Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/41

 CHAPTER II. CLASSIFICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE PEOPLE. The people divided into six classes. — Account of the royal fa- mily, or Jirst class — Of the nohdity, or second class. — Of the priesthood, or third class. — Of the freemen, or fourth class. — Of debtors, or the ffth class. — Of slaves, or the sixth class. Among the Indian islanders, generally, there ex- ists no factitious and hereditary distribution of the people into various employments — no insti- tution of casts. The following natural orders exist in the society, of each of which it will be necessary to give a separate account. The royal family — the nobles — the priests — the cultivators, or freemen — debtors — slaves. Amono; all the tribes of the Indian islands where absolute government is established, the title of the royal family to the throne is considered divine and indefeasible. Their claims are guarded by superstition ; and the Malay and Javanese lan- guages have peculiar words to express the judgment of Providence that would fall upon the man of in-