.508 Messrs. Burton tind Warv's Journey into the Batak Country. 



Debt. 



Interest upon small debts is frequently as high as one hundred per cent, 

 per mensem. We have been informed by a gentleman well acquainted with 

 the customs of the Angkola Bataks, that it is no uncommon thing in that 

 country for a man and all his family to be sold to discharge a debt, the 

 principal of which, only two years before, was but a single dollar. 



In cases of debt incurred at games of chance, their usages are very bar- 

 barous. The person of the debtor is seized (never, we believe, his family 

 or property), and the prisoner is confined in the stocks, till either his relatives 

 ])ay his debt, or some person be prevailed upon to take him as a mangering 

 (bond) debtor.* It frequently happens, however, that his relatives are glad 

 to get rid of him ; tlie creditor, therefore, uses every rigour in order to excite 

 their pity, or rather to wound their pride. Till some one pays the money, 

 the prisoner is never for a moment permitted to have his feet out of the 

 stocks, whilst his food is of the meanest quality. Many remain for years in 

 this miserable condition, before the loathsome diseases consequent on their 

 confinement occasion death : yet these infatuated people will risk their all 

 on a single cast of the dice ! 



Slaveii/. 



Slavery exists amongst the Bataks to a considerable extent, but only in the 

 domestic form. They import no foreigners, nor are many of their own 

 people exported. The laws provide for the protection of persons in this 

 state, and their allotment of labour is not more oppressive, nor are their 

 comforts fewer, than those of the free members of the families of which 

 they form a part. They may be addressed in abusive language, but not, 

 we believe, struck at a smaller cost than a free man. 



The causes of slavery are principally the following : families in great 

 poverty are sometimes induced to part with one or more of their children 

 to persons who promise to take great care of them, and in a manner adopt 

 them. Children left orphans at an early age, whose relations do not chuse 

 to incur tlie trouble or expense of rearing them, are usually sold : so are 

 also poor debtors, particularly such as are unable to pay the fines imposed 

 by the laws of their country ; and lastly, prisoners taken in war. 



See Marsden's History of Sumatra, page 252. 



