ÖÖI 8x 3 ^c- 0 - Acehbooks.org

402 S U M A T R A .
fwear himfelf: nor are there wanting apparent examples to confirm
them in this notion. Any accident that happens to a man, who has
been known to take a falfe oath, or to his children or grand children,
is carefully recorded in memory, and attributed to this fole caufe.
Dupatty Goonong Ceylong and his family, have afforded an inftance that is
often.quoted among the Rejangs, and has evidently had great weight.
It was notorious, that he had about the year T770, taken, in the moft
folemn manner, a falfe oath. He had at that time five fons grown vip to
manhood. One of them, foon after, in a fcuffle with fome higgmffes
(country foldiers) was wounded, and died. The Dupatty, the next year,
loft his life in the iflue of a difturbance he had raifed in the diftridt. Two
of the fons died afterwards, within a week of each other. Mas Caddah,
the fourth, is blind ; and ïreman, the fifth, lame. All this is attributed
to, and firmly believed to be the confequence of the father's perjury.
In adminiftering an oath, if the matter litigated refpeéfcs the property of
the grandfather, all the collateral branches of the family defcended from
him, are underfiood to be included in its operation : if the father's effects
only are concerned, or the tranfa&ion happened in his life time, his
defcendants are included: if the affair regards only the prefent parties,
and originated with them, they and their immediate defcendants only,
are comprehended in the confequences of the oath. Thefe oaths they
accordingly call foempah feping addo naynay, or feping addo bapa; and if
any fingie one of thefe defcendants refufe to join in the oath, it vitiates
the whole; that is, it has the fame effect, as if the party himfelf refufed
to fwear : a cafe that not unfrequently occurs. It may be obferved that
the fpirit of this cuftom, tends to the requiring a weight of evidence, and
an increafe of the importance of the oath, in proportion as the diftance
of time renders the faét to be eftablifhed, lefs capable of proof in the
ordinary way.
Sometimes the difficulty of the cafe alone, will induce the court to
infift on adminiftering the oath to the relations of the parties, although
they are no ways concerned in the tranfa&ion. I recolledt an inftance
where