Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/164

 those who would injure them: "Do you take me for a foreigner (or a Kling) to whom anything may be done with impunity?"

Even property left by strangers who die in Acheh without having formed a household there, falls into the hands of the ulèëbalangs!

We have already clearly seen how little the appointment of imeums and the subdivision of the country into mukims contributed to centralization of authority and conformity to religion.

Some show of supremacy was maintained by the sarakatas already referred to, letters patent of appointment or rather recognition of the



principal hereditary holders of offices or titles. At the end of this chapter will be found a translation of one of these latest products of the royal chancery, the deed of recognition of the present Panglima Meuseugit Raya by the pretender to the sultanate at Keumala. This document like all the sultans' edicts of appointment I have met with (even including those of very early date), is composed according to established models with slight occasional modifications. It differs only