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According to the adat the only proper method of proving the crime is for the ulèëbalang to establish the fact by personal investigation at the scene of the theft, and to identify the thief, a process known to the Achehnese as peusah[1] panchuri.
In the XXVI Mukims this peusah should according to the adat be carried out only by the panglima sagi[2], and in the XXV by any ulèëbalang; in some parts of the XXII Mukims the ulèëbalang if he reside at too great a distance may be replaced by a conclave of three imeums[3].
The elders and those learned in adat are wont to enumerate four sorts of testimony, which whether taken alone or in conjunction give the right to regard the accused as a thief. The Achehnese have a great preference for the number four. They are also fond of employing in the discussion of adat-subjects terms which no one fully understands, and in regard to which every successive speaker can thus exhibit greater wisdom than his predecessor. These four traditional forms of proof are as follows:
1°. yad (Arab. properly = "hand") i.e. that the suspected party has been seen lurking in the neighbourhood of the house of him whose goods have been stolen; 2°. kinayat (Arab. = "covered or metaphorical proof") i.e. that he has been seen to enter the house; 3°. peunyabét (from Arab. thābit = established, "that which establishes a fact") i. e. that he has been seen holding or touching the stolen object; and 4°. haleuë meuë (properly ḥalāl = "permitted" and māl = "goods, object of possession") i.e. that he has been discovered with the stolen object in his possession.
Other kinds of evidence are mentioned, but these are all equally remote from the original as well as the technical sense of the Arabic words; and these words themselves do not appear in any such connection in the Mohammedan law, with the exception of yad, which means actual possession.
In practice however they do not confine themselves to these rather more than vague rules. The peusah generally rests on the ground that the body of the slain thief has been found lying close to or in the neighbourhood of the stolen object, which token (tanda) is still further
- ↑ The causative of sah (Arab. çaḥḥ) = true, certain; the word thus means: to declare as certain, ascertain.
- ↑ I have grave doubts of this as I received the information from the present panglima of this sagi himself, a young man who has little reliable knowledge of the ancient adats.
- ↑ Cf. p. 87 above.
