This is the word Indonesians utter when you ask them a question about a custom which they practice and they don't know why or how it began. They just say, 'It is adat.' The closest thing to adat we have in the west is Common Law. Although it might not be obvious to the casual observer, this unwritten, unspoken traditional village law covers the actions and behaviour of each inhabitant in every village and city kampung in Indonesia. Evolving from a distant time when villages were largely self-governing, its dictates and taboos decide what foods are eaten and when, ceremonies and duties to the ill or dead, ownership of land and irrigation systems, architecture of family houses and granaries, criminal and civil cases such as theft and rights of inheritance, relations between older and younger brothers and sisters, the order in which daughters will marry, who they will marry, how they will marry, how guests are to be treated - everything, the total way of life. Over a period of thousands of years all the more elaborate and cultic adat have been ignored and only those are left now which cover the necessities of life. Adat helps to ensure peace and tolerance between all the various religious communities because they all have many adat in common. Being a self-contained law-of-thevillage, adat is especially forcible at times of economic or political insecurity. It even serves as a sort of social welfare organization for new migrants to the city. Adat is rooted in religion, though it is not a religion. Indonesians say, 'Religion comes in from the sea, but customs come down from the mountains.' Islam was in many instances radically modified to fit in with adat-law. Rules and behaviour from imported religions have also become a part of adat. Some say that adat is a stranglehold on the people because it encourages superstition instead of reasoning, and that there is no progress because all actions are based on precedents. The product of centuries of habit, the original meaning of many acts and gestures may be lost, yet are rigorously performed without question. Change from within Indonesian society is very slow.