The social organisation and customary law of the Toba-Batak of northern Sumatra / by J. C., Vergouwen with a preface by J. Keuning.

En la portada: "Publication commissioned and financed by The Netherlands Institute for International Cultural Relations".

Introduction -- The genealogy of the Batak people -- Genealogical structure: the kinship system -- Religious concepts -- The corporate communities (haradjaon) -- Some general observations -- Matrimonial law (Adat pardongan-saripeon) -- Inheritance Law (Adat taringot tu tading-tadingan) -- The law of land tenure (Adat partanoon) -- The law relating to debts (Adat dibagasan pardabu-dabuanon) -- The law of offences (Panguhumon tu angka parsala) -- Settling disputes (Ruhut ni parhataon) – Appendices – Index of Batak words – Legal maxims and aphorisms – Tapanuli: map of the tribal areas.

J. c. Vergouwen 's work , H et R echtsleven der T'oba-Bataks, here presented in an English translation, was published in the autumn of 1933, a few weeks before the author' s death at the early age of 44 from tuberculosis, from which he had suffere d since 1930. Durin g the time he spent in a sanatorium in Davos and later in the Netherlands, he began and completed his mono graph on th e customary law of the Toba-Batak. His book immediately became one of the outstanding works of Dutch scholarship on Indonesian customary law (Adat law).