164 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[February, 
of the British resident residing in their country, and exercising no 
small degree of influence over them. 
In the prosecution of all suits under these rules, the plaintiff 
and defendant are allowed to make their own statements before 
the chiefs of the doosoons, or they may employ a proatteen, or 
any other person to appear for them, which in their language is 
called " pinjam mooloot, to borrow a mouth." Their rule§ of 
evidence are peculiar to themselves, as they do not admit testimony 
on both sides of any disputed point. He who brings a suit against 
another, is asked in the commencement by whom he intends to 
prove his allegation. His witness must not be his relation ; he 
must not be a party concerned ; and, in some instances, he must 
not even reside in the same village. The point to which he is ex- 
pected to give testimony is then mentioned to him, when, if he 
confirm the statement, the question at issue is established. 
Their oaths are appeals to superior powers, to whom alone 
they are answerable ; a false swearer not being amenable to pun- 
ishment by the usages of the Rejangs. A general and deeply per- 
vading sentiment, however, prevails, that the unseen powers pun- 
ish the perjured, either in person, in his children, or in his great- 
grandchildren. Nor has this superstitious belief been slow to re- 
cord many instances, when the most direful judgments have fallen 
upon the person or family of the false swearer. They are solem-n, 
superstitious, and gravely ceremonious in their forms of adminis- 
tering an oath ; often visiting the graves of their ancestors, for 
the sake of greater solemnity. This only takes place far in the 
interior ; while along the coast, the Malay customs and Koran 
prevail. They sometimes swear by placing their hands upon the 
earth, and wishing it may never again bring forth nourishment to 
them if they bear false witness. Sometimes they lay their hands 
upon bullets, la'isses, gun-barrels, &c. ; these being instruments 
of destruction. It is then the Rejang, who trembles with fear at 
the idea of the harm he may receive from an invisible power, in 
which he believes, without having any just conception of his own 
immortality, is restrained from the crime of bearing false witness 
against his neighbour. " For when the gentiles, who have not the 
law, do by nature the things contained in the law ; these having 
not the law, are a law unto themselves." 
On the death of a Rejang, his male children inherit his property 
