ABSTRACT
[The] partisans of [the] historical school of law looked for the permanent and official establishment in Indonesia of a traditional and largely unwritten customary law …. By using ethnological concepts and comparing the existing customary law in the various regions of Indonesia, van Vollenhoven demonstrated with great skill that there were certain common elements in all. He found, inter alia, a preponderance of communal over individual interests, a close relationship between man and the soil, an all-pervasive “magical” and religious pattern of thought, and a strongly family-oriented atmosphere in which every effort was made to resolve disputes through conciliation and mutual consideration ….
