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It is still used among the Rejangs for their working dress, and I have one in my possession procured from these people consisting of a jacket, short drawers, and a cap for the head.
The dealings are conducted with order and fairness; the chief remaining at a little distance, to be referred to in case of dispute, and a guard is at hand, armed with lances, to keep the peace; yet with all this police, which bespeaks civilization, I have been assured by those who have had an opportunity of attending their meetings that in the whole of their appearance and deportment there is more of savage life than is observed in the manners of the Rejangs, or inhabitants of Lampong.
The pangeran of Suko, in the hills, is computed to have four or five thousand dependants, and sometimes, on going a journey, he levies a tali, or eighth part of a dollar, on each family, which shows his authority to be more arbitrary and probably more strictly feudal than among the Rejangs, where the government is rather patriarchal.
They are also the fairest people of the island, and the women are the tallest and esteemed the most handsome. Their language differs considerably, though not essentially, from that of the Rejangs, and the characters they use are peculiar to themselves, as may be observed in the specimens exhibited.
The ancient and genuine religion of the Rejangs, if in fact they ever had any, is scarcely now to be traced; and what principally adds to its obscurity, and the difficulty of getting information on the subject, is that even those among them who have not been initiated in the principles of Mahometanism yet regard those who have as persons advanced a step in knowledge beyond them, and therefore hesitate to own circumstantially that they remain still unenlightened.
Various circumstances induce me on this occasion to give the preference to the Rejangs, though a nation of but small account in the political scale of the island.
I shall aim at steering a middle course, and accordingly shall treat of the inhabitants of Sumatra under the following summary distinctions, taking occasion as it may offer to mention the principal subdivisions. And first it is proper to distinguish the empire of Menangkabau and the Malays; in the next place the Achinese; then the Battas; the Rejangs; and next to them the people of Lampong.*
For the more regular and impartial administration of justice in the Residency of Laye, the laws and customs of the Rejangs, hitherto preserved by tradition, are now, after being discussed, amended, and ratified, in an assembly of the pangeran, pambarabs, and proattins, committed to writing in order that they may not be liable to alteration; that those deserving death or fine may meet their reward; that causes may be brought before the proper judges, and due amends made for defaults; that the compensation for murder may be fully paid; that property may be equitably divided; that what is borrowed may be restored; that gifts may become the undoubted property of the receiver; that debts may be paid and credits received agreeably to the customs that have been ever in force beneath the heavens and on the face of the earth.
The kulah or bamboo, containing very nearly a gallon, is the general standard of measure among the Rejangs: of these eight hundred make a koyan: the chupah is one quarter of a bamboo. By this measure almost all articles, even elephants' teeth, are bought and sold; but by a bamboo of ivory they mean so much as is equal in weight to a bamboo of rice.
It is with this view that, when a single female only remains of a family, they marry her by ambel anak; in which mode the husband's consequence is lost in the wife's, and in her children the tungguan of her father is continued. They find her a husband that will menegga tungguan, or, as it is expressed amongst the Rejangs menegga rumah, set up the house again.
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