REMBAU HISTORY, ETC. 65 
Chapter III. 
Customs Relating to Property and Inheritance. 
Heritable property as known in Rembau is of two 
kinds :— 
(I). Ancestral property, (herta pésaka)—both real and 
personal, viz: that portion of tribal lands acquired by a family 
in a tribe through the effective occupation of generations, and 
chattels of every kind, once descended from parent to child. 
(II). Acquired property, (herta charian). This is of two 
kinds :— 
(a) The joint earnings of husband and wife during 
marriage, (charian laki bini). 
(b) Property acquired by a male prior to his marriage 
or while a widower, (charian bujang). The custom 
prescribes different rules for inheritance to these 
two classes of property. 
(I). Ancestral property. (Herta pésaka). 
The customary law (adat) obtaining in Rembau, and 
known as the Adat perpatih, was imported by immigrant tribes 
from Menangkabau in the 16th century A.D. It is properly 
‘to be regarded as prescribing a complete system of life in an 
agricultural society constituted of exogamic tribes. From the 
postulate of the exogamic tribe as the social unit, two main 
principles, governing the possession of property, are to be 
deduced. 
(a) All property vested in the tribe, not in the individual 
members of the tribe. 
(6) All ancestral property vested in the female member 
of the tribe. 
~ The rights of land tenure,” says Maxwell’ in his paper 
on Malay land tenure, “in a primitive Malay settlement 
“are exceedingly simple, if each proprietor is viewed as the 
owner of the piece of land which he has won for himself 
(1) vide J. R. A. 8S. S. B. vol. XIII. p. 80. June 1884. 
R. A. Sac., No. 56, r9fo. 
*5 
Heritable 
property of 
two kinds (I) 
ancestral. 
(II) Acquir- 
ed. 
I Ancestral 
Property. 
Nature of 
propr ietary 
rights in Rem- 
bau. 
