The Level of Meaning: Systems of Property Relationships in Minangkabau

Abstract

In the last two chapters an exposition has been given for the detailed study of the systems of property relationships through the description of the basic principles of the socio-political organization and of the administrative and legal pluralism in which they operate and of which they are part. I have until now spoken of Adat, Islamic Law and Written Law as “bodies” or “systems” of conceptions. I should like to emphasize that this was a description of ethnographic facts, for in the official legal system of Indonesia, in the social processes which deal with property and inheritance, and in the knowledge of the Minangkabau these three bodies of conceptions are treated as distinct systems. In this chapter, I shall describe the substantive content of these systems.