Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/157

 as for example gardens, the furniture of a chapel etc. Rice-fields which are made waqf for the benefit of a mosque are however usually described by another term, sara and are spoken of as umòng sara or umòng sara meuseugit or meusara meuseugit.

But wakeuëh is much better known in the sense of a territory or a piece of land which has been placed in a peculiar legal position by the sultans. What this position originally was cannot now be easily traced, as the institution has entirely degenerated. From the information given by the Achehnese we might conclude that wakeuëh lands were those the usufruct of which the sultans had presented to some one or other of their favourites after duly compensating the owners. The epithet is also applied to the strip of ground seven great fathoms (deupa meunara) on each side of the Acheh river, reserved from ancient times to the sultan. Subjects might build or plant within this reserve but the land never became their property, and the sultans could always withdraw the right of user. This royal privilege no doubt originated in the interest of an unimpeded exercise of their sovereignty by the kings of the port. The name tanòh raja is indeed more commonly used than wakeuëh to describe this reservation. Then again we find this latter word applied to the inhabitants of a certain district who have been relieved from sundry burdens and duties exacted from the rest, and exempted from the authority of the local chiefs, a condition which we find elsewhere described by the term bibeuëh.

Another explanation given for this word assigns to it a purely