Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/176

 times, and partly on the kindred fact that the Achehnese (though wrongly as we have seen) ascribe all the adats of the country to the earlier sultans. These princes did indeed to some degree regulate the existing adat and endeavoured in vain to abolish a portion of it; yet what they did has sufficed to stamp all unwritten laws and customs of the country as "adat pòten meureuhōm" = "the adats of our late Lords."

Thus did the respect in which the reigning house was held develop a sort of religious aspect, of which the following may serve as an illustration. On the occasion of the famous journey of Teuku Nèʾ of Meuraʾsa and his followers to the court at Keumala, all who accompanied him were implored by their friends and relations to bring back with them some water wherein the pretender to the sultanate had washed his feet. We may add that this young ne'er-do-well was for some time regarded by a portion of his subjects as kramat, i. e. one miraculously revealed as the chosen friend of God.

As however this feeling of awe has within the memory of man always been coupled with the conviction that the sole sovereign prince of the country exercised no perceptible influence on the conduct of affairs, and was in fact but an expensive luxury like the documents sealed with the chab sikureuëng, all this reverence is, comparatively speaking, of very slight value from a practical point of view.

The rumours of the Dalam that reached the outer world were far from pleasant. The scions of royal blood (tuankus) fortunately for Acheh not very numerous, were (and still are) convinced that they stood superior to the adat pòteu meureuhōm and all other adats which place a restraint upon human passion and wickedness; they often led lives of the most savage immorality.

They used to take from their subjects all that pleased their fancy, and death was a light punishment for opposition to their boundless license. The daughters of the man of low degree were made the victims of their lust, and the results of such concubinage were artificially destroyed.

The people were powerless to resist the misconduct of the sultan and princes. The customary retribution for personal wrongs by the