The Rejangs of Sumatra "do not acknowledge a right in the chiefs to constitute what laws they think proper, or to repeal or alter their ancient usages, of which they are extremely tenacious and jealous." There is no word in their language which signifies law, and the chiefs, in pronouncing their decisions are not heard to say, "So the law directs," but, "Such is the custom."[8] According to Ellis, "the veneration of the Malagasy for the customs derived from tradition, or any accounts of their ancestors . . . influences both their public and private habits; and upon no individual is it more imperative than upon their monarch, who, absolute as he is in other respects, wants either the will or the power to break through the long-established regulations of a superstitious people."[9] The king of Ashanti, although represented as a despotic monarch, is nevertheless under an obligation to observe the national customs which have been handed down to the people from remote antiquity, and a practical disregard of this obligation, in the attempt to change some of the old customs, cost one of the kings his throne.[10] "The Africans," says Mr. Winwood Reade, with special reference to Dahomey, "have sometimes their enlightened kings, as the old barbarians had their sages and their priests. But it is seldom in the power of the heads of a people to alter those customs which have been held sacred from time immemorial."[11] The Basutos, among whom "the chiefs have the right of making laws and publishing regulations required by the necessities of the times," regard such laws, or _molaos_, as inferior to the _mekhoas_, "the use and wont," which constitute the real laws of the country.[12] Among the ancient Irish, there was no sovereign authority competent to enact a new law, the function of the king being merely, as chief of the tribal assembly, to see that the proper customs were observed.[13] [Footnote 8: Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, p. 217.] [Footnote 9: Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, i. 359.] [Footnote 10: Beecham, _Ashantee and the Gold Coast_, p. 90 _sq._ _Cf._ Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika_, p. 523 (A-l[=u]r).] [Footnote 11: Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 52 _sq._] [Footnote 12: Casalis, _Basutos_, p. 228.] [Footnote 13: _Ancient Laws of Ireland_, iii. p. lxxxvi. _sq._ Cherry, _Growth of Criminal Law_, p. 33.]