50 RECORDS OF MALAY MAGIC. 
payment ; he was of high desceut on the mother’s side and the 
Sakaies therefore trusted him to look after their interests in the 
alieniation of the lands ; although he actually received payment, 
it was as much for the benefit of the Sakais as of himself. 
In the same way, the three lines following describe how 
in most of the States the different tribes have their allotted 
portions of the waste lands, within which they should as much 
as possible arrange holdings for their respective tribes-women; - 
but this has also been a good deal ignored and the tribes’ hold-. 
ings have got mixed up: what has, however, survived of all this 
is the custom, of the Lembagas of both tribes being present when 
land is transferred from cne tribe or section of a tribe to 
another, and this custom, which is rigorously insisted upon under 
the present rule, has proved most useful ; no registration of any 
land dealings being effected unless the custom has been satisfac- 
tovily fulfilled and attested by the respective tribal chiefs. 
5 
bee as Se ee sn ie us 
Sa halei akar putus 
Sa bingkah tanah ter-balik 
Sa batang kayu rebah 
Sahya yang ampunya-nya. 
A trail of liana was broken, 
A sod was turned over, 
A tree was cut down, 
It was I who made the clearing. 
The speaker, who in support of his claim recites this ‘“ per- 
bilongan,” or saying, seeks to prove that he was the first to 
open a certain district; he would probably be a man with some 
followers, who, for a reason had migrated from the settled lands 
to find a fresh place and cut out for himself a new clearing in 
the primeval forest. 
