REMBAU HISTORY, ETC. 67 
Different rights were obtained by the occupiers of 
holdings in these different classes of land. 
It is of cardinal importance to bear in mind that 
redeemed lands were tribal lands. The sayings amply prove 
this fact. ““ Wnere the coconuts are tall’ and the betel palms 
in rows, that land belongs to the tribal chief,’ the guardian 
of the inherited rights of the tribe. So far from there being 
“no such thing as joint ownership by the inhabitants of a tract 
of cultivated lands” the land was not an individual but a 
common property in the early days of Rembau tribal history. 
But as time elapsed a family (pérut) —an exogamic unit—in a 
tribe acquired by length of effective occupation, a trans- 
missible, but not an alienable, right to a particular plot of rice 
swamp in the redeemed valley, and to the high land (kampongq) 
on which the houses stood. Such an ancestral holding ranks 
colloquially as the property of the mother of that family—but 
the nominal holder at any given moment is merely a fiduciary 
for the family ancestral property is vested in females of tribe in 
tail female. 
Tradition ascribes this custom to the direct order of the 
fabled law giver Dato’ Perpatih Pinang Sa-batang,” and 
Mr. Hale’ has sought its origin in a survival from savage times, 
but 1t 1s evident that this provision is a corollary to the idea of 
the exogamie tribal unit. 
Settlers on unredeemed lands (tanah warts) became 
nominally tenants for life of the waris, the heirs of the soil, and 
could obtain no transmissible or alienable right in their 
holdings. They paid a yearly tribute to the Undang—the 
infra tribal head of all the waris, not to the waris tribal 
chief—of a packet of parched rice and a measure of husked rice 
(émping sa’ kampit bras sa’gantang). 
Waris land, as still the property of the waris although 
in the occupation of a tenant, was not subject to 
(1) vide Saying XVIII App. I. 
(2) vide Newbold Brit. Settlements in Malacca, vol. II. pp. 
220-899. 
(3) vide J. R. A. 5. S, B. vol. XXX, p. 58. 
R, A. Soc., No. 56, 1910, 
Rights of 
Settlers in re- 
deemed lands. 
Ancestral 
Property vest- 
ed in temales 
of Tribe. 
Rights of 
Settlers in un- 
redeemed 
Lands. 
