MALAY LAND TENURE. 89 



u question would be foreign to my present purpose, which is 

 ft merely to describe what is in fact a form of land occupation 

 n or quasi-tenure." 



Chapter III. 

 THE RIGHTS OF THE RAJA. 



Monarchical government was introduced among the Malay 

 tribes by Hindu rulers from India, and a new element was thus 

 added to the primitive structure of society theretofore existing. 

 The settlement or group of settlements of individual cultiva- 

 tors ( each deriving his right to his holding from the fact that 

 he and his family or slaves had reclaimed it from the forest ) 

 who lived in tribes under elected Chiefs, or Penghulus, for 

 mutual protection, now became subject to the incidents of 

 Aryan kingly government. 



The rights of the Raja in the early Hindu kingdoms in India 

 were : — 



1. The right to a share in the grain. 



2. The right to collect taxes. 



3. The right of disposal of waste land. 



The proportion of the padi crop which the Malay Raja or 

 Chief can claim has come to be fixed by custom at one-tenth 

 of the grain, and payment can be enforced by seizure of the 

 crop or land. A new qualification in the proprietary right of the 



" people.' It is unfortunate that the verv forests at the head-waters of streams 

 " with dense growth and steep slopes, which forest economy most imperatively 

 " calls on us to preserve, are the very tracts in which this temporary cultiva- 

 " tion is most insisted on. " 



