Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/326

 while the passion for gambling rife among the chiefs and other persons of rank dissipates the fruits of the most parsimonious management. Under such circumstances they have recourse to mortgages (peugala).

The humane but unpractical doctrine of Mohammedan law that the mortgagee may draw no profit whatever from the mortgage, but must rest content with the assurance of receiving back in full the sum he lends, is just as little observed in Acheh as in other Moslim countries. The gala or mortgage contracts are entirely controlled by the adat.

The objects most commonly pledged in Acheh are wet rice-fields, gardens, keudès (shops), boats, golden ornaments, weapons, fishing-nets and the like. Houses and cattle are rarely mortgaged.

The old adat requires a pledge to be given to the money-lender of double the value of the sum lent. Should the object pledged be lost through the fault of the mortgagee, the latter is obliged to pay to the mortgagor a sum equal to the amount of the loan.

Besides this very ample security for his capital, the money lender also enjoys the use of the thing pledged. Where it consists of weapons or personal ornaments he adorns therewith his own person or those of his wife and children. The unpleasantness of ruffling it in the finery of others, which must soon be restored to its owner, is not felt in the slightest degree by the Achehnese. He reflects that if he did not get these things in this way, he would have to buy them for himself, and the fact that he is able to do so is sufficiently evinced by his having lent money to others. So far from concealing the source from whence he derived such ornaments and weapons, he plumes himself on having command over the most costly possessions of others.

A shop taken in mortgage is often let to a third party. Money is lent on vessels only by seafaring men, who use the pledges themselves.

Umòngs and lampōïhs are either cultivated by the mortgagee entirely for his own benefit, or else given out by him in mawaïh contracts. They are always mortgaged when follow after the harvest, and given back by the mortgagee at the same season, i.e. in the case of rice-fields always in the musém luaïh blang. Permission of the owners of the adjoining lands is not required, but as these mortgages are sometimes sustained for a very long time, the contract is concluded in the