Court List

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            "id": 249,
            "year_from": 1632,
            "year_to": 1889,
            "description": " Clan elders fulfilled judicial, but also ceremonial and other duties: 'The oldest kinsman in the clan, or the [unknown]iye-[unknown]usa , is always heaped with honors, if he is both rich and has never been put on trial. To him pertains the jurisdiction in trifling quarrels between kinsfolk. The following ceremonies serve to recall the religious functions that he (Ysekh) formerly exercised a. At the time of the spring festival, which bears a strictly clan character, they bring to him, first of all, a large wooden vessel ( Choron ) containing kumiss; he pronounces a prayer of thanks to the gods and then pours the kumiss upon the fire. b. At the time of the arrival of the betrothed at the bridegroom’s yurt, they take from the sleigh of the betrothed, and place upon a table in front of the fire place the boiled head of a horse, whose eyes are covered with butter, to whose ears are attached intestines filled with horse’s blood, and a wooden cup filled with butter. After this the betrothed enters the yurt, and stands, having first untied her girdle, on the right side of the komelok [RCH: i. e., the fireplace] where she is met by the oldest kinsman, whose place is sometimes taken nowadays by the most honored guest, who, kneeling, throws into the fire pieces of meat, blood and butter, and blesses the bride. For the completion of this ceremony, whose obvious object is to unite the bride with the bridegroom’s home, the oldest kinsman secures for his use the head, blood and butter brought into the yurt, and in addition the sum of one ruble.' §REF§Kharuzin, Aleksai Nikolaevich 1898. “Juridicial Customs Of The Yakut”, 40p§REF§ Clans also handled criminal cases and litigation in assemblies of elders: 'I shall end this survey of Yakut clan institutions and their self-government by a note about Yakut legal procedure. Strictly speaking the Yakut court is the assembly: the clan, nasleg, or ulus assembly, depending on the circumstances. These courts are under each other's jurisdiction as courts of appeal. The Yakut enjoy waging law suits against each other and witnessing court proceedings. More important matters are always handed over to the assembly. At the assembly the wealthy people usually put in their comments, which areheard attentively, and although the final judgement is pronounced by the chairman of the assembly, he usually simply transmits a condensed form of the general opinion. The ligitants stand before the presiding clansmen with their heads bare, and, frequently nodding their heads and, while making the most important points, making deep bows from the waist, each in turn expound their case. Witnesses are called forth and interrogated on the spot, while unruly witnesses are brought by policemen. The judges always have to sit. In some localities it is customary for the judges to wear caps on their head.' §REF§Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 797§REF§ Criminal cases were transferred to Russian courts only after 1889: 'Nevertheless until very r ecently and even criminal cases such as beatings, personal injury, and thefts, even for a considerable amount, as long as a house was not broken into, were judged by the clan administration. Only from the year 1889, when an order came out to proceed against the trible authorities if they did not communicate such matters, have thefts begun to be referred to the Russian courts and judged according to Russian laws. For theft the Yakut usually punished wealthy people by a fine which was two or three times the value of the stolen article, depending on the circumstances. For beatings and personal injuries they sentenced the guilty party to support the injured party during his disablement or to pay him a lump sum. Now the guilty are put in prison, and to the great horror of their neighbors they usually leave out and out scoundrels. Such crimes as the violation of women, the breaking of agreements, fraud, and forgery were apparently unknown to the Yakut and went unpunished. But the violation of the wedding agreement was provided for by the kalym. At the present time most of the cases and statements of claim which come before the clan administrations concern the violation of boundary lines and various disputed lands.' §REF§Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 798§REF§ Sieroszewski's material on punishment seems to refer to Yakut assemblies rather than Russian courts: 'In 1867, according to official data, 1870 cases were judged in the upravas in the vicinity of Yakutsk: out of the total, 1855 concerned land disputes; in the Vilyuysk Okrug, out of 3786 cases, more than half had to do with land. Besides levying fines the Yakut also punish a guilty party by reprimanding him publicly, before the assembly, by sending him on some job, or putting him into solitary confinement. The latter is apparently a Russian innovation. Punishment with birch-rods was quite unknown to the Yakut in the past. Even now they have recourse to this very rarely and with great distaste. In the north they did not even know what this was like, and once, in the Kolymsk Ulus, when the assembly did not known what to do with one of its disobedient members and decided, on the advice of some Yakut who had come from the south, to flog him, they turned to me with questions: where should we beat him?, and do we have to lay him down and undress him or is that not permitted? (Kolymsk Ulus, Undzha, 1883). Usually the influence of the commune is quite sufficient to exert necessary compulsion. In the south, where the ties of the commune have weakened, we find disobedient people whose cattle are taken away as a punishment, or who are forced to obey. Many decisions of the clan assemblies astonished me by their strangeness, but once I looked closer into their life and made thorough inquiries into their motives I always found at the bottom a deep respect for the individual and a striving toward equality. Naturally I say nothing about those decisions which are demonstrably incorrect, and not in accord with custom and the conscience of the people, but which they have been forced to make because of the economic pressure of unscrupulous rich people or because of administrative arbitrariness.' §REF§Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 799§REF§ Clerical courts occasionally prosecuted polygamy prior to that date: 'Such polygamy, which is tolerated for the above reasons, and which has existed since ancient times and does not do any harm, had not become bad in the judgement of the Yakut, and no regulations for the abolition of this custom have been set up by the Yakut. However, since the Yakut adopted the Christian faith, and as they have become enlightened by strict surveillance and sometimes by indulgent reprimands from the eparchial priests, it has been gradually dying out, but nevertheless denunciations on this subject are made concerning people who have lawfully wedded wives but keep the others, and people who had several wives before conversion and married one of them in church without leaving the others, who were left at home with their children; in the case of such a denunciation the local authorities, on the grounds of the repugnance of the Christian religion for this custom, pressed formal charges, and the guilty parties were handed over to the clerical court as fornicators, and the cases were decided according to general state laws, which constituted and still constitute and extreme burden for the Yakut.' §REF§Samokvasov, D. I. A. 1876. “Collection Of Customary Law Of The Siberian Natives”, 14§REF§",
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                "id": 195,
                "name": "RuYakuL",
                "start_year": 1632,
                "end_year": 1900,
                "long_name": "Sakha - Late",
                "new_name": "ru_sakha_late",
                "polity_tag": "LEGACY",
                "general_description": "The Lena River Valley, also known as Sakha, is a territory in eastern Siberia over four times the size of Texas. §REF§ (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 1) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV</a>. §REF§  One of the coldest places on Earth, it has been home to the Sakha people since at least the 13th century CE. §REF§ (Gogolev 1992, 65) Gogolev, A. I. 1992. “Basic Stages of the Formation of the Yakut People.” Anthropology &amp; Archeology of Eurasia 31 (2): 63-69. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/F428XZIE\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/F428XZIE</a>. §REF§  Cossacks first arrived in the 1620s, and after a long siege of a Sakha fortified settlement, the entire region was placed under tribute to the Russian czar in 1642. §REF§ (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 2) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV</a>. §REF§  The region remained under czarist control until the Russian Revolution, when it was one of the last Russian territories to be consolidated under the new regime. §REF§ (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 2) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV</a>. §REF§ <br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>Prior to Russian rule, the region was not politically centralized. Early Sakha communities were governed by lineage councils, clans, and elders rather than a bureaucratic state apparatus. §REF§ (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 7) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV</a>. §REF§  After the Russian occupation, the czarist administration imposed taxes and established an administrative infrastructure. §REF§ (Jochelson 1933, 220) Jochelson, Waldemar. 1933. The Yakut. Vol. 33. Anthropological Papers of the AMNH. New York: The American Museum of Natural History. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FTJS2I4W\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FTJS2I4W</a>. §REF§  For most of the rest of its Russian history, the territory was controlled by governors under the umbrella of the czarist regime. §REF§ (Jochelson 1933, 224) Jochelson, Waldemar. 1933. The Yakut. Vol. 33. Anthropological Papers of the AMNH. New York: The American Museum of Natural History. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FTJS2I4W\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FTJS2I4W</a>. §REF§ <br>It is difficult to find population estimates forSakha. It was very sparsely populated, and according to one account of a late 18th-century expedition to the region, the district of Gigansk (in the Lena River Valley) had 4834 'tributary natives' in 1784 but only 1938 by 1789. §REF§ (Sauer 1802, 112) Sauer, Martin. 1802. An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia. London: T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, in the Strand. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/WEZG6MTS\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/WEZG6MTS</a>. §REF§  The account unfortunately does not provide figures for the entirety of the province.",
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                    "name": "Lena River Valley",
                    "subregion": "Siberia",
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                    "latitude": "63.462822242300",
                    "capital_city": "Yakutsk",
                    "nga_code": "YAK",
                    "fao_country": "Russia",
                    "world_region": "Central Eurasia"
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                    "id": 11,
                    "name": "Siberia",
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        {
            "id": 91,
            "year_from": 1841,
            "year_to": 1924,
            "description": " The judicial disputes presided over by village headmen do not constitute courts in the conventional sense of the term: 'The responsibility of the headman is to look after the affairs of his anak-biak , or followers, and, as a matter of course, he is expected to know every aspect of customary adat . If a dispute is referred to the headman, he will attempt to settle it with the help of the Tuai Umai or Tuai Burong (the farm leader or augury expert, respectively), and other village members who are well versed in customary adat . The Tuai Burong is an expert in various kinds of augury as well as being well versed in the genealogies and history of his community.' §REF§Sandin, Benedict, and Clifford Sather 1980. “Iban Adat And Augury”, 3§REF§ But the Brooke administration established courts on district/polity level: 'By 1900, Brooke control of Sarawak was fairly well established. The government was gradually extending its efforts into such fields as agricultural research. As it established a system of courts and law, effort was made, whenever possible, to codify and preserve local customary law ( adat ). From this time on, the mainstream of Iban migration was much less violent, despite cultural ideals, and as we will see, much slower. However, government regulations notwithstanding, the migrations did not cease.' §REF§Austin, Robert Frederi. 1978. “Iban Migration: Patterns Of Mobility And Employment In The 20Th Century”, 16§REF§ Iban communities occasionally made use of the colonial system of courts seeking verdicts in translocal matters: 'The Chinese-Iban relationship was not entirely harmonious. The Chinese sometimes cheated their customers by using rigged scales to weigh jungle produce, but the Ibans retaliated by mixing earth and other trash into the gutta, and later they learned to practice similar tricks with cultivated rubber as well. The early outstation Chinese were often rough and roistering, the Ibans were hot tempered, and communal quarrels inevitably occurred. Ibans sometimes protested in the Simanggang court when rowdy shopkeepers pinched the exposed bosoms of their women. After one such incident the magistrate observed, “More than one complaint has been made by Dayaks of Chinamen behaving thus, and it is disgraceful that a woman cannot walk in the bazaar without being assaulted in an indecent manner by Chinamen.”' §REF§Pringle, Robert Maxwell 1968. “Ibans Of Sarawak Under Brooke Rule, 1841-1941”, 490§REF§ We have assumed the same provisional date of transition as above.",
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            "polity": {
                "id": 154,
                "name": "IdBrokL",
                "start_year": 1841,
                "end_year": 1987,
                "long_name": "Iban - Brooke Raj and Colonial",
                "new_name": "id_iban_2",
                "polity_tag": "LEGACY",
                "general_description": "The Kapuasi basin is located in Western Kalimantan, in Borneo, and has long been inhabited by the Iban or Dayak. These are a river people whose culture emphasizes individual resourcefulness, egalitarianism, personal mobility, and opening new land for settlement. §REF§ (Sandin 1980, xi) Sandin, Benedict. 1980. Iban Adat And Augury. Penang: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia for School of Comparative Social Sciences. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/3I4RXPUZ\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/3I4RXPUZ</a>. §REF§  The Iban in fact trace their origins to the Kapuasi basin, and it was from there that they aggressively expanded their territory between the 17th and the 19th centuries, practising headhunting and slavery. §REF§ (Sutlive and Beierle 1995) Sutlive Jr., Vinson H., and John Beierle. 1995. “Culture Summary: Iban.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4</a>. §REF§  In 1841, Iban expansion was checked by British adventurer James Brooke, of the so-called Brooke Raj. This pushed some Iban westward, while others became part of the Raj itself. The governed Iban communities were relatively autonomous in the regulation of local matters, although a colonial administrative structure was superimposed onto the Iban system. The White Rajahs sought to suppress infighting and mobilize Iban communities for their own military interests.  §REF§ (Gomes 1911, 77) Gomes, Edwin H. 1911. Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo: A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean Jungles. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott &amp; Co. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/N6JNADA8\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/N6JNADA8</a>. §REF§  With the exception of a period of Japanese control during the Second World War, §REF§ (Andaya and Andaya 2016, 261-68) Andaya, Barbara Watson, and Leonard Y. Andaya. 2016. A History of Malaysia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/VXPWW92R\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/VXPWW92R</a>. §REF§  the British maintained control over this particular region up until Brunei's independence in 1984. §REF§ (Andaya 2008, 455) Andaya, Barbara Watson. 1992. “Political Development between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” In The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Vol. 1: From Early Times to C. 1800, edited by Nicholas Tarling, 402-59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/UQTUBXM2\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/UQTUBXM2</a>. §REF§ <br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>Before the establishment of the Brooke Raj, there were no permanent leaders among the Iban: instead, groups of family leaders directed the affairs of each house. Warriors, bards, augurs and other specialists could all become men of influence. James Brooke, as Rajah of Sarawak, created political positions, such as headman, regional chief and paramount chief, to better control Iban society, particularly in terms of extracting taxes and suppressing headhunting. Iban political organization also changed profoundly with the creation of permanent political positions and the establishment of political parties in the early 1960s. §REF§ (Sutlive and Beierle 1995) Sutlive Jr., Vinson H., and John Beierle. 1995. “Culture Summary: Iban.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4</a>. §REF§ <br>It seems that the Iban lived in autonomous longhouse communities of about 500 inhabitants each, both before and probably for some time after the imposition of Brooke Raj authority. §REF§ (Sutlive and Beierle 1995) Sutlive Jr., Vinson H., and John Beierle. 1995. “Culture Summary: Iban.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4</a>. §REF§  More recently, we know that the 1985 census for Sarawak estimates the number of Iban at around 439,000 people. §REF§ (Davison and Sutlive 1991, 158) Davison, Julian, Vinson H. Sutlive, and Vinson H. Sutlive. 1991. “Children of Nising: Images of Headhunting and Male Sexuality in Iban Ritual and Oral Literature.” In Female and Male in Borneo: Contributions and Challenges to Gender Studies, 153-230. Williamsburg, VA: Borneo Research Council. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/5U8X7Q5P\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/5U8X7Q5P</a>. §REF§ ",
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                    "id": 19,
                    "name": "Kapuasi Basin",
                    "subregion": "Indonesia",
                    "longitude": "112.405971685000",
                    "latitude": "0.774120813650",
                    "capital_city": "Borneo",
                    "nga_code": "KAL",
                    "fao_country": "Indonesia",
                    "world_region": "Southeast Asia"
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                "home_seshat_region": {
                    "id": 42,
                    "name": "Archipelago",
                    "subregions_list": "Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines",
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                        "id": 10,
                        "name": "Southeast Asia"
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        {
            "id": 358,
            "year_from": 1867,
            "year_to": 1918,
            "description": "“New courts of general jurisdiction under Joseph II operated on the first and second levels of adjudication and appeal and ignored ständisch differences; all citizens became subject to the same criminal code, with local inhabitants having a theoretical right of appeal from manorial courts to the royal courts. Local judges were forced to know the law, since appeals to royal courts were written, not oral. The regional Estates were nearly powerless to resist—they had no army, the great aristocrats had torn loyalties, and the provinces did not trust each other.”§REF§(Boyer 2022: 8) Boyer, John W. 2022. Austria, 1867–1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CG3P4KKD§REF§ “The destruction of rural dependency under Alexander Bach in the 1850s, together with the elaboration of a new, powerful system of regional and local administration—but controlled from Vienna— beginning in the early 1850s, reshaped the Austrian civil service in powerful ways that endured well into the twentieth century… A new civil court system of local and regional courts and separated from the civil administration was charged with the uniform implementation of the Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch across a new hierarchy of jurisdictions.§REF§(Boyer 2022: 51-52) Boyer, John W. 2022. Austria, 1867–1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CG3P4KKD§REF§",
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            "name": "Court",
            "court": "present",
            "polity": {
                "id": 567,
                "name": "at_habsburg_2",
                "start_year": 1649,
                "end_year": 1918,
                "long_name": "Austria - Habsburg Dynasty II",
                "new_name": "at_habsburg_2",
                "polity_tag": "LEGACY",
                "general_description": "The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended the Thirty Years' War, the Habsburgs faced the task of consolidating their fragmented territories, this era was marked by a series of succession wars, reflecting the Habsburgs' quest for territorial expansion and dynastic security.§REF§Arndt, Der Dreißigjährige Krieg.<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/PULFEDKX\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: PULFEDKX</b></a>§REF§\r\n\r\nThe beginning of the period saw the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession (1700-1714), a conflict over the vast inheritance of the Spanish Habsburgs. The war ended with the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt, which, while ceding the Spanish throne to the Bourbon Philip of Anjou, granted the Austrian Habsburgs significant territories in Italy and the Netherlands, reshaping the European balance of power.§REF§Schnettger, Der Spanische Erbfolgekrieg.<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HK6DTTSH\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: HK6DTTSH</b></a>§REF§\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIn mid-18th century the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) challenged Maria Theresa's right to her father's throne. Despite initial setbacks, including the loss of Silesia to Prussia, Maria Theresa confirmed her rule and laid the foundation for the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty.§REF§(Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Kriegsarchiv)<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/WC966X6J\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: WC966X6J</b></a>§REF§\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Seven Years' War (1756-1763) further tested the Habsburg power, as Maria Theresa sought to reclaim Silesia and counter Prussia’s rise. This global conflict, stretching from the heart of Europe to distant colonies, ended without altering the Silesian status quo but significantly realigned international alliances, setting the stage for future confrontations.§REF§Danley and Speelman, The Seven Years’ War.<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/AE3M256H\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: AE3M256H</b></a>§REF§\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAt the end of the 18th century, the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778-1779) once again pitted the Habsburgs against Prussia, this time over the strategic region of Bavaria on the question of succession to the Electorate of Bavaria after the extinction of the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach. The conflict ended with the Treaty of Teschen with only minor gains for the Habsburg monarchy.\r\n§REF§Michael Kotulla, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte: vom Alten Reich bis Weimar (1495 - 1934).<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/U84B9DNB\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: U84B9DNB</b></a>§REF§\r\n\r\n\r\nIn the 19th century, the Habsburg Empire faced the challenge of Napoleonic France which resulted in the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and the establishment of the Austrian Empire in 1804, Francis II became Francis I, Emperor of Austria.§REF§“Germany - Prussia, Napoleon, Reunification | Britannica.”<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/F52JWVA3\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: F52JWVA3</b></a>§REF§\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Congress of Vienna in 1815 which laid the foundation of the post Napoleonic order in central Europe.  further redefined the Habsburg realm, securing its status as a great power.§REF§Heinz Duchhardt, Der Wiener Kongress: die Neugestaltung Europas 1814/15.<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KQ7ZZYPE\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: KQ7ZZYPE</b></a>§REF§\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe revolutionary period of 1848, with its calls for liberalization and nationalism, profoundly challenged the imperial status quo, revealing the deep-seated tensions within its multi-ethnic composition.§REF§Dowe, Haupt, and Langewiesche, Europa 1848.<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZDEFI38W\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ZDEFI38W</b></a>§REF§\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIn response to these internal upheavals and the growing nationalist movements, “the Ausgleich” of 1867 with Hungary marked a pivotal compromise. This agreement gave rise to the Dual Austro-Hungarian Monarchy  (“k. u. k.-Monarchie).\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n“The Ausgleich (“compromise”) reached with Hungary in 1867 was a major concession for Franz Joseph, and it created the so-called dualist Austria-Hungary that existed until 1918… The arrangement was dualist because it was not federalist. Rather than parceling out the monarchy into a structure in which the Austro-German lands, the Czech lands, Galicia, and Hungary-Croatia would all have roughly equal weight, it was divided simply into two, the Hungarian half and the Austrian half. This latter was not really called “Austria” but rather “Cisleithania,” meaning “beyond the Leitha River,” which was the border between Austria and Hungary. The formal name of the Cisleithanian half was “the countries and realms represented in the Reichsrat,” which gives some indication of the insubstantial basis for common identity of those territories. The governmental link between these two halves was also minimal. Foreign and military policy belonged almost exclusively to Franz Joseph. He retained the power to appoint and dismiss ministers, who thus had only a partial responsibility to parliament, and he could reject laws passed by the Reichsrat. There was a joint financial ministry and tariff regime. But details such as Hungary’s share of the budget could be renegotiated every decade, which led to repeated political conflicts in the years ahead, so dualism’s division of powers was by no means entirely clear. Nearly everything else was separate. There were distinct parliaments for the Cisleithanian and Hungarian halves, and each half had its own administrative, legal, and school systems. The realm was designated as kaiserlich (“imperial”) for the Austrian Empire of Cisleithania and königlich (“royal”) for the Kingdom of Hungary. In practice, dualism meant that the Austro-Germans dominated the other peoples in their half, and the Hungarians the other peoples in theirs. In many ways, Hungary’s weight within the Dual Monarchy only grew after 1867, thanks to economic advances that in turn fed into greater assertiveness on the part of the Magyar elite… Ultimately, even the Austro-Germans and the Hungarians disliked dualism. The former resented Hungarians’ disproportionate weight in the monarchy, while the latter constantly pushed for more autonomy and resisted any changes that would reduce their weight. And virtually all the other national groups detested the arrangement because it unfairly excluded them.”  §REF§Berger, Der Österreichisch-ungarische Ausgleich von 1867.<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7SEQIFJ2\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: 7SEQIFJ2</b></a>§REF§\r\n\r\n\r\n“By the summer of 1918 the Habsburg dynasty’s death knell was ringing… Karl presided impotently over the progressive hollowing out of the whole monarchical state until there was almost nothing left that he actually governed. At the end of October the nearly 400-year-old monarchy dissolved in a matter of weeks. Karl issued a proposal for federalization on 16 October, but he and his idea were already irrelevant by that point. Gyula Andrássy, the last foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, said that the implicit logic behind the final, futile moves taken by the leadership was that “so that no one can kill us, we’ll commit suicide.” The initiative was instead firmly in the hands of the various national groups. On 18 October Romanians in Hungary called for union with the Kingdom of Romania. On the 21st the Germans of the monarchy declared their right to self-determination. On the 28th the Czech National Council declared independence, and on the 30th the new Czechoslovakia was officially formed. On the 29th the Croatian parliament formally dissolved its connections to Austria and Hungary and pledged to join the new Yugoslav kingdom. On the 31st the Ruthenians in Galicia announced their secession. On 1 November the Hungarians proclaimed their ties to the monarchy ended, followed ten days later by Galicia joining the new Polish republic. As all this was happening, Karl was still working at his desk in Schönbrunn, but the palace was mostly empty. Only a few loyal servants remained, since even his bodyguards had left. Finally on 11 November Karl signed papers that he was “temporarily” giving up his powers. He never formally abdicated but went into exile, first in Switzerland. Karl twice tried to retake the throne in Hungary in 1921, but after these unsuccessful attempts he was removed by the British to Madeira, where he died in 1922.”§REF§“Das Ende der Monarchie,” Die Welt der Habsburger, accessed February 4, 2024, https://www.habsburger.net/de/kapitel/das-ende-der-monarchie.<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/G9K39WS5\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: G9K39WS5</b></a>§REF§",
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        {
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            "description": " Clan elders fulfilled judicial, but also ceremonial and other duties: 'The oldest kinsman in the clan, or the [unknown]iye-[unknown]usa , is always heaped with honors, if he is both rich and has never been put on trial. To him pertains the jurisdiction in trifling quarrels between kinsfolk. The following ceremonies serve to recall the religious functions that he (Ysekh) formerly exercised a. At the time of the spring festival, which bears a strictly clan character, they bring to him, first of all, a large wooden vessel ( Choron ) containing kumiss; he pronounces a prayer of thanks to the gods and then pours the kumiss upon the fire. b. At the time of the arrival of the betrothed at the bridegroom’s yurt, they take from the sleigh of the betrothed, and place upon a table in front of the fire place the boiled head of a horse, whose eyes are covered with butter, to whose ears are attached intestines filled with horse’s blood, and a wooden cup filled with butter. After this the betrothed enters the yurt, and stands, having first untied her girdle, on the right side of the komelok [RCH: i. e., the fireplace] where she is met by the oldest kinsman, whose place is sometimes taken nowadays by the most honored guest, who, kneeling, throws into the fire pieces of meat, blood and butter, and blesses the bride. For the completion of this ceremony, whose obvious object is to unite the bride with the bridegroom’s home, the oldest kinsman secures for his use the head, blood and butter brought into the yurt, and in addition the sum of one ruble.' §REF§Kharuzin, Aleksai Nikolaevich 1898. “Juridicial Customs Of The Yakut”, 40p§REF§ Clans also handled criminal cases and litigation in assemblies of elders: 'I shall end this survey of Yakut clan institutions and their self-government by a note about Yakut legal procedure. Strictly speaking the Yakut court is the assembly: the clan, nasleg, or ulus assembly, depending on the circumstances. These courts are under each other's jurisdiction as courts of appeal. The Yakut enjoy waging law suits against each other and witnessing court proceedings. More important matters are always handed over to the assembly. At the assembly the wealthy people usually put in their comments, which areheard attentively, and although the final judgement is pronounced by the chairman of the assembly, he usually simply transmits a condensed form of the general opinion. The ligitants stand before the presiding clansmen with their heads bare, and, frequently nodding their heads and, while making the most important points, making deep bows from the waist, each in turn expound their case. Witnesses are called forth and interrogated on the spot, while unruly witnesses are brought by policemen. The judges always have to sit. In some localities it is customary for the judges to wear caps on their head.' §REF§Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 797§REF§ Criminal cases were transferred to Russian courts only after 1889: 'Nevertheless until very r ecently and even criminal cases such as beatings, personal injury, and thefts, even for a considerable amount, as long as a house was not broken into, were judged by the clan administration. Only from the year 1889, when an order came out to proceed against the trible authorities if they did not communicate such matters, have thefts begun to be referred to the Russian courts and judged according to Russian laws. For theft the Yakut usually punished wealthy people by a fine which was two or three times the value of the stolen article, depending on the circumstances. For beatings and personal injuries they sentenced the guilty party to support the injured party during his disablement or to pay him a lump sum. Now the guilty are put in prison, and to the great horror of their neighbors they usually leave out and out scoundrels. Such crimes as the violation of women, the breaking of agreements, fraud, and forgery were apparently unknown to the Yakut and went unpunished. But the violation of the wedding agreement was provided for by the kalym. At the present time most of the cases and statements of claim which come before the clan administrations concern the violation of boundary lines and various disputed lands.' §REF§Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 798§REF§ Sieroszewski's material on punishment seems to refer to Yakut assemblies rather than Russian courts: 'In 1867, according to official data, 1870 cases were judged in the upravas in the vicinity of Yakutsk: out of the total, 1855 concerned land disputes; in the Vilyuysk Okrug, out of 3786 cases, more than half had to do with land. Besides levying fines the Yakut also punish a guilty party by reprimanding him publicly, before the assembly, by sending him on some job, or putting him into solitary confinement. The latter is apparently a Russian innovation. Punishment with birch-rods was quite unknown to the Yakut in the past. Even now they have recourse to this very rarely and with great distaste. In the north they did not even know what this was like, and once, in the Kolymsk Ulus, when the assembly did not known what to do with one of its disobedient members and decided, on the advice of some Yakut who had come from the south, to flog him, they turned to me with questions: where should we beat him?, and do we have to lay him down and undress him or is that not permitted? (Kolymsk Ulus, Undzha, 1883). Usually the influence of the commune is quite sufficient to exert necessary compulsion. In the south, where the ties of the commune have weakened, we find disobedient people whose cattle are taken away as a punishment, or who are forced to obey. Many decisions of the clan assemblies astonished me by their strangeness, but once I looked closer into their life and made thorough inquiries into their motives I always found at the bottom a deep respect for the individual and a striving toward equality. Naturally I say nothing about those decisions which are demonstrably incorrect, and not in accord with custom and the conscience of the people, but which they have been forced to make because of the economic pressure of unscrupulous rich people or because of administrative arbitrariness.' §REF§Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 799§REF§ Clerical courts occasionally prosecuted polygamy prior to that date: 'Such polygamy, which is tolerated for the above reasons, and which has existed since ancient times and does not do any harm, had not become bad in the judgement of the Yakut, and no regulations for the abolition of this custom have been set up by the Yakut. However, since the Yakut adopted the Christian faith, and as they have become enlightened by strict surveillance and sometimes by indulgent reprimands from the eparchial priests, it has been gradually dying out, but nevertheless denunciations on this subject are made concerning people who have lawfully wedded wives but keep the others, and people who had several wives before conversion and married one of them in church without leaving the others, who were left at home with their children; in the case of such a denunciation the local authorities, on the grounds of the repugnance of the Christian religion for this custom, pressed formal charges, and the guilty parties were handed over to the clerical court as fornicators, and the cases were decided according to general state laws, which constituted and still constitute and extreme burden for the Yakut.' §REF§Samokvasov, D. I. A. 1876. “Collection Of Customary Law Of The Siberian Natives”, 14§REF§",
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            "polity": {
                "id": 195,
                "name": "RuYakuL",
                "start_year": 1632,
                "end_year": 1900,
                "long_name": "Sakha - Late",
                "new_name": "ru_sakha_late",
                "polity_tag": "LEGACY",
                "general_description": "The Lena River Valley, also known as Sakha, is a territory in eastern Siberia over four times the size of Texas. §REF§ (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 1) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV</a>. §REF§  One of the coldest places on Earth, it has been home to the Sakha people since at least the 13th century CE. §REF§ (Gogolev 1992, 65) Gogolev, A. I. 1992. “Basic Stages of the Formation of the Yakut People.” Anthropology &amp; Archeology of Eurasia 31 (2): 63-69. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/F428XZIE\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/F428XZIE</a>. §REF§  Cossacks first arrived in the 1620s, and after a long siege of a Sakha fortified settlement, the entire region was placed under tribute to the Russian czar in 1642. §REF§ (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 2) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV</a>. §REF§  The region remained under czarist control until the Russian Revolution, when it was one of the last Russian territories to be consolidated under the new regime. §REF§ (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 2) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV</a>. §REF§ <br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>Prior to Russian rule, the region was not politically centralized. Early Sakha communities were governed by lineage councils, clans, and elders rather than a bureaucratic state apparatus. §REF§ (Balzer and Skoggard 1997, 7) Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam, and Ian Skoggard. 1997. “Culture Summary: Yakut.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=rv02-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/GD78HCEV</a>. §REF§  After the Russian occupation, the czarist administration imposed taxes and established an administrative infrastructure. §REF§ (Jochelson 1933, 220) Jochelson, Waldemar. 1933. The Yakut. Vol. 33. Anthropological Papers of the AMNH. New York: The American Museum of Natural History. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FTJS2I4W\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FTJS2I4W</a>. §REF§  For most of the rest of its Russian history, the territory was controlled by governors under the umbrella of the czarist regime. §REF§ (Jochelson 1933, 224) Jochelson, Waldemar. 1933. The Yakut. Vol. 33. Anthropological Papers of the AMNH. New York: The American Museum of Natural History. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FTJS2I4W\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FTJS2I4W</a>. §REF§ <br>It is difficult to find population estimates forSakha. It was very sparsely populated, and according to one account of a late 18th-century expedition to the region, the district of Gigansk (in the Lena River Valley) had 4834 'tributary natives' in 1784 but only 1938 by 1789. §REF§ (Sauer 1802, 112) Sauer, Martin. 1802. An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia. London: T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, in the Strand. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/WEZG6MTS\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/WEZG6MTS</a>. §REF§  The account unfortunately does not provide figures for the entirety of the province.",
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            "id": 359,
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            "description": "On January 4th, 1923, the Presidium of the Government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) adopted a resolution on the Provisional Composition of the RSFSR Supreme Court. It was made public on January 10th, 1923, in Order No. 1 of the Supreme Court.\r\n\r\nThe RSFSR Supreme Court performed judicial supervision over all courts of other Republics.§REF§ “Information about the Supreme Court.” Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, https://vsrf.ru/en/about/info/. Accessed 23 Nov. 2023.<a href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ECHKATUG\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"fw-bolder\"> <b> Zotero link: ECHKATUG</b></a>§REF§",
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            "year_from": 1924,
            "year_to": 1987,
            "description": " The judicial disputes presided over by village headmen do not constitute courts in the conventional sense of the term: 'The responsibility of the headman is to look after the affairs of his anak-biak , or followers, and, as a matter of course, he is expected to know every aspect of customary adat . If a dispute is referred to the headman, he will attempt to settle it with the help of the Tuai Umai or Tuai Burong (the farm leader or augury expert, respectively), and other village members who are well versed in customary adat . The Tuai Burong is an expert in various kinds of augury as well as being well versed in the genealogies and history of his community.' §REF§Sandin, Benedict, and Clifford Sather 1980. “Iban Adat And Augury”, 3§REF§ But the Brooke administration established courts on district/polity level: 'By 1900, Brooke control of Sarawak was fairly well established. The government was gradually extending its efforts into such fields as agricultural research. As it established a system of courts and law, effort was made, whenever possible, to codify and preserve local customary law ( adat ). From this time on, the mainstream of Iban migration was much less violent, despite cultural ideals, and as we will see, much slower. However, government regulations notwithstanding, the migrations did not cease.' §REF§Austin, Robert Frederi. 1978. “Iban Migration: Patterns Of Mobility And Employment In The 20Th Century”, 16§REF§ Iban communities occasionally made use of the colonial system of courts seeking verdicts in translocal matters: 'The Chinese-Iban relationship was not entirely harmonious. The Chinese sometimes cheated their customers by using rigged scales to weigh jungle produce, but the Ibans retaliated by mixing earth and other trash into the gutta, and later they learned to practice similar tricks with cultivated rubber as well. The early outstation Chinese were often rough and roistering, the Ibans were hot tempered, and communal quarrels inevitably occurred. Ibans sometimes protested in the Simanggang court when rowdy shopkeepers pinched the exposed bosoms of their women. After one such incident the magistrate observed, “More than one complaint has been made by Dayaks of Chinamen behaving thus, and it is disgraceful that a woman cannot walk in the bazaar without being assaulted in an indecent manner by Chinamen.”' §REF§Pringle, Robert Maxwell 1968. “Ibans Of Sarawak Under Brooke Rule, 1841-1941”, 490§REF§ We have assumed the same provisional date of transition as above.",
            "note": null,
            "finalized": true,
            "created_date": null,
            "modified_date": null,
            "tag": "IFR",
            "is_disputed": false,
            "is_uncertain": false,
            "expert_reviewed": true,
            "drb_reviewed": null,
            "name": "court",
            "court": "present",
            "polity": {
                "id": 154,
                "name": "IdBrokL",
                "start_year": 1841,
                "end_year": 1987,
                "long_name": "Iban - Brooke Raj and Colonial",
                "new_name": "id_iban_2",
                "polity_tag": "LEGACY",
                "general_description": "The Kapuasi basin is located in Western Kalimantan, in Borneo, and has long been inhabited by the Iban or Dayak. These are a river people whose culture emphasizes individual resourcefulness, egalitarianism, personal mobility, and opening new land for settlement. §REF§ (Sandin 1980, xi) Sandin, Benedict. 1980. Iban Adat And Augury. Penang: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia for School of Comparative Social Sciences. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/3I4RXPUZ\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/3I4RXPUZ</a>. §REF§  The Iban in fact trace their origins to the Kapuasi basin, and it was from there that they aggressively expanded their territory between the 17th and the 19th centuries, practising headhunting and slavery. §REF§ (Sutlive and Beierle 1995) Sutlive Jr., Vinson H., and John Beierle. 1995. “Culture Summary: Iban.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4</a>. §REF§  In 1841, Iban expansion was checked by British adventurer James Brooke, of the so-called Brooke Raj. This pushed some Iban westward, while others became part of the Raj itself. The governed Iban communities were relatively autonomous in the regulation of local matters, although a colonial administrative structure was superimposed onto the Iban system. The White Rajahs sought to suppress infighting and mobilize Iban communities for their own military interests.  §REF§ (Gomes 1911, 77) Gomes, Edwin H. 1911. Seventeen Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo: A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean Jungles. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott &amp; Co. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/N6JNADA8\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/N6JNADA8</a>. §REF§  With the exception of a period of Japanese control during the Second World War, §REF§ (Andaya and Andaya 2016, 261-68) Andaya, Barbara Watson, and Leonard Y. Andaya. 2016. A History of Malaysia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/VXPWW92R\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/VXPWW92R</a>. §REF§  the British maintained control over this particular region up until Brunei's independence in 1984. §REF§ (Andaya 2008, 455) Andaya, Barbara Watson. 1992. “Political Development between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” In The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Vol. 1: From Early Times to C. 1800, edited by Nicholas Tarling, 402-59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/UQTUBXM2\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/UQTUBXM2</a>. §REF§ <br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>Before the establishment of the Brooke Raj, there were no permanent leaders among the Iban: instead, groups of family leaders directed the affairs of each house. Warriors, bards, augurs and other specialists could all become men of influence. James Brooke, as Rajah of Sarawak, created political positions, such as headman, regional chief and paramount chief, to better control Iban society, particularly in terms of extracting taxes and suppressing headhunting. Iban political organization also changed profoundly with the creation of permanent political positions and the establishment of political parties in the early 1960s. §REF§ (Sutlive and Beierle 1995) Sutlive Jr., Vinson H., and John Beierle. 1995. “Culture Summary: Iban.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4</a>. §REF§ <br>It seems that the Iban lived in autonomous longhouse communities of about 500 inhabitants each, both before and probably for some time after the imposition of Brooke Raj authority. §REF§ (Sutlive and Beierle 1995) Sutlive Jr., Vinson H., and John Beierle. 1995. “Culture Summary: Iban.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/B4RV87D4</a>. §REF§  More recently, we know that the 1985 census for Sarawak estimates the number of Iban at around 439,000 people. §REF§ (Davison and Sutlive 1991, 158) Davison, Julian, Vinson H. Sutlive, and Vinson H. Sutlive. 1991. “Children of Nising: Images of Headhunting and Male Sexuality in Iban Ritual and Oral Literature.” In Female and Male in Borneo: Contributions and Challenges to Gender Studies, 153-230. Williamsburg, VA: Borneo Research Council. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/5U8X7Q5P\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/5U8X7Q5P</a>. §REF§ ",
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                "home_nga": {
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                    "name": "Kapuasi Basin",
                    "subregion": "Indonesia",
                    "longitude": "112.405971685000",
                    "latitude": "0.774120813650",
                    "capital_city": "Borneo",
                    "nga_code": "KAL",
                    "fao_country": "Indonesia",
                    "world_region": "Southeast Asia"
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                "home_seshat_region": {
                    "id": 42,
                    "name": "Archipelago",
                    "subregions_list": "Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines",
                    "mac_region": {
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                        "name": "Southeast Asia"
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        },
        {
            "id": 101,
            "year_from": null,
            "year_to": null,
            "description": null,
            "note": null,
            "finalized": true,
            "created_date": null,
            "modified_date": null,
            "tag": "SSP",
            "is_disputed": false,
            "is_uncertain": false,
            "expert_reviewed": true,
            "drb_reviewed": null,
            "name": "court",
            "court": "unknown",
            "polity": {
                "id": 86,
                "name": "InDecIA",
                "start_year": -1200,
                "end_year": -300,
                "long_name": "Deccan - Iron Age",
                "new_name": "in_deccan_ia",
                "polity_tag": "LEGACY",
                "general_description": "The South Indian Iron Age lasted, roughly, from 1200 to 300 BCE. §REF§ (Johansen 2014, 59) Peter G. Johansen. 2014. 'The Politics of Spatial Renovation: Reconfiguring Ritual Practices in Iron Age and Early Historic South India'. <i>Journal of Social Archaeology</i> 14 (1): 59-86. §REF§  The vast majority of Iron Age megalithic structures and associated sites have been found in the modern-day Indian states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. §REF§ (Brubaker 2001-2002, 253) Robert Brubaker. 2001-2002. 'Aspects of Mortuary Variability in the South Indian Iron Age'. <i>Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate &amp; Research Institute</i> 60-61: 253-302. §REF§  As in the preceding Neolithic period, South Indians sustained themselves through bovine and caprine pastoralism as well as the cultivation of millet and pulses - and, increasingly, wheat, barley, and rice. Settlement designs became more complex and labour-intensive, and new social arrangements and mortuary practices emerged. §REF§ (Johansen 2014, 65) Peter G. Johansen. 2014. 'The Politics of Spatial Renovation: Reconfiguring Ritual Practices in Iron Age and Early Historic South India'. <i>Journal of Social Archaeology</i> 14 (1): 59-86. §REF§ <br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>Differences in the scale, design and materials of mortuary megalithic structures and associated grave goods point to the growing hierarchization of South Indian societies at this time. §REF§ (Johansen 2014, 65) Peter G. Johansen. 2014. 'The Politics of Spatial Renovation: Reconfiguring Ritual Practices in Iron Age and Early Historic South India'. <i>Journal of Social Archaeology</i> 14 (1): 59-86. §REF§  However, there was some variation in terms of the sociopolitical organization of individual communities: for example, it is likely that some chiefs with limited decision-making powers ruled over single settlements, and that more powerful leaders based in large centres exerted some control over surrounding settlements, and that some polities were made up of several settlements ruled by a hierarchy of leaders who answered to a single paramount chief. The first type of polity probably prevailed at the beginning of the Iron Age, while the second and third type likely became more common towards its end. §REF§ (Brubaker 2001-2002, 287-91) Robert Brubaker. 2001-2002. 'Aspects of Mortuary Variability in the South Indian Iron Age'. <i>Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate &amp; Research Institute</i> 60-61: 253-302. §REF§ <br>No population estimates for this period could be found in the specialist literature.",
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                    "id": 15,
                    "name": "Deccan",
                    "subregion": "Central India",
                    "longitude": "76.625407000000",
                    "latitude": "15.386856000000",
                    "capital_city": "Kampli",
                    "nga_code": "DEC",
                    "fao_country": "India",
                    "world_region": "South Asia"
                },
                "home_seshat_region": {
                    "id": 36,
                    "name": "Central India",
                    "subregions_list": "Deccan, etc",
                    "mac_region": {
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                        "name": "South Asia"
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            "private_comment": {
                "id": 1,
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        {
            "id": 105,
            "year_from": null,
            "year_to": null,
            "description": " Local disputes are settled in informal village councils: ‘Among the Garos most disputes arise over the issues of property, inheritance, and domestic quarrels within the family. Such problems are to a large extent settled by the MAHARI (lineage) of the offended and the offender. A new situation develops when someone's cattle cause damage to another's crops. Under such situation the NOKMA (village headman) acts as an intermediary only. If he fails to settle the dispute, the matter can go to the civil court of the district council.’ §REF§Roy, Sankar Kumar: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Garo§REF§ ‘The Garo system of trial of cases beings with earth-taking. The complainant and the accused both swear by taking a lump of soil in their hands in front of the gathering with a promise that they will state the truth and nothing but the truth. It is believed by some Garos that this is the origin of the word “A’chik”, others believed that they have been called the A’chiks as they inhabited the high undulating land.’ §REF§Sangma, Mihir N. 1995. “Garos: The Name, Meanings, And Its Origin”, 38§REF§ More serious cases are handled by regional and district-level courts: ‘Many of the disputes of the Garos decided in their village Panchayats. When a man has some complaints against another he reports them to the Nokma or the village-head. If the nature of the complaints is simple, the Nokma in a meeting of the few leading persons of the village, decides the dispute; but if the nature of the complaints is complicated and not easy of solution the Nokma reports the matter to the Laskar. The Laskar is a very important and influential man in the Garo Hills District. The hills areas are divided into some elekas and each of such elekas is placed under a Laskar for convenient collection of the house tax as well as for deciding the disputes of small nature locally. The Laskar need not essentially be a literate man, worldly prudence is enough for the management of his eleka. In practice a Laskar wields immense influence in his eleka.’ §REF§Choudhury, Bhupendranath 1958. “Some Cultural And Linguistic Aspects Of The Garos”, 40§REF§ ‘The cases which are brought to the courts are serious and quite entangled ones, otherwise these could be decided amicably at the mahari or chra level in the village. When one does have a dispute involving an alien village, one does not get any support from any member of that village since they do not belong to the same clan. The village authority decides the case and gives judgement according to the customary law.’ §REF§Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 164§REF§ The laskars act as intermediaries between different courts: ‘The laskar had his jurisdiction over many villages and was the agent of the British Administration. This system still continues at the district level. The laskar used to bring the cases to the subordinate District Council Court from the Village Court. From the District Council Court the appeals could be preferred to the High Court at Gauhati.’ §REF§Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 42§REF§ Groups of laskars may also fulfill judicial functions on the intermediate level: ‘When the Britishers took over the administration of this district, one witnessed an imposition of hierarchy of new political and administrative units in the district over the traditional democratic village set-up. The British Government, being actuated with the desire to have effective control over the villages and to facilitate the collection of revenues and house tax introduced the office of laskar with limited police, civil and criminal powers. Accordingly there was a laskar over a circle of villages; each having jurisdiction covering ten or twelve of villages. Although, the villagers were left to settle all disputes through the nokma and the village courts, they had right to appeal to the court of laskars against the decisions of the village councils.’ §REF§Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 52§REF§",
            "note": null,
            "finalized": true,
            "created_date": null,
            "modified_date": null,
            "tag": "TRS",
            "is_disputed": false,
            "is_uncertain": false,
            "expert_reviewed": true,
            "drb_reviewed": null,
            "name": "court",
            "court": "absent",
            "polity": {
                "id": 112,
                "name": "InGaroL",
                "start_year": 1867,
                "end_year": 1956,
                "long_name": "Late A'chik",
                "new_name": "in_achik_2",
                "polity_tag": "LEGACY",
                "general_description": "The Garo Hills, located in Meghalaya in northeast India, have long been inhabited by the A’chik. The term 'Garo' is of unclear origin, but is believed to have originated with the neighbouring Boro people. §REF§ (Sangma 1995, 37) Sangma, Mihir N., and Milton S. Sangma. 1995. “The Garos: The Name, Meanings, and Its Origin.” In Hill Societies, Their Modernisation: A Study of North East with Special Reference to Garo Hills, 32-41. New Delhi: Omsons Publications. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/M5IS3SBN\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/M5IS3SBN</a>. §REF§  The Garo people refer to themselves as the A'chik ('hill') or A'chik Manderang ('hill people'). §REF§ (Sangma 1995, 33) Sangma, Mihir N., and Milton S. Sangma. 1995. “The Garos: The Name, Meanings, and Its Origin.” In Hill Societies, Their Modernisation: A Study of North East with Special Reference to Garo Hills, 32-41. New Delhi: Omsons Publications. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/M5IS3SBN\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/M5IS3SBN</a>. §REF§ <br>It is unknown precisely when the A’chik settled in their present location, but it is believed that they migrated to the hills from Tibet. §REF§ (Roy 1999, 2) Roy, Sankar Kumar. 1999. “Culture Summary: Garo.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ar05-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ar05-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TXQNUE8P\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TXQNUE8P</a>. §REF§  The A’chik had little contact with their neighbours before 1775, when local <i>zamindars</i> (Indian land-owning nobility) led expeditions into the Garo Hills. §REF§ (Roy 1999, 2) Roy, Sankar Kumar. 1999. “Culture Summary: Garo.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ar05-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ar05-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TXQNUE8P\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TXQNUE8P</a>. §REF§ <br>1788 saw the first contact with the British, who began to occupy the district in 1867. §REF§ (Roy 1999, 2) Roy, Sankar Kumar. 1999. “Culture Summary: Garo.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ar05-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ar05-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TXQNUE8P\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TXQNUE8P</a>. §REF§  Despite their initial resistance, the A’chik were overmatched by British firearms, and the British established full administrative control of the region around 1873. §REF§ (Majumdar 1978, 30) Majumdar, Dhirendra Narayan. 1978. Culture Change in Two Garo Villages. Calcutta: Anthropological Survey of India, Govt. of India. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TZXMWMN5\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TZXMWMN5</a>. §REF§  The region remained a part of British India until Indian independence in 1947.<br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>During the precolonial period, the A’chik lacked elaborate political organization. The most important social unit was the matrilineal clan, the <i>machong</i>. §REF§ (Roy 1999, 6) Roy, Sankar Kumar. 1999. “Culture Summary: Garo.” eHRAF World Cultures. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ar05-000\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ar05-000</a>. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TXQNUE8P\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TXQNUE8P</a>. §REF§  The chief (<i>nokma</i>) had relatively little power beyond religious functions and resolving minor disputes under the guidance of the village elders. §REF§ (Majumdar 1978, 22) Majumdar, Dhirendra Narayan. 1978. Culture Change in Two Garo Villages. Calcutta: Anthropological Survey of India, Govt. of India. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TZXMWMN5\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/TZXMWMN5</a>. §REF§ <br>Once the region was under British control, executive offices were simply superimposed onto A’chik structures. The British created the office of <i>laskar</i>, with limited power over about ten villages. §REF§ (Marak 1997, 52) Marak, Kumie R. 1997. Traditions and Modernity in Matrilineal Tribal Society. New Delhi: Inter-India Publications. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/CS3PXEIH\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/CS3PXEIH</a>. §REF§  The A’chik were still left to settle their own disputes through the nokma, but they gained the right to appeal the nokma's decisions to the court of laskars. §REF§ (Marak 1997, 52) Marak, Kumie R. 1997. Traditions and Modernity in Matrilineal Tribal Society. New Delhi: Inter-India Publications. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/CS3PXEIH\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/CS3PXEIH</a>. §REF§ <br>Population estimates are unavailable for the precolonial period. The British colonial official and statistician W. W. Hunter estimated that the population of the Garo Hills was 80,000 in 1872. §REF§ (Kar 1995, 54) Kar, Biman. 1995. “Changing A’chik-Mande: Need for Further Research.” In Hill Societies, Their Modernisation: A Study of North East with Special Reference to Garo Hills, edited by Milton S. Sangma, 52-58. New Delhi: Omsons Publications. Seshat URL: <a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/W7PJ27C6\" rel=\"nofollow\">https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/W7PJ27C6</a>. §REF§",
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            "description": " Censorate in Beijing &amp; Ministry of Justice §REF§(Brook, 2010, p.158)§REF§; The yamen at county was served as court in the local. §REF§(Brook, 2010, p.158)§REF§",
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                "id": 269,
                "name": "CnMing*",
                "start_year": 1368,
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                "long_name": "Great Ming",
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                "polity_tag": "LEGACY",
                "general_description": "After 300 years of rule by outsiders, the Ming Dynasty, lasting from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries CE, restored Chinese rule to the region. §REF§ (Theobald 2000) Theobald Ulrich. 2000. 'Ming Dynasty Government and Administration'. <i>Chinaknowledge.de</i>. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Ming/ming-admin.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Ming/ming-admin.html</a>. Accessed 16 March 2017. §REF§  The dynasty was founded by a peasant rebel general, Zhu Yuanzhang, later known as Emperor Taizu or the Hongwu Emperor. §REF§ (Brook 1998, 8) Timothy Brook. 1998. <i>The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China</i>. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. §REF§  Taizu destroyed the Yuan capital in Beijing, forced the Mongols to retreat to Mongolia, and founded the Ming capital in Nanjing in 1368 CE. §REF§ (Ebrey 1996, 191) Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 1996. <i>The Cambridge Illustrated History of China</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  The period saw a resurgence of Chinese intellectualism and economic activity, §REF§ (Mote, Twitchett and Fairbank 1988, 1) Frederick W. Mote, Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank. 1988 'Introduction', in <i>The Cambridge History of China, Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644</i>, edited by Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett, 1-10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  but Ming emperors often struggled to control their massive empire and they do not tend to number among the Chinese emperors considered 'great' by historians. §REF§ (Ebrey 1996, 216) Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 1996. <i>The Cambridge Illustrated History of China</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ <br>The Ming expanded their territory to the southwest during their rule. §REF§ (Ebrey 1996, 190) Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 1996. <i>The Cambridge Illustrated History of China</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  However, they never expanded into Mongolia - conflict with the Mongols in the north led the Ming emperors instead to carry out restorations works on the Great Wall. §REF§ (Ebrey 1996, 212) Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 1996. <i>The Cambridge Illustrated History of China</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  The Dynasty came to an end in 1644 CE, when the region was re-captured by descendants of Jin Dynasty's Jurchen rulers from Manchuria known as Qing.<br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>Ming emperors were not consistent in their style of rule. While Emperor Taizu ruled as an autocrat, some Ming emperors left the governance of the nation in the hands of officials and eunuchs. §REF§ (Ebrey 1996, 216) Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 1996. <i>The Cambridge Illustrated History of China</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  The emperor presided over the central government in concert with various levels of chief ministers and imperial officials, and the central government structure was replicated on a smaller scale at the provincial level. §REF§ (Theobald 2000) Theobald Ulrich. 2000. 'Ming Dynasty Government and Administration'. <i>Chinaknowledge.de</i>. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Ming/ming-admin.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Ming/ming-admin.html</a>. Accessed 16 March 2017. §REF§  Officials were recruited through an examination system. §REF§ (Theobald 2000) Theobald Ulrich. 2000. 'Ming Dynasty Government and Administration'. <i>Chinaknowledge.de</i>. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Ming/ming-admin.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Ming/ming-admin.html</a>. Accessed 16 March 2017. §REF§ <br>The period was marked by increasing openness to non-Confucian ideas and an increase in literacy among the lower levels of society. §REF§ (Ebrey 1996, 212) Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 1996. <i>The Cambridge Illustrated History of China</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  Intellectual culture flourished among the elites §REF§ (Mote, Twitchett and Fairbank 1988, 1) Frederick W. Mote, Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank. 1988 'Introduction', in <i>The Cambridge History of China, Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644</i>, edited by Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett, 1-10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  and the publishing industry expanded greatly in the Lower Yangtze region. §REF§ (Ebrey 1996, 190) Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 1996. <i>The Cambridge Illustrated History of China</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  Novels, including <i>The Romance of the Three Kingdoms</i> and <i>Water Margin</i>, and the play <i>Peony Pavilion</i> were written in the Ming period. §REF§ (Theobald 2000) Theobald Ulrich. 2000. 'Ming Dynasty Government and Administration'. <i>Chinaknowledge.de</i>. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Ming/ming-admin.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Ming/ming-admin.html</a>. Accessed 16 March 2017. §REF§ <br>The rapid growth of the international trading system along with foreign desire for Chinese porcelain and silk led to large increases in foreign trade and an influx of silver into the Ming economy. §REF§ (Ebrey 1996, 212) Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 1996. <i>The Cambridge Illustrated History of China</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  In the later Ming period, trade conflicts impacted China's foreign silver supply, leading to massive deflation. The Ming government, near bankruptcy, could not fund military campaigns against the rebellion spreading through the nation. §REF§ (Ebrey 1996, 215) Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 1996. <i>The Cambridge Illustrated History of China</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§ <br>The Ming population was between 60 million and 66.5 million in 1400 CE and 90 million and 110 million in 1600 CE. §REF§ 《明太祖實錄 卷140》 §REF§  §REF§ (Weatherhead East Asian Institute 2008) Weatherhead East Asian Institute. 2008. 'Issues and Trends in China's Demographic History'. Asia for Educators. Columbia University. <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1950_population.htm\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1950_population.htm</a>. Accessed 16 March 2017. §REF§",
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            "description": "Court proceedings took place either in a Judge's own residence, the main mosque of the city or in the palace.§REF§Zubaida, Sami, Law and power in the Islamic world. (Tauris &amp; Company Limited, 2005) p. 46§REF§",
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                "id": 132,
                "name": "IqAbbs1",
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                "long_name": "Abbasid Caliphate I",
                "new_name": "iq_abbasid_cal_1",
                "polity_tag": "LEGACY",
                "general_description": "In 750 CE, following a revolt, Abbasid rulers took power from the Umayyad Dynasty under Abu al-'Abbas al-Saffah. To secure his rule, Abu al-'Abbass al-Saffah sought to destroy the male line descending from Fatima and Ali, §REF§ (Zayzafoon 2005, 139) Lamia Ben Youssef Zayzafoon. 2005. <i>The Production of the Muslim Woman: Negotiating Text, History, and Ideology</i>. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. §REF§  and had about 300 members of the Umayyad family killed. §REF§ (Uttridge and Spilling, eds. 2014, 186) S. Uttridge and M. Spilling, eds. 2014. <i>The Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare</i>. London: Amber Books. §REF§  The last 80 Umayyads were tricked into attending a banquet with their hosts in Damascus and massacred there. §REF§ (Schwartzwald 2015, 24) Jack L. Schwartzwald. 2016. <i>The Collapse and Recovery of Europe, AD 476-1648</i>. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &amp; Company. §REF§  (One twenty-year-old prince, Abd al-Rahman, famously managed to escape this fate: he dodged assassins all the way to Spain, where he founded an Umayyad Emirate). The First Abbasid Caliphate Period ended in 946 CE when the Daylamite Buyids from northwestern Iran reduced the caliph to a nominal figurehead. Ironically, given the bloody manner in which the dynasty began, the final Abbasid caliph was rolled up in his own carpet and trampled to death by Mongol horsemen in 1258 CE. §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 164) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§  The zenith of the Abbasid period is considered to be the reign of Harun al Rashid (763-809 CE), whose rule is described in <i>The Thousand and One Nights</i>. §REF§ (Esposito, ed. 2003, 699) John L. Esposito, ed. 2003. <i>The Oxford Dictionary of Islam</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press. §REF§ <br><i>Population and political organization</i><br>The capital of the Abbasid Caliphate eventually settled at Baghdad, but in the earlier years the central administration was run from Kufa (750-762 CE), Al-Raqqah (796-809 CE), Merv (810-819 CE), §REF§ (Starr 2013, xxxii) S. Frederick Starr. 2013. <i>Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane</i>. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. §REF§  and Samarra (836-870 CE). §REF§ (Lapidus 2002, 53-54) Ira M. Lapidus. 2002. <i>A History of Islamic Societies</i>. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  §REF§ (Lapidus 2012, 106) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. <i>Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  The Abbasid caliph, spiritual leader of the Sunni Muslim world and commander-in-chief of its army, left the day-to-day administration to his vizier and heads of the diwans in the complex bureaucracy.<br>The departments were divided into three main areas of responsibility: the chancery (<i>diwan-al-rasa'il</i>); tax collection (<i>diwan al-kharif</i>); and army administration (<i>diwan al-jaysh</i>). §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 60-66) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§  Professional officials and soldiers were paid both in cash and in kind. §REF§ (Lapidus 2012, 250) Ira M. Lapidus. 2012. <i>Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  The task of organizing the 'collection and payment of revenues' fell to the Abbasid military. §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 21) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§  However, while it was a professional institution, it lacked a rigid hierarchy or a well-defined officer class. §REF§ (Kennedy 2001, 21) Hugh N. Kennedy. 2001. <i>The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State</i>. London: Routledge. §REF§  Below the caliph himself, the top military rulers were the provincial governors in Iraq, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, Western Iran and Khuzistan. In Iraq and Egypt, local government was divided into a hierarchy of districts, with subdivisions (<i>kura</i>, <i>tassuj</i> and <i>rustaq</i>) used for assessing taxation, which was passed to the governor. §REF§ (Lapidus 2002, 61) Ira M. Lapidus. 2002. <i>A History of Islamic Societies</i>. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  Within the Abbasid Caliphate there were also relatively independent vassals, who were required to pay tribute to the central government at Baghdad. §REF§ (Lapidus 2002, 61) Ira M. Lapidus. 2002. <i>A History of Islamic Societies</i>. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. §REF§  The law code was based largely on <i>sharia</i> law and the <i>ijma' </i>(legal opinions of religious scholars). §REF§ (Zubaida 2005, 74-84) Sami Zubaida. 2005. <i>Law and Power in the Islamic World</i>. London: I. B. Tauris. §REF§ <br>The Abbasid state provided centres of medical care, built ornate public markets, often with drinking fountains, and furnished welfare for the poor. §REF§ (Pickard 2013, 431) John Pickard. 2013. <i>Behind the Myths: The Foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam</i>. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. §REF§  As paper technology diffused from China, libraries became a common fixture in the cities of the caliphate. In Baghdad, the Khizanat al-Hikma, or 'treasury of wisdom', became a refuge for scholars, providing access to a large collection as well as free lodgings and board. §REF§ (Bennison 2009, 180) Amira K. Bennison. 2009. <i>The Great Caliphs: The Golden Age of the Abbasid Empire</i>. London: I. B. Tauris. §REF§  Each important city included an official called the <i>saheb al-sorta</i>, who was responsible for maintaining public order, and the <i>amir al-suq</i>, in charge of regulating the bazaar. §REF§ (Lambton 2011) Ann K. S. Lambton. 2011. 'Cities iii: Administration and Social Organization', in <i>Encyclopedia Iranica</i> V/6, 607-23; an updated version is available online at <a class=\"external free\" href=\"http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cities-iii\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cities-iii</a> (accessed 2 April 2017). §REF§ <br>The territory possessed by the caliphate was lost in dramatic fashion, shrinking from 11.1 million square kilometres in 750 CE, to 4.6 million around 850 CE, to just 1 million square kilometres half a century later as Egypt, Afghanistan and Central Asia were all lost. §REF§ Christopher Chase-Dunn 2001, personal communication. §REF§  Nevertheless, in 900 CE the core region of Abbasid control in the Middle East still had a substantial population of about 10 million people. §REF§ (Blankinship 1994, 37-38) Khalid Y. Blankinship. 1994. <i>The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham Ibn 'Abd Al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads</i>. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. §REF§  Over 300,000 (or maybe 900,000) of these lived in Baghdad, §REF§ Christopher Chase-Dunn 2001, personal communication. §REF§  which by this date had probably outgrown Byzantine Constantinople.",
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