Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/89

 in-law would have to avoid each other as enemies until peace was concluded.

Such a state of things is not merely hypothetical, but often actually arises. It is true, most civil conflicts among the Achehnese express themselves rather in high words, empty burning of powder and unexecuted plans than in sanguinary battles. Yet blood-feuds are distinguished by a certain degree of violence, and it is these in particular which give rise to tribal dissensions.

We can thus understand the rationale of this adat-rule, and perceive that it must in earlier times have had a wider influence and been more strongly enforced than at present.

If the social separation of the kawōms is gradually ceasing to exist, their territorial severance has long been a thing of the past. Even in the highlands the three allied kawōms do not live apart from one another, but reside peacefully side by side in the same districts or gampōngs. Natural as it now appears, this gathering together within the same village enclosure and under the same territorial chiefs must at one time have been a gigantic stride along the road of political development. This reform cannot be ascribed to the influence of the sultans, since everything points to the fact that the ulèëbalangs had made good their territorial power long before they were compelled to recognize the supremacy of the port-king. We may assume that the efforts of certain energetic individuals towards the establishment of territorial authority were crowned with success because the time was ripe for political reform, and because all men, however disinclined they might be to leave the decisions of their bloodfeuds to others, saw that it was for their interest to adopt a regulated social system in which the kawōm played but a secondary part.

This reformation has virtually abolished the clan system. In the lowlands as time goes on it is becoming entirely forgotten. In the highlands it still possesses considerable significance; but this must gradually decrease unless unforeseen events arise to annihilate the comparative order that now prevails there.

The most important panglimas of the Imeum Peuët are those in the VII Mukims Baʾét, and outside these at Lam Leuʾòt. There are however chiefs of this most numerous clan to be found in other places as well, and in like manner the other three kawōms have their panglima in every place where they are at all well represented as regards num-