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are, however, some who have from two to four gampōngs in their charge.
We have already noticed and shall presently deal with in greater detail the Achehnese adat according to which the husband takes up his abode with the family of his wife.
In connection with this custom it will be understood that it is particularly desirable for a future keuchiʾ to marry in his own gampōng as otherwise his place of abode as a married man would lie within the sphere of another keuchiʾ, and he would appear in his own territory as a stranger and be obliged to lodge in the meunasah.
There are however exceptions to the rule that the husband follows the wife, and to these belong such cases as that of a keuchiʾ who finds himself constrained by circumstances to marry a woman from a different village. With the approval of the family or rather of the authorities of the gampōng of the woman, the latter may then accompany her husband to the scene of his official labours.
Sources of income of the keuchiʾ.We have called the office of a village headman an honorary one, and indeed the sources of income to which he may lay claim according to the adat are scarcely worth mentioning. They are in fact confined to what is called the haʾ katib or haʾ chupéng, the fees for his indispensable help in the arrangement of the marriage of a woman of his gampōng. Even though everyone adds what his means allow to the amount, absurdly small for these times, of ¼ of a dollar (samaïh = one mas) allowed by the adat, the total income derivable from this source remains extremely small. As the keuchiʾ has no real judicial power, the only profit he can obtain from the fines and costs of process which the administration of justice brings in to the ulèëbalang takes the form of a present for his trouble in bringing the parties from his gampōng and collecting the requisite evidence for the questions at issue. The same holds good of the percentages levied by the ulèëbalang on the division of heritages and other similar sources of income.
There are however other methods—part permitted, part underhand,—by which the keuchiʾ can derive some slight profit from an office as burdensome as it is honourable.
It is no part of his duty to augment the number of lawsuits between the people of his gampōng; on the contrary he must try, like a good father, to bring every difference to an amicable settlement. Suppose now that a case presents itself in regard to which he can say with certainty that if brought before the ulèëbalang it would involve payment of a
