in the evening is found lurking in a strange gampōng where no festival is being held, has come there with criminal intent, and generally with the object of committing theft.

In such cases there prevails a custom, not indeed theoretically recognized, but in fact commonly practised, of artificially supplying the necessary tandas or proofs after the evildoer has been put to death.

The slayer for instance breaks a piece out of the wall of his house, and places a chest which he has himself taken out of his house near the body, or ties his buffalo to the leg of the slain man, so as to give the appearance of his having met him leading the animal away.

Though all who attend at the verification (peusah) are well aware of the true origin of the evidence, they lend their support before the ulèëbalang (who is often as much in the secret as themselves) to a solemnly paraded fictitious story of the theft, and the declaration "This fellow is as the flesh of buffaloes, it is permitted us to eat it" sets the slayer free from all guilt.