REMBAU HISTORY, ETC. 71 
The applications of this tenet are manifold. Interpreted 
literally, it explains the custom of substitution as the penalty 
for murder, or even for slayings that would now be classed 
as homicide or justifiable homicide.’ 
Before the sway of the adat was tempered by western 
ideas of justice, if a tribesman by slaying a member of another 
tribe, caused depreciation of the assets of that tribe, the 
balance between the two tribes was readjusted by substitu- 
tion-—(balas). A member of the slayer’s family was given to the 
victim’s tribe, in exchange for the slain. That substitute, who 
was normally of the same sex as the slain, was selected by the 
tribal chief, and passing into the tribe of the slain, became heir 
to the same rights and privileges as persons born into that tribe. 
This rule discovers the standpoint of tribal custom. 
The tribe, not the individual, is the unit of consideration. 
A murdered man was just so much dead loss to his tribe, which 
could not balance it’s accounts by recording the fact of a 
death in another tribe. 
If the slayer and the slain were of the same tribe, then 
as restitution could not adjust the balance, the family of the 
slayer paid as a fine one buftalo and fifty bushels of husked 
rice. But as the Rembau tribal system was based on 
exogamy, the wife of the slayer had her part to bear in the 
restitution. The burial expenses of the victim, and the cost 
of the funeral feasts, on the third day (nzga harz) the seventh 
day (m2nujoh hart), and the hundredth day (saratus hari) were 
borne by the wife and children of the murderer. These 
payments were known as the © following of the substitute ”’ 
(ring balas). If the slayer were unmarried, the substitution, 
or the payment of the customary fine, as the case might be, 
closed the incident, as far as his family was concerned. The 
man himself was content to fly the country, when he incurred 
sentence of outlawry.’ The elders (zbu-bapa) and tribal 
(1) vide App. Saying XXXIV. 
(2) ef. case of Ma’adam, Suku Anak,Acheh outlawed for murder by 
Dato’ Sérun : returned after Serun’s death (1905) and was by order of 
the State Council again outlawed from the Negri Sembilan in 1906, 
R. A. Soc., No. 56, 1910. 
Principle of 
Niawa Darah. 
The custom 
of substitution 
(Balas). 
