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houses separated from one another and from the gampōng-paths (jurōng) by fences; then the whole gampōng surrounded by a fence of its own, and connected by a gate with the main road (rèt or ròt) which leads through fields and gardens (blang and lampōïh) and tertiary jungle (tamah) to other similar gampōngs.
Real forest (uteuën) is less often to be found in the neighbourhood of gampōngs in the lowlands than in the Tunòng, and virgin jungle (rimba) in the Tunòng only.
Accepting as accurate our hypothesis with regard to the kawōms, namely that they were originally separate in a territorial as well as a tribal sense, we may then assume that in former times each gampōng comprised a kawōm or a subdivision of one, which added to its numbers only by marriages within its own enclosure, or at most with the women of neighbouring fellow-tribesmen. The former headmen of the gampōngs would in this case have been the panglimas of the kawōms. Later on, however, came the great step in the advance of political development, by which chiefs or princes (ulèëbalangs) were made rulers over the inhabihants of a certain district, without distinction of kawōm or sukèë. To this was added the residence together in one and the same village of people of different kawōms, their intermixture by marriage etc. So soon as this had come to pass, the head of the tribe had to give place to the head of the village, and depended for his authority as much on the will of the lord of the province as on the recognition of his fellow-villagers.
Many usages and customary laws may have succeeded in surviving this reform, and that such was the case appears probable from the primitive nature of adats which are still observed. In one respect, however, a change must gradually have crept in; the chief of the village naturally found duty coincide with inclination in wresting for himself as much as possible of the authority of the panglima kawōm, and the ulèëbalang whose deputy he was, was certain to lend him his full support in this.
Much, in fact most of the old adat kawōm was thus transformed to adat gampōng, and the enforcement of this adat became the task of the headman of the gampōng. Only the blood-feuds, which according to Achehnese ideas are matters of a most private nature, yet cannot be confined to the circle of a single family, remained in the hands of the chiefs of the kawōms.
Such is, briefly stated, the most probable history of the formation
