REMBAU HISTORY, ETC. Tal 
Chapter IV. 
The Custom as Relating to Marriage and Divorce. 
The tribes composing the Federation of Rembau are 
domestically independent corporations. Tribal descent is 
traced through the mother, and tribal independence is con- 
served by two rules, exogamy and monogamy. 
The tribe, however, is not the exogamic unit. The 
inter-marriage of sections of certain tribes is permitted by 
custom.’ Béduanda Jakun may marry with Béduanda Jawa, 
and the Béduanda dagang with either. In the Mungkal tribe 
(Darat), a member of the Bukit family, may wed a member of 
the Tébat family, but between the two sections of the Bukit 
family—Bukit and Kéling—marriage is forbidden. A conces- 
sion to agnate descent, even, is made in the solitary case of the 
Tiga Nenék and Paia Kumboh (Baroh) tribes, two of the four 
tribes of the first Rembau immigration. As the two pioneer 
chiefs of these tribes were half brothers, the tribes do not inter- 
marry. These examples are sufficient to show that the test 
of an exogamic unit is distinction of origin. The inability of 
two families (péruf) to trace descent to a common female 
ancestor—inability that may be due either to certainty of 
pedigree, or to the fact of belated settlement obscuring an- 
cestry,—is their passport to intermarriage. 
Breach of exogamic custom is considered an offence of 
the first magnitude, and amounts to incest. Yet custom dis- 
tinguishes between the incestuous liason of persons related 
merely as members of one tribe, (sa-waris) and incest of near 
blood relations, (warzs kadim.) The former crime, known as 
sumbang sa-waris, was strictly punishable with outlawry and 
confiscation of property: but the Undang had the power to 
commute this penalty to a fine of one bhara ($14.00), 50 
measures of husked rice, and one buffalo. The Paia-Kumboh 
tribe provides the standard instance of the commuted penalty. 
(1) A complete list of the exogamic units in each ofthe 12 tribes 
will be found in appendix IT. 
R. A. Soc., No. 56, 1910. 
Two main 
rules Govern- 
ing Marriage 
in Rembau. 
1. Exogamy. 
2. Monoga- 
my. 
I, Exogamy. 
The exoga- 
mic unit. 
‘Test is dis- 
tinctive origin, 
Breaches of 
Exogamic 
rule, 
(1) Incest. 
Kind. 
Sumbang 
Sa-waris, 
