This book with an interpretative introduction, as an authoritative study of the law of the native peoples of a society which, although on the brink of entering into modem world civilization, has retained much of its traditional life and thought. The inner development of that society, and not least its system of public and private law, has of late become a matter of world concern. Already questions have been raised as to the extent to which the formation of national governments and the growth of nationalist attitudes in the Western Pacific and in Southeast Asia will affect the relative status of Eastern and of Western law. No one is as yet in a position to anticipate the outcome of the present struggle between two conflicting tendencies: on the one side, the desire of political leaders to assert the equivalence of the indigenous culture, hence also of the old-inherited legal concepts and practices, on the other side the desire to bring the internal economics and social development of their respective countries as rapidly and as fully as possible into harmony with the demands of the attained or desired statehood and of participation in the rising structure of international collaboration.