# The Achehnese/Volume 2/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
LITERATURE.
§ 1. Introductory. Stories. Form of written Literature.
Written and unwritten literature.Under the head of Achehnese literature we comprehend all that has been composed in their own language for the pleasure, instruction and edification of the people of Acheh. I say purposely composed and not written, since the hard and fast distinction between what is and what is not preserved by means of letters cannot be consistently applied to the productions of Achehnese writers whether past or present. To make this clear let us take one or two examples.
Two heroic poems (Malém Dagang and Pòchut Muhamat) dealing with historical facts and legends of the past of Acheh, have been known in written form as far back as the memory of the people extends. Another, which in form and character quite corresponds with the two mentioned above, and which celebrates the heroic deeds of the Achehnese in their war with the Dutch, was composed gradually by a man who could neither read nor write, and was first reduced to writing in its entirety at my own instance. Yet it would be captious criticism to include the first two and not the last under the head of literature.
In the literary works of the Achehnese, pantōns are frequently introduced. There are however many other pantōns, such as those recited at the ratébs and other similar occasions, which are only transmitted by word of mouth; and yet these have often a much higher significance in relation to the intellectual side of Achehnese life than those which are interwoven in stories. Equally absurd would it be to reckon the latter only as forming a part of the literature while excluding the former.
​Authors and copyists.Nor indeed can it be said that an Achehnese work is better protected against change by the written than by the oral form of transmission. Every copyist claims an author's privilege to modify the original, just as the reciter does in transmission by word of mouth. Should he fail to embellish the original according to his own taste and ideas, he would be looked on by the Achehnese as lacking both intelligence and literary talent.
In any case there can be no objection to our devoting a portion of this chapter to those products of the Achehnese intellect which lie on or just outside the borders of literature.
Proverbs, etc.The Achehnese is very rich in proverbs and other sententious sayings (miseuë, from the Arab. mithāl). Many of these are also to be found in a more or less modified form in Malay, while others display purely Achehnese characteristics. Descriptions of important events or conditions which constantly recur in Achehnese life, are generally contained in metre, and in this form are known to everybody. For instance, one need only repeat the prelude "I go on foot", to at once remind an Achehnese of the verses placed in the mouth of heroes departing for the fight, and he will repeat the stanza: "On my back (= borne by others) shall I return; none shall dare to fetch me (= my corpse) from the enemy's land. At my departure I have spat upon the steps of the house (symbolic leave-taking of the Penates); no man can see the world twice".
The situation which we should describe by the comparison "two cocks in one fowl-yard", at once suggests to the Achehnese a number of verses descriptive of untenable situations such as "a country with two kings", "a mosque with two lights" (i.e. two doctors of the law, each of whom wishes to be the ruling authority) "a gampōng with two teachers". Such examples might easily be multiplied ten-fold.
Riddles.The riddles (hiëm) of the Achehnese are some of them identical in all respects, all of them in character, with those of the Malays, Javanese and Sundanese.
Scientific and learned works.The works employed by the Achehnese for the pursuit of their various branches of learning, are, as we saw in the last chapter, written in Malay or Arabic; some of these are however, as we shall presently see, popularized by being transposed into Achehnese rhyming verse. ​The only works in the vernacular that we know of, which may be reckoned among the (elementary) text-books for students, are a small rhyming guide to the study of Malay, a handbook on the first principles of faith and religious law written in prose, a few treatises on the twenty characteristics of God, only one of which is written in prose, and some others on ritual prayers.
Achehnese prose.The two named above are the only Achehnese prose works that we have been able to discover. It may thus almost be said that it is poetry alone which is perpetuated in Achehnese writings. We might however give the name of "unwritten prose" to the stories transmitted by word of mouth (like those which have so wide a circulation in Java under the name of dongèng), which are used in Acheh to put children to sleep when they are too old for cradle-songs, to shorten the evenings for grown-up people, and to dispel boredom at social gatherings.
Stories.There is no specific name in Acheh for these tales. They are indeed known as haba (Arab. chabar), but the same name is given to the stories of old folk about their bygone days, or their traditions respecting the past history of Acheh, and in general to all tidings of any event. An old Achehnese chief who has the reputation of being wise and prudent, is sure to have in his wallet a store of haba jameun (haba of the olden times), which he displays on occasion to his respectful listeners. Although such serious narratives are called by the same name as the tales and saws employed to please children, the two ideas remain strictly separate in the minds of the Achehnese.
Hadih maja.The first kind of haba, which relates to the past history of the country, combines instruction with amusement, and is in so far akin to what the Achehnese call hadih maja = tales or traditions of grandmothers, or rather of female ancestors. Under this heading they comprehend all sorts of traditions preserved by old people, especially women, and which form an appendage to the popular custom and superstition. Customs at birth, marriage, death etc., not prescribed by religion, but the neglect of which is generally believed to result in misfortune, the pantang rules observed by the fisherman at sea, by the woman in her pregnancy, and by the hunter in the forest, all these are based on hadih maja, which thus comprises the lore regarding ​what the Sundanese call pamali, chadu or buyut and the Javanese ila-ila, and also the adats which control the daily life of each individual. The blessings, orations and stereotyped speeches described in the first volume of this work, may also be classified as hadih maja.
Haba of the kind corresponding to the dongèngs of the Sundanese and Javanese has a somewhat less uncertain form than the haba jameun and hadih maja. The reciters of these prose narrations, passed as they are from mouth to mouth, have of course greater freedom in the treatment of their subject than the copyists of an Achehnese book, yet certain elements of the haba remain unaffected by this license, and each reciter endeavours to adhere to the exact words in which the story has been repeated to him.
Character of the Achehnese fables and tales.These Achehnese fables and stories are well worth the trouble of transcribing. They present to the ear a language much more closely akin to the colloquial of daily life than do the rhyming verses in which almost the whole of the written literature is composed, and their contents are often of much interest.
Some habas are simply modified reproductions in prose of romances written in verse. I have had reduced to writing, among others, a very long Achehnese dongèng consisting of numerous disconnected parts, the principal elements of which may be met with elsewhere in Achehnese and Malay literature. It also frequently happens that an Achehnese, after reading some Malay romance hitherto unknown in his own country, popularizes its contents in the form of haba among his own fellow-villagers, and that it is thence disseminated over a wider area.
In the habas of the Achehnese one also meets with much indigenous folklore, which entices the enquirer to comparisons with kindred matters among other peoples of Indonesian race. Besides peculiar differences in the manner of transmission of these tales among the various peoples of the Eastern Archipelago, there is a still more striking agreement among them in the main subjects, and this is noticeable even where there can have been hardly any possibility of borrowing, in later times at least. How much of this common material have all these different peoples, obtained from India, and subsequently worked up and added to, each to suit their own taste? How much of it is of purely domestic origin?
​For the present we must limit ourselves to collecting the data which will eventually assist us to solve these problems.
Elsewhere I propose to publish a few of these Achehnese haba; here I must rest content with giving the reader some idea of their character.
The "crafty Mouse-deer."The Achehnese stories about the "crafty Mouse-deer" will shortly be presented to the reader, epitomized from a native manuscript. Besides this rather rare work, however, we find all these tales and many others relating to the plandōʾ kanchi ("crafty mouse-deer") in the form of haba. The Hikayat plandōʾ kanchi, as the written work is called, is nothing more or less than haba in rhyming verse.
The native Eulenspiegel.Just as popular in Indonesian fable as the crafty Mouse-deer is a certain character which even on the most superficial acquaintance exhibits unmistakeable traces of relationship with the German Eulenspiegel, the Arabo-Turkish Juḥa or Chōjah Naçr ad-dīn; it has caused me some surprise that no one, as far as I am aware, has hitherto given any attention to this remarkable type.
Si Kabayan.I am myself best acquainted with the Native Eulenspiegel in his Sundanese dress; my collection of 70 dongèngs from Preanger, Bantěn and South Chirěbon give a picture of his character. He is there pretty generally known as Si Kabayan; but in some places and in some of the tales told of him he appears as Si Buta-Tuli (the Blind and Deaf), while in certain localities sayings and doings which are elsewhere put down to Si Kabayan's account, are here narrated under another name. Such for example is the dongèng of Aki Bolong published by Mr. G. J. Grashuis; this story is current under the name of Si Kabayan amongst the majority of the Sundanese.
Kabayan's tomb is pointed out at Pandeglang and other places in Bantěn, usually under mango-trees. This plurality of graves need not be considered an impossibility, in view of the varied accounts of the manner of his death. Some of the tales of Kabayan are at least as pretty as the best of those of Eulenspiegel; others owe their interest more to the rough specimens of popular pleasantry which they contain, while many are, according to European ideas, unfit for translation. Like Eulenspiegel, who as coachman greases the whole of his master's carriage ​in place of the axle, Kabayan is always taking the wrong meaning out of the words of his educators and advisers and constantly alarming astonishing or injuring them by his method of putting their advice in execution. He himself, too, often gets into great difficulties through his endless misconceptions. From these straits, however, he always manages to escape, and though he never has a cent to his name, and shows a constant disinclination to settle down to any fixed occupation or calling or to fulfil his duties as husband or father, he comes out with flying colours day by day from all his pranks, and moves to side-shaking laughter all who have not suffered personal damage from his rogueries and cunning stupidity.
Having once for ail become the central point around which all popular humour and irony revolve, he undoubtedly plays a part occasionally in stories which originally belonged to a different cycle or even in those imported from foreign countries. It is just in this way that legend is wont to ascribe to a great hero deeds which were really performed by some of his less celebrated colleagues. The encyclopaedia of Kabayan stories now even comprises some tales differing entirely from one another in type; in some of these the hero is nothing but a foolish dullard, while in others he is characterized by the utmost cunning. Both of these are at variance with the Eulenspiegel character. Among the Sundanese villagers not only are these tales constantly repeated both by old and young, but their whole speech flows over with allusions and quotations from these dongèngs. It is not surprising, therefore, that the name "Kabayan" is often heard even in the kampongs of Batavia.
Joaka Bodo. Si Pandië.The same remarks apply, though in a less degree, to the Jaka Bodo (silly youngman) of the Javanese and to Si Pandië among the Menangkabau Malays; also (to return to our Achehnese) of the "Eulenspiegel" whom they variously name Si Meuseukin,Si Meuseukin, Paʾ Pandé. Si Gasiën-meuseukin or Paʾ Pandé. Up to the present I have been able to collect but a few of the habas relating to him, but these few harmonize to a marked degree with these of the Sundanese, while in form and dress they exhibit many genuine Achehnese characteristics.
Thus for instance the Haba Si Meuseukin nyang keumalòn (Si MeuseukinSi Meuseukin as a diviner. ​as a diviner) is identical in form with the dongéng of Aki Bolong just mentioned, which is current among other Sundanese in two parts, viz. Si Kabayan nujum and Si Kabayan naruhkeun samangka.
The Achehnese have many versions of this haba which differ widely from one another in details.
Si Meuseukin's wedding.The haba Si Meuseukin meukawén (Si Meuseukin's wedding) is a disgusting tale, though only moderately so if measured by the standard of the Sundanese Kabayan stories. In the Sundanese I know of three duplicates of this unsavoury tale; in one of these Kabayan's internal troubles are caused by apěm-dough, in another by dage and in the third by peuteuy. The Achehnese Si Meuseukin's colic on the other hand results from the eating of nangka (a kind of jack-fruit, bòh panaïh in Achehnese).
Haba Paʾ Pandé.In the haba Paʾ Pandé there are strung together a number of stories the counterparts of which form separate narratives among the Sundanese.
In the Achehnese version Paʾ Pandé (= Si Meuseukin) after receiving an exhortation to diligence which he duly misunderstands, goes forth to catch blind deut-fish; in the Sundanese dongèng Si Kabayan jeung nyaina ("Si Kabayan and his mother in-law") he fishes with a hoop-net for a blind paray.
When sent to seek a teungku, Paʾ Pandé through misconception of the order comes home first with a ram, and then with a bird of the kind called kuëʾ; similar mistakes form the motif in the Sundanese Si Kabayan boga ewe anyar and Si Kabayan dek kawin ("Si K's early married life" and "Si K. goes to get him a wife").
Paʾ Pandé steals into a sack in which his wife had stowed her household goods and food; similarly the Sundanese Eulenspiegel deceives his grandmother in Si K. ngala daun kachang ("Si K. plucking bean leaves") and his grandfather in Si K. ngala onjuk ("Si K. gathering arèn-fibres"). Other points of resemblance are not wanting, but are less obvious than the above.
Besides the Sundanese Kabayan-tales, we may also compare the Si Meuseukin and Paʾ Pandé with the Malay stories of Pak Bělalang and ​Lebai Malang (published by A. F. von Dewall in "Bunga rampai" vol. IV. Batavia 1894).
We must however always remember that the name Si Meuseukin has not acquired so specialized a meaning as that of Si Kabayan. This last is always used by the Sundanese to designate their Eulenspiegel. In the Achehnese, however, Si Meuseukin or the "Poor Devil" may be the hero of other tales as well as the Eulenspiegel ones.
Story of the bayan-prince.In the somewhat prolix Haba Raja Bayeuën ("Story of the bayan-prince") Si Meuseukin plays a part which again reminds us to some extent of Si Kabayan, but many of his adventures are of a similar sort to those of Indra Bangsawan and Banta Amat, with whom we shall presently make further acquaintance as heroes of fiction. Si Meuseukin's finally becoming the monarch of a great kingdom places this tale entirely outside the sphere of Eulenspiegel stories.
Si Meuseukin wronged.The same is true of another Haba Si Meuseukin in which the hero is continually being wronged and cheated by his elder brother, but eventually becomes the happy possessor of two princesses and a kingdom. This story also shows features which recall Indra Bangsawan; like the latter, for instance, Si Meuseukin serves a princess for some time in the guise of a shepherd.
The cloven stone.To conclude our brief review of the Achehnese haba's, we shall mention but one more, the Haba ureuëng lob lam batu blaïh batèë meutangkōb ("story of one who hid herself in a cleft of a stone, a stone which closed together"). This is the marvellous history of two boys, Amat and Muhamat, whose mother had an intrigue with a snake in the jungle and cradled in her house her lover's soul, enclosed in a cucumber. Many varieties of this tale are current in the Gayō and Alas countries.
Most of the literary productions of the Achehnese which we are now about to describe, are in writing, and almost all are composed in verse, We must therefore pause a moment to consider the Achehnese prosody.
Achehnese metrical system.The Achehnese have properly speaking only one metre. This is called sanjaʾ, and consists of verses each of which contains eight feet, or ​rather four pairs of feet, as the two middle pairs in each verse rhyme with one another in their final syllables; the concluding syllable of each verse also rhymes with that of the next, it being understood that in a long poem the poet has full licence to vary the rhyme as often as he pleases.
A verse is called ayat, which is the Arabic name for a verse of the Qurān. Achehnese poems are generally, though not always, written continuously, so that a verse is often distributed over two lines; to separate the verses from one another marks are employed similar to those to be seen in copies of the Sacred Book.
The simplest form of the Achehnese verse is that in which each foot contains two syllables, as:
gah ban | gajah | sië ban | tulō || jituëng | judō || dinab | mata ||
or:
adat | maté | ku pa- | ban bah || hana | salah || lōn ji- | paké ||
There is no such thing in Achehnese as quantity. The essence of the metre lies in the incidence of the accent, which is always laid on the last syllable of each foot. So far the Achehnese verses are in direct contrast to the Malay, in which the movement is "diminuendo", the strong accent falling on the first part of the foot. Mutatis mutandis, we might call the Malay metre trochaic, and the Achehnese iambic.
Feet and syllables.Verses containing one or more feet of more than two syllables are at least as common as those in which each foot contains only two syllables. Thus if be taken as denoting the accent and its absence, may always be replaced by In:
hana | digòb | na di | geutanyòë || sabòh | nanggròë || dua | raja ||
the fourth foot has three syllables. This most commonly occurs in the second of each pair of feet, thus in:
adat | na umu | dudòë | lōn parōh || baʾ bhaïh | nyang tujōh || keudéh | lōn mula ||
the 2th, 4th, 6th and 8th feet are of three syllables.
A favourite modification of the rhyme in the middle of the verse consists of making the less accentuated first part, and not (as ordinarily) the last syllable of the 6th foot, rhyme with the last syllable of the 4th. For example:
diju- | rèë na | pasu | leukat || di ram- | bat || na | pasu | saka ||
​or:
kawan | gata | jikheun | jipòh || meung sa | bòh || han | jikeu- | bah lé ||
The common form in these examples would be for the fifth and sixth feet to run thus na dirambat and han meung sabòh, as the rhyme would then coincide with the end of the foot.
Poetic license.Among the numerous instances of poetic license we may notice the rhyming of a with euë or eu, é with i or è, ō with u, e and eu. Of the final consonants at the end of the rhyming syllables m is also regarded as rhyming with b, n with ng and sometimes even b and the final guttural denoted by ʾ as rhyming with one another and with t. There is however no definitely accepted rule for such kinds of license; it is a question of individual taste.
The word janggay (discordant) is used to indicate the harshness of a slovenly verse or one in which there is too much poetic license. A poem which answers to the canons of taste is called keunòng ("hitting the mark").
When at a loss for suitable rhymes poets sometimes resort to the expedient of addressing the reader at the end of a verse with words which rhyme in pairs, as wahé tèëlan, wahé rakan, (oh comrade!) wahé putròë (oh princess!) wahé adòë (oh younger brother or sister!) wahé raja, wahé sèëdara etc.
All the poems of the Achehnese, that is to say almost all their literary productions, are declaimed in singsong style (beuët = Malay bacha).
Both the pantōns and the component parts of ratébs have various different methods of intonation, called sometimes by onomatapaeic names, such as meuhahala meuhéhélé and sometimes after the place of their origin (as jawòë barat = "the intonation of the Malays of the West Coast"), sometimes from their character (as ranchaʾ = "animated").
Styles of recitation.For the hikayats which form the principal part of the literature, two sorts of intonation are specially employed, the lagèë Acheh or Dalam (Achehnese or Court style) and the lagèë Pidië (Pidir style). Both styles are further divided into lagèë dagath (quick time) and lagèë jareuëng (slow time). The reciter of a hikayat employs each of these in turn, in order to relieve the monotony. The lagèë jareuëng is preferred for solemn or tragic episodes. The syllables are given a prolonged enunciation, the vowels being lengthened now and then with the help of a nasal "ng." Thus in the "slow time" the double foot puchōʾ meugisa becomes punguchō meugingisa.
​Various kinds of poetry.Three kinds of poems are composed in the Achehnese metre.
Pantōns.First come the pantōns. These have this in common with Malay pantōns, that they generally treat of love, and that each consists of two parts (with the Achehnese of one verse each) of which the first has little or no meaning, or is at all events unconnected in sense with what the poet really wishes to express, and only serves to furnish rhymes to aid the memory. Adepts have only to hear the first line of any favourite panton to at once grasp the meaning of the whole.
We have already given some examples of non-erotic pantōns in the formal dialogues connected with marriage ceremonies. The love pantōns are numberless, both the old ones which everyone knows, and new ones to which the young keep continually adding. A single example will here suffice:
Baʾ meureuya | didalam paya || puchōʾ meugisa || baʾ mata uròë || Meung na taʾeu | mataku dua || adat ka tabung- || ka baʾ reujang tawòë ||
"A sago palm in the swamp.
"Its crown twists round with the sun.
"Do you still see (i.e. do you still remember) my two eyes,
"Come then, if you are already gone, come quickly back again."
Pantōn meukarang.Pantōn meukarang, i. e. a series of pantōns, is the name given to dialogues in pantōn form, whether between lovers, or (as for instance at a wedding) between hosts and guests.
A good many pantōns are committed to writing, especially in the versified tales and other works where they are quoted or placed in the mouth of one of the characters. The majority, however, both of the separate pantōns and the pantōn meukarang just described, are transmitted orally alone.
Pantōns are employed in love making, in the traditional dialogues on solemn occasions, in sadati-games and cradle-songs. They are also used in dances such as are performed in Pidië by women and boys to the accompaniment of music.
We may remark in passing that there are pantōns in Achehnese which imitate to some extent the form of those of the Malays. These are however exceptional, and are not to be regarded as genuinely Achehnese.
The ratébs. Nasib and kisah.Sanjaʾ is also used as the vehicle for the most important portions ​(nasib and kisah) of the recitations in the plays called ratéb. An account of these will be given later, in the chapter on games and pastimes.
Hikayats.Last, but not least, the hikayats are composed in sanjaʾ, or we might rather say, all that is composed in this metre, except the pantōns and nasibs and kisahs above referred to, is called hikayat. This word, which is derived from the Arabic, entirely loses in Achehnese its original signification of "story", which it has retained in Malay. The Achehnese apply the term hikayat not only to tales of fiction and religious legends, but also to works of moral instruction and even simple lesson-books, provided that the matter is expressed in verse, as is in fact the case with the great majority of Achehnese literary productions.
Another of the recognized characteristics of a hikayat is that it should commence with certain formulas in praise of Allah and his Apostle, to which are sometimes appended other general views or reflections of the author's own, till finally the actual subject is reached. This transition is almost invariably introduced by the words ajayéb sōbeuhan Alah which in the Arabic ((Arabic characters)), signify "O wonderful things! Praise be to God" but which in Achehnese literature have grown to be no more than an entirely meaningless introductory phrase. The syllables are usually divided thus ajayéb sō | beuhan alah || and the fact that sōbeuhan is all one word is quite lost sight of.
A new subject or a new subdivision of the main theme is introduced by the poets as a fresh "kurangan", which latter word is equivalent to the Malay karangan, i. e. literary composition. The usual form is: ama baʾadu | dudòë nibaʾ nyan || laʾén karangan || lōn chalitra || = "Now I pass on to another subject". But kurangan has also preserved in Achehnese the meaning of a writing or essay.
Nalam.Our remarks on the form of Achehnese literary works would be incomplete without some mention of the nalam. This word is the Achehnese pronunciation of the Arabic naẓm, meaning poetry. The Achehnese however understand thereby writings composed in a metre imitating one of those employed by the Arabs. I say imitating, because the Achehnese language, possessing no settled quantities, does not lend itself to the absolute application of an Arabic metre.
​The nalams with which I am acquainted are all composed in the metre described below, which is known as rajaz, the emphasis of the accent in Achehnese taking the place of the length of the syllable in Arabic.
Each verse consists of 3 or 2 pairs of iambics. Thus we have for instance the trimeter: ngòn béseumilah | ulōn puphōn | nalam jawòë || ladum Arab | ladum Acheh | lōn hareutòë ||
and the dimeter:
uyòë karangan | Habib Hadat || that meucheuhu | jeuëb-jeuëb bilat ||
All works composed in nalam deal with religious subjects, and many have the character of text-books rather than works of edification.
So much of the form of Achehnese written literature; we shall now proceed to describe its substance, so far as our limited space permits. We shall classify the various works according to the nature of their subjects, placing the few nalams and the still rarer prose works among the hikayats which treat of similar subjects. Where a work is not expressly stated to be composed in nalam or in prose, it may be taken for granted that it is a hikayat, and the reader may supply this title even where we have for brevity's sake omitted to do so.
For facility of reference, we have numbered consecutively with Roman numerals all the Achehnese works referred to.
We shall deal first with those works which are of purely Achehnese origin and shall then go on to describe those derived directly or indirectly from Indian, Arabic or Malay sources.
§ 2. The Hikayat Ruhé.
The form of hikayat known as ruhé need not long occupy our attention. It stands, in respect of its contents and purpose, between the haba and the hikayat proper. The proper meaning of ruhé is to publish abroad a man's private life, his secrets and his follies, to speak evil of a man or make him an object of ridicule. Should it happen that a stranger from some other district takes up his abode in a certain place, and there meets with any noteworthy adventures or excites ridicule or disgust by his acts or omissions, some local wag will often celebrate ​his doings in verse (sanjaʾ) with the requisite flavour of exaggeration, and the name of ruhé is given to such a composition.
The name is however also applied to humorous poems, the object of which is to move the listener to laughter without any evil intent, like John Gilpin's Ride. Such tales are more often transmitted by word of mouth than in writing.
Hikayat guda.One of the best known hikayat ruhé is the Hikayat guda (I), "the poem of the horse." This consists of some 30 verses only, and describes in humorous style how some friends slaughtered and divided among them an old horse, and what each of them did with the part that fell to his share. Thus of the tail a cheumara or native chignon was made, and one of the ribs became a princely sword, while an old woman excited laughter by her fruitless endeavours to boil soft the portion she had acquired.
Hikayat leumò.Of a like nature is the Hikayat leumò (II), "the poem of the bull," containing what appear to be the disconnected reminiscences of one who was a constant frequenter of the glanggang (arena for fights of animals). It consists of a series of laughable anecdotes about famous bulls and their owners and celebrated juaras. These could however have only been properly appreciated by the coevals of the author, whose name is unknown.
Hikayat ureuëng Jawa.Another very short story is the Hikayat ureuëng Jawa (III) which describes the crack-brained dream of a male favourite of a Javanese (or Malay) teungku. The hidden meaning seems to be that the latter had begun to neglect his favourite, who expresses his resentment of the wrong done him.
The Hikayat Pòdi Amat (IV) is much more prolix. The hero, a student in the gampōng of Klibeuët, has a dream which predicts him success in whatever he may undertake. Thereupon he goes on a journey to pursue his studies and enjoys the teaching of one Malém Jawa. But Fate has higher things in store for him. The daughter of the king of ​the Gayòs dreams of him, and the story ends by Pò Amat's winning her hand and becoming the ruler of the Gayòs.
Hikayat Pò Jambòë.Pò Jambòë (V) is the hero of a hikayat ruhé which has not been reduced to writing and which is known to me by name only.
§ 3. Epic Hikayats.
The heroic poems of the Achehnese, original both in form and subject-matter, stand indisputably higher in all respects than any other part of their literature. It is in the two most ancient of these hikayats that we are especially struck by the poets' calm objectivity, their command of their subject, their keen sense of both the tragic and comic elements in the lives of their fellow-countrymen, and the occasional masterly touches in which they sketch, briefly but accurately, genuine pictures of Achehnese life.
Achehnese epic poetry has without doubt taken time to reach the level at which we find it. The heroic poems with which we are acquainted must have been preceded by others whose loss we deplore, since their place in the estimation of the Achehnese themselves has been taken by works of a lower standard imported from abroad.
We shall now give a resumé of the contents of those which still survive, taking them in their chronological sequence.
Malém Dagang.The Hikayat Malém Dagang (VI). This epic celebrates an episode from among the great achievements of the Achehnese under their most famous ruler Éseukanda (Iskandar) Muda (1607–36), called after his death Meukuta Alam, against the ruling Power in the Malay Peninsula; or it might rather be said to furnish in rhyme and metre a specimen of an Achehnese tradition (now degenerated into unrecognizable forms) of that golden epoch.
Historic basis of the heroic poem.It is indeed impossible to determine with certainty what the facts really are which are presented to us in so fantastic a form, so widely does the story diverge from reliable historical facts.
​We know that Éseukanda Muda conquered, among other littoral Malay States, Johor (1613) and Pahang (1618), thus gaining for Acheh an authority over the Malay Peninsula which was only. balanced by that of the Portuguese, who had settled at Malacca a century earlier. It is also known that the prince in question made several attempts to drive out these rivals of his power from Malacca. For instance, he attacked that port in 1628 with a fleet of gigantic proportions, considered relatively to the development of Acheh. All his efforts were however unsuccessful, though he succeeded in harassing the Portuguese to a considerable extent.
Curious fiction.That the Achehnese legend should collect the various phases of Meukuta Alam's attack upon Malacca into a single naval expedition of fabulous dimensions, need cause us no surprise. But it sounds more strange that they should definitely describe the chief enemy of the Achehnese as a Dutchman and allude to him not only as ruler of Malacca, but also occasionally by way of variety as the "ruler of Guha", which latter name refers to Goa the chief settlement of the Portuguese in India. This may possibly be explained by the fact that later on the Portuguese disappeared entirely from the field of vision of the Achehnese, while the Dutch came to be to them the representatives of all danger that threatened them from Europeans. Purely Achehnese character of the poem.But it would manifestly be an endless task to continue explaining all the details of this legend. Imagination runs riot throughout the whole, but the method of expression is thoroughly Achehnese; the thoughts which the poet puts in the mouths of his characters and the scenes which he has lavishly embroidered on the framework of his story, are all derived from the everyday life of the Achehnese people.
Contents of the epic.The poem begins with the first tokens of enmity on the part of Si Ujut, a son of the raja of Malacca, against his benefactor Éseukanda ​Muda, the powerful ruler of Acheh. We gather, partly from the direct statements of the author, partly from hints and suggestions which occur in the course of the story, that this prince had gone to Acheh with his younger brother Raja Radén, though we are not told the motive of their journey. Éseukanda had received them with honour and assigned to them Ladòng and Kruëng Raya as freehold territory (wakeuëh, bibeuëh), and that too although they were not of the Mohammedan faith. The poet (or at least some of the transcribers of his writings), expressly calls them Dutchmen, yet represents them as worshippers of the Sun, according, forsooth, to the teaching of the prophet Moses!.
Between Raja Radén and his royal host there soon grew up such a brotherly feeling, that the former embraced the Mohammedan religion, and gave up his wife, a daughter of the ruler of Pahang to the king of Acheh, taking one of the latter's consorts in exchange.
Not so favourable was the impression that Si Ujut conceived of Acheh. This stubborn kafir met all the kindness he had received with black ingratitude, and suggested to his converted brother that it was time to return to Malacca, where boundless riches stood at their disposal, and to leave for good and all the poverty-stricken country where they had settled. In vain Raja Radén seeks to convince him of the inadvisability of such a step. His elder brother mocks him for being such a fool as to give his nobly-born wife away in exchange for an Achehnese woman "as ugly as an iguana", and reveals to him his scheme for despoiling before their departure the territory given them to hold in fee, and afterwards waging war on a large scale against Acheh.
The first part of this programme was soon carried out by Si Ujut. He attacks and plunders a number of Achehnese fishermen and hangs them on hooks thrust through their faces; thereafter he sets sail for his father's country.
Raja Radén remains loyal to his kingly protector, warns him of Ujut's further designs and declares himself ready to fight with him to the death against his infidel brother. He also advises him to anticipate Si Ujut by himself invading the latter's territory without giving him ​time to take the first step. During their deliberations a tree of fabulous dimensions already fashioned into the framework of a ship, comes drifting from the opposite coast to Kuala Acheh and remains lying there quietly until the Sultan himself, hearing of this marvel, hastens to see it with his own eyes.
The magic tree addresses the king, telling him how he (the tree) was destined by Si Ujut to serve as the foundation of a gigantic warship, but that the will of Allah had sent him, a prince of jéns of the true faith, to be used against the unbeliever. A ship is then built from this tree, to sail at the head of the war-fleet against Si Ujut, and receives the name of Chakra Dōnya (Sphere of the world). Three bells, named respectively Akidatōy Umu ((Arabic characters) Confirmation of Things) Khòyran Kasiran ((Arabic characters) Much Good) and Tula Maraʾ (Dispeller of Evil) are placed on board; their clappers move of themselves and their ringing may be heard three days sail away.
Presently the preparations for the expedition are complete. The king has a tender parting with his Pahang consort, the former wife of Raja Radén. She gives him sundry advice, warning him especially not to land anywhere in the territory of Si Ujut, as its inhabitants are skilled in the exercise of many kinds of witchcraft and black art.
The expedition first sails to the dependencies of Acheh, to call for help to enlarge their equipment. The poet carries us, on board the Chakra Dōnya along the North and East Coasts of Acheh, and displays his geographical knowledge. The first place touched at is Pidië (vulg. Pedir), the panglima of which is handed down to fame as the bravest and most distinguished of generals. Thence the fleet shapes its course for Meureudu, whgh the poet depicts as a sparsely-populated and almost desert land.
The want of familiarity with the great of the land withheld the people of Meureudu from fulfilling: their duty of waiting on the Sultan. The latter awaited their coming for some days in vain; meantime the men of Meureudu betook themselves for counsel to a teacher from Medina who lived among them, called in this narrative Ja Pakèh or Ja Madinah. The latter went to plead the cause of these simple folk, ​bearing offerings of the produce of the country as a token of fealty; but the king, through anger at the delay, took no notice of his presence. The pandit, moved to anger in his turn, told him frankly that it was his own fault that the people of Meureudu were lacking in good manners, since he had set no chief over them to instruct them. The king recognized his mistake, declared Meureudu a feudal freehold (wakeuëh) and induced Ja Pakèh, not without difficulty, to accompany him in his voyage to Malacca.
According to the popular conception of the Achehnese, a learned teungku is supposed to be especially distinguished by his knowledge of sundry èleumèës or crafts which enable him to ensure the safety of his friends and to bring destruction on his foes. Thus the issue of a war may often depend on such a one. Our poet is clearly influenced by this idea, for he makes the king of Acheh, from the time of his departure from Meureudu, take the advice of Ja Pakèh on all matters of importance.
Thus for instance in regard to the question as to who is to lead the forces in the field; this honour is at first offered to the Panglima of Pidië mentioned above, but as the latter prefers to hold a subordinate post, the king requests him to name a suitable man to be chief panglima, and he nominates Malém Dagang, a young man of approved courage, who is also rich and influential.
Just as in modern Acheh all negociations are carried on through intermediaries, so here too we find the like method adopted in discussing the conditions on which Malém Dagang is to assume the command. Ja Pakèh represents his interests with fatherly care, and Meukuta Alam promises him as recompense a handsome share of the revenues of his dominions.
The way in which Malém Dagang enlists on his side the coöperation, so necessary for his task, of the influential members of his own family, forms another genuine Achehnese picture. He offers them, one by one, the office which he has been called upon to fill, and on their refusing ​reminds them in so many words that it is by their request and not of his own will that he assumes the command over them.
As the expedition proceeds along the North and East Coasts of Sumatra, the poet gives us many details about these parts, putting the information he conveys in the mouth of Ja Pakèh in the form of answers to the questions asked by the inquisitive Sultan. Old traditions and observations on the then existing state of things form the subject of their conversations, and the king takes the opportunity of introducing some necessary reforms in the government of the country.
Finally the fleet attains its full strength, some tens of thousands of vessels, and puts out to open sea. No sooner have they lost sight of the coast than the Sultan loses heart and has to be gradually restored to confidence by the wise man of Medina, who is able to reassure him by reference to his kutika or table of lucky days. In various parts of the poem the king is represented, not without some irony, as vacillating and far from heroic.
The first principality of the Malay Peninsula at which the fleet touches is Aseuhan (Asahan), the residence of the pagan Raja Muda.
The consort of Meukuta Alam, Putròë Phang, had warned him before his departure to give a wide berth to that place, as it was dangerous owing to the heathenish witchcraft practised by its people. This advice, however, did not prevent the invaders from attacking, conquering and despoiling Aseuhan; the capital was found deserted save for the young queen, who was brought on board as a captive. She was however liberated, not through the large ransom offered by her husband, but owing to the conversion to Islam of the king of the country and his subjects, and their abandonment of the sun-worship practised by them under the laws of Moses! In the negociations connected with this conversion Malém Dagang plays a very chivalrous part.
They next proceed to Phang (Pahang) the king of which country is overjoyed at meeting his new and his former son-in-law (Meukuta Alam and Raja Radén). He prays for their triumph over Si Ujut, but does not dare to join them openly, since he had some time before been reduced to submission by Si Ujut, who had lately paid him another visit to announce his intention of making war on Acheh.
From Pahang the fleet moves to Johor Lama (Jhō Lama) to which place Si Ujut has also just paid a visit, but whence he has retired to Johor Bali. Here some of the Achehnese invaders establish themselves ​without opposition under the direction of their Sultan, who builds fortifications of strength sufficient to withstand an attack by land and sea. Meanwhile the naval commander with the larger portion of the fleet keeps watch at sea for the foe who has threatened an attack on Acheh.
The enemy lets them wait a full year, but in the end a hostile fleet of 50000 sail arrives upon the scene. Malém Dagang, acting on Ja Pakèh's skilful choice of a favourable moment, chooses his time and falls furiously on the infidels.
The Sultan of Acheh, when informed how matters stand, remains inactive on shore and is only induced to go on board the Chakra Dōnya after receiving a reproachful message from Ja Pakèh, who threatens to leave him if he refuses to comply with his advice. After conferring with Raja Radén he razes the fortifications to the ground so as not to furnish the enemy with a safe place of refuge, and joins the fleet.
Meantime Malém Dagang has already slain his tens of thousands, and when the king comes on board he omits not to upbraid him for his inactivity with bitter irony, asking him how many foes he has slain yonder on land.
Si Ujut himself has not yet joined the fleet; he is lingering in Guha (see p. 81 above) not from want of courage, but from exaggerated devotion to his five consorts, the chief of whom is the daughter of the king of that place. This favourite wife now upbraids his sloth. She tells him that if he does not play the man, it may come to pass that his fleet will soon be defeated and his five beloved ones torn from his arms, and that he will then, like his brother Radén, be obliged to content himself with a hag as ugly as an iguana.
There words strike home. Ujut flies into a passion and speaks with contempt of the warlike preparations of the Achehnese. At the same time he admits that he is loth to be compelled to fight just then, as the conjuncture (kutika) is favourable to the Achehnese.
Meantime, before Si Ujut takes command of his fleet, Malém Dagang ​has been busy slaying the infidels; after the arrival of the hostile leader, he renews the battle with redoubled energy.
Malém Dagang and the brave Panglima of Pidië with the other foremost heroes on the Achehnese side bind themselves by an oath of mutual fidelity and make their last dispositions in view of their falling in battle. The Panglima Pidië in particular prepares for such a result, clothing himself entirely in white before he enters the fray. This deceives Ujut, who thinks that he sees in him the famous guru (Ja Pakèh) of the king of the Achehnese. He accordingly singles out for his fiercest attack the devoted panglima who dies a martyr (shahīd) to the cause of religion.
This however was the only great advantage gained by Ujut, for his ships were sunk by tens of thousands while the Achehnese fleet remained unscathed. Finally we come to the flight of the small remnant of Ujut's fleet, not including, however, the ship which contained the prince himself. Malém Dagang is so fortunate as to capture his enemy alive, and his own brother Raja Radén finds delight in loading the miscreant with chains.
The fleet now sails to Guha. Here the inquisitive king of Acheh wishes to have a look at the country, but is restrained by Malém Dagang, who reminds him of the perils predicted by his consort, the Pahang princess. Thence they sail to Malacca, the king of which place (the father of Si Ujut and Raja Radén) has fled with all the inhabitants of the coast to the hills in the interior, Here too Meukuta Alam is withheld from landing for the same reason as at Guha.
Finally they touch once more at Aseuhan to acquaint to king, now one of the Faithful, with the joyous tidings of their victory. On this occasion all imaginable efforts are made to convert Si Ujut from his "sun-worship according to the teaching of Moses", but in vain. He is then bound to the prow of the ship below water and thus accompanies them on their return voyage to Acheh.
This "Dutch infidel" was, however, richly provided with mysterious arts and witchcraft.
Although immersed in the sea for more than seven days and covered with ell-long moss and seaweed, he yet lived; and in Acheh not only ​saws and various implements of torture, but even fire proved powerless to harm him.
Nor could he be slain until he had himself resolved no longer to resist his fate. When this time came, he informed his enemies that the only way to kill him was to pour molten lead into his nose and mouth.
This was done and so ended the life of the villain who still remains for the Achehnese of to day the type of the wickedness of "kafirs", and especially the kaphé Ulanda or "Dutch infidel".
Pòchut Muhamat.The Hikayat Pòchut Muhamat (VII).
This epic of Prince Muhamat differs in many respects from that we have just described, and a comparison between them is favourable to the later work.
Date of its production.We venture to call Pòchut Muhamat the later work, although the author and date of the composition of Malém Dagang are unknown, and the entirely legendary character of the traditions with which it deals, points to its having been composed a considerable time after the great naval expedition of Meukuta Alam. At the same time it is unlikely that the celebration in verse of the heroic deeds of Meukuta Alam's general should not have taken place for more than a century after the death of that prince, when his dynasty had already given way to other rulers; and Pòchut Muhamat's warlike ventures are dated just a century after the death of Meukuta Alam.
The poet of the "Pòchut Muhamat” reveals himself at the end of his epic as Teungku Lam Rukam. This title shows him to have been a man distinguished from the general mass of the people by a certain amount of religious knowledge and devotion, and to have resided in the gampōng of Lam Rukam in the XXV Mukims. Though not himself present at the achievements he celebrates, he has, he tells us, derived all his information from actual eyewitnesses. Thus we cannot be far wrong in assuming that the Teungku composed his poem about the middle of the 18th century.
With him we are thus on historic ground, though the facts are of course reflected through an imaginative medium wholly in keeping ​with the national characteristics of Acheh. Marvellous explanations of simple occurrences, true historical facts in the guise of fictitious visions or miracles, these are licences which we cannot blame in any poet, and least of all in an Achehnese poet. With Teungku Lam Rukam, however, human feelings always maintain their place, and history never disappears behind the veil of legend. Nothing inclines the reader to doubt the truth of the main facts, so that the poem, apart from its high literary merit, forms a valuable contribution to the history of Acheh, which the native chroniclers handle in so meagre and dry, and at the same time so confused a manner.
From the work of Veth we gather that the abolition of the line of female sovereigns which came to an end in 1699, was followed by a continuous series of dynastic wars. The facts there stated, as well as sundry data as to the order of succession of the kings of Acheh, collected by me at Kuta Raja, require correction in view of what we learn from the poem Péchut Muhamat and also from a Malay history of the kings of Acheh, which I brought back from that country.
The competitors for the throne of Acheh in the first quarter of the 18th century, after the female succession had been abolished, were for the most part sayyids, i.e. persons of high and sacred Arabic descent, though probably born in Acheh, and thus imbued with the peculiarities of the Achehnese. The most remarkable of these sayyids was Jamalulalam, called by the Achehnese Pòteu (Lord) Jeumaloy. He reigned from 1703–26, and after the latter date continued to contest the throne with his successors of Arabic and non-Arabic origin.
Of these last we need only mention here Mahraja Léla Meulayu, who reigned from 1726–35 under the name of Alaédin Ahmat Shah, and was the founder of the line which continues to hold by inheritance the title of Sultan of Acheh up to the present day, although compelled occasionally to vacate the throne in favour of his Arab rivals. As we have seen, tradition assigns a Bugis origin to this Mahraja Léla.
Alaédin Ahmat Shah, like others was constantly harassed during his reign by Jeumalōy and his adherents. When Ahmat died, Jeumalōy ​hastened to the capital to take advantage of the disorder which usually follows on the death of the reigning chief in Acheh. The eldest son and successor of Ahmat Shah is known under the name of Pòteu Uëʾ, but in our epic poem he is more frequently alluded to as Raja Muda, whilst his name after his accession to the throne was Alaédin Juhan Shah. He reigned for a quarter of a century (1735–60), but in the early years after he came to the throne had a hard fight to wage with Jeumalōy, who no more than two days after the death of Pòteu Uëʾs father established himself in Gampōng Jawa and could reckon, both in Acheh Proper and in Pidië, on the support of certain considerable chiefs.
We might rather say that he ought to have maintained the contest, for our epic clearly shows that he failed to do so, and sooner than undergo much trouble and expense, was content to watch Jeumalōy enthroned and playing the king over his adherents not half a march from his palace gates. It was the youngest of the three brothers of the king (Pòchut Kléng, Pòchut Sandang and Pòchut Muhamat) whose activity put an end to this untenable position.
Contents of the epic."A country ruled—unhappy land, how shall it stand?—by monarchs twain!" It was in these words that Pòchut Muhamat gave expression to his indignation; and these words form the introduction to Teungku Lam Rukam's heroic poem.
The first part recounts a dream of Pòchut Muhamat. It is not remarkable for clearness of meaning and is apparently introduced in imitation of earlier models. Suffice it to say that this dream predicted the downfall of Acheh, unless an end should be made of the prevailing disorder. For the space of three days Pòchut Muhamat held counsel with the princes, his elder brothers, and finally announced his fixed intention of withdrawing to Batu Bara, a province on the East Coast of Sumatra, whose inhabitants were the greatest enemies or the most intractable subjects of Jeumalōy, and there making preparations for war, unless his brothers either themselves set their hands to the work or enabled him, the youngest, to do so, by supplying him with the necessary funds.
The eldest of the three, Pòchut Kléng, went to inform the king of this resolve in the name of all. But the indolent monarch was alarmed at the idea, and replied that the young lad must be admonished to ​keep quiet, else he, who had no fear of such a froward boy, would bring him to reason by force.
His prohibition was of no effect. The scheme of Pòchut Muhamat remained unaltered, and the other two brothers declared themselves ready to lend the financial coöperation necessary to set it on foot. The king now prepares to go with the soldiers of his bodyguard (sipahis, among whom were to be found, according to the poet, both English, French and Dutch) to his young brother's house, to show him that his commands were not to be disobeyed. But Pòchut Muhamat, at the head of his followers, meets him at the gate of the Dalam, and addresses him in so high-handed a manner that the king retires in alarm. Muhamat calls it a a subterfuge on the king's part to shelter himself behind a behest of his dying father, to refrain from fighting against Jeumalōy the descendant of the Prophet, and rather to ally himself with him by marriage.
"What you follow by remaining inactive," says he, "is not our dying father's command, but the faithless advice of certain chiefs who are traitors to you and in their hearts adhere to Jeumalōy."
Shortly afterwards there came to the capital the Panglima of the XXII Mukims, Keuchiʾ Muda Saʾti, a man renowned for his bravery, to ask the king for a concession in the mountain district of Seulawaïh for the collection of sulphur. When he heard how matters stood, he ridiculed the king for his inability to bring a boy to reason. The Sultan thereupon gave him full power to use his best endeavours to prevent civil war; but the Panglima soon found that he had spoken too loftily and could do naught against Pòchut Muhamat. Ashamed of his failure and fearing the king's anger, he fled back to his own territory.
Although the young hero had not as yet given any proof of his prowess in action, his determined attitude created so deep an impression in Acheh proper that none of the chiefs opposed him, and he soon collected a following of from two to three hundred men and a con- siderable sum of money, and proceeded overland to Pidië to enlarge the number of his adherents.
The description of this journey is most graphic. The little army rests for a time in Kuala Batèë and Pòchut Muhamat does all he can to ​convert this small port to a mart of importance. Both here and at all the other halting-places on his route, the prince receives the chiefs of the surrounding country and urges the adoption of measures which will tend to make the rice culture more productive and to save the people from falling into poverty through sloth and ignorance. He also distributes money and robes of honour to all that come to wait on him, and by his kindly demeanour succeeds easily in adding hundreds to the ranks of his followers.
In Padang Teuji (Tiji) he remains as long as is necessary for regulating the affairs of the VII Mukims and winning over the people to his cause, and at Reubèë, where he pays all due homage to the saint that lies buried there, he does the same in respect of the V Mukims. So with other places, till Pòchut Muhamat, thanks to his powers of persuasion and the distribution of costly gifts, is able to reckon on almost every part of the old kingdom of Pidië.
There remains but one ulèëbalang of the province, the most powerful of them all, whom he knows he will have great trouble in inducing to forsake the cause of Jeumalōy, to whom he is attached by innumerable bonds of friendship and obligation.
This is the Pangulèë Beunaròë or Meunaròë, the predecessor and it is said forefather of the chiefs who now rule under the title of Béntara Keumangan. This title is in fact given in the poem alternatively with that of Pangulèë Beunaròë, and his territory is alluded to as the IX Mukims.
The chiefs of Pidië who have ranged themselves on the side of Pòchut Muhamat are ready to join with him in making war on Pangulèë Beunaròë, though they are not blind to the danger of the undertaking. Pòchut Muhamat is however advised by a discreet ulèëbalang first to write a letter to the chief, who is as powerful as he is courageous, ​and to send the missive by the hand of one Tuan Meugat Pò Mat. The prince follows this advice after some demur; for indeed the attitude of Pangulèë Beunaròë is clearly hostile, since he has neglected to wait upon the king's brother though encamped in his immediate neighbourhood. Pò Mat undertakes the mission, and is instructed to declare war against the Pangulèë should he answer unbecomingly. It is thus no pleasant task for Pò Mat, who at first avoids mentioning the true object of his mission, whiling away the time with a long conversation on indifferent subjects. His host has just returned a day or two ago from the West Coast of Acheh? What has led him thither? The Pangulèë Beunaròë replies that he has been engaged on behalf of Jeumalōy, his master, in waging war against the refractory Rawaʾs,—the name by which the Malays of the West Coast are known in Acheh. The poet skillfully avails himself of this opportunity to enlighten us as to the political and social status of the West Coast at this period. The chiefs had shaken off the Achehnese yoke and had dared to send to Jeumalōy, on his demanding the annual tribute, a handsome gilded box full of old clothes and worn-out equipments. They were severely punished and reduced to obedience by Pangulèë Beunaròë.
Finally the envoy comes to the point, and reveals the fact that he has with him a letter from the prince. The poet throughout represents the Pangulèë and all around him as ignorant of the art of reading, a supposition which was no doubt as well justified in regard to many Achehnese chiefs in those days as it now is. But Pangulèë Beunaròë could of course easily surmise the nature of the letter, and refused even to receive it. "I look", he said, "for no orders from that direction; I serve another prince".
Pò Mat then announces that war is inevitable, a war in which all Pidië except the IX Mukims will espouse the cause of the prince against Beunaròë. Here again it is a prudent chief who leads matters into the right track; Tuan Sri Reubèë advises Beunaròë at all events to ascertain the contents of the letter in the first place, and to summon an ulama for this purpose.
Accordingly he sends to fetch the learned Teungku Rambayan, who with his hundreds of devoted disciples lives at a remote place in the highlands. The poet depicts for us, in a few graphic verses, an Acheh​nese religious seminary. The messengers respectfully approach the teacher and apologize for coming to disturb him in his pious labours. Three days later the Teungku comes to the ulèëbalang, attended by a number of his disciples. He commences by propounding a number of abstruse and somewhat indistinct precepts, the connection of which with the matter in hand is by no means clear. In interpreting the contents of the prince's letter, which is in fact couched in a somewhat lofty and reproachful tone, the wise man suppresses "the bitter" and retails only "the sweet", since he thinks it expedient to conceal the truth in order to prevent misfortune. He advises the ulèëbalang simply to go and welcome the prince, and to excuse his prolonged delay in waiting on him on the ground that he had but just returned from a journey.
The Pangulèë Beunaròë follows this advice; he summons a large escort from among his own subjects, and sets out on his journey to the prince's camp. The poet's talent for word-painting appears once more in the description of this journey with its difficulties great and small, and the consequent grumbling in the ranks of the Pangulèë's followers. The meeting with Prince Muhamat is also graphically described. The two principals exchange none but pleasant words, but when the prince discloses the object of his journey, and claims the coöperation of the ulèëbalang, the latter declares that it is impossible. Among other things he narrates how once when he returned from "the war of Glumpang Payōng" covered with wounds and blood-guilt, he was nursed by Jeumalōy's wife as though he had been her own child, while Jeumalōy, as though he were his father, took the load of blood guiltiness upon himself. And now to disown all this and so much more, nay, it was beyond his power!
Long did the chief of the IX Mukims hold out against the reasoning of Pòchut Muhamat, who sought to convince him that he would act more wisely to join his side or at least remain neutral. At last however he yielded to the argument which generally prevails in all negociations of Achehnese with one another; it was the rich presents of gold and robes of honour given by Pòchut Muhamat to the Pangulèë and his followers, that caused the latter to waver in his allegiance to Jeumalōy.
Once won over, he will do nothing by halves, but promises unconditional support to his new ally; the concert is sealed by the prince and the ulèëbalang taking the "bullet oath" of allegiance.
​Pòchut Muhamat has first to travel further East, but arranges to return by the next new moon, when he is to find his new ally with an army all ready to follow him.
We need not here dwell on the prince's journey to Pasè (Pasei) and other places along the East Coast. Suffice it to say that it gave him fresh allies and occasion to deliver useful admonitions in regard to rice cultivation, which in this region was carried on in a very slovenly and ill-ordered manner.
Returning to Peukan Tuha, Muhamat awaits Beunaròë. The ulèëbalang prepares for his departure by the payment of hitherto unfulfilled vows for his deliverance from the dangers of warfare, and by the transaction of other business both secular and religious. Finally he charges his aged mother with the care of his interests during his absence.
Here follows a masterly description of the ulèëbalang's leave-taking of his aged parent. She adjures him not to go. "In Acheh," she says, "war is decided by fortifications and firearms. You, my son, are better acquainted with the manner of fighting here in Pidië, by cut and thrust. Should you become involved in a war here in Pidië, all that I possess is at your service, but follow not the young prince. Is it well of you to forget all the kindness of Jeumalōy for the sake of a handful of gold? And do you forget me your mother also? If I die there will be no child of mine at hand to close my eyes!"
Beunaròë cannot restrain his tears. Amid his sobs he puts forward the lame pretext that although Jeumalōy shall always be to him as a father, still Pòchut Muhamat has now become to him even as a brother. He kisses his mother's knees, and encourages himself by saying with apparent contempt that none but a fool distresses himself about the counsels of women.
In and around the house all are in tears; the prevailing sounds of sorrow recall the mourning for the dead. As the ulèëbalang descends the steps of his house, a cocoanut tree in the enclosure falls and strikes ​the roof, breaking the ridge-pole and some of the beams. A gloomy omen this!
The army, which has now swelled to proportions seldom seen in Acheh, at length begins to move. Here we learn the character of an Achehnese warlike expedition. Neither chiefs nor subjects make any provision for a suitable commissariat, so that the passage of the troops is a perfect plague to the inhabitants of the districts they traverse. The sugarcane gardens which they pass on the way are plundered to the last section of the last cane, and the stragglers of this hungry and thirsty troop quarrel violently over the refuse.
At Kruëng Raya, a considerable trading centre, they are unable to resist the temptation of looting all the cloth-stuffs in the storehouses of the Kling traders, and even depriving them of the clothes they wear, leaving them only their nether garments.
With loud lamentations these Klings repair to the capital and make their complaints in the Dalam. The Raja Muda gives them scant consolation. Why, asks the king, do these people come here now with their jabbering complaints, instead of getting their merchandise into safety in good time? They might have known that the troops were on the march, and what they had to expect when they arrived.
Before the arrival of the hostile forces at the capital, Jeumalōy is prepared for great events by a dream, in which he sees his palace and all around it devastated by flood and tempest. He makes all ready to sustain a siege, especially his fortifications in Gampōng Jawa, Peunayōng and Meuraʾsa, and assigns to each of his four sons a fixed share in the task of defence.
Prince Muhamat makes the necessary vows to secure for his undertaking the favour and support of Allah and visits his brother the king in the Dalam. "It is better," says the latter, "for me to remain here and pray for your success than myself to take part in the hostilities; otherwise who would protect the royal residence?" The hot blooded young prince raises no objection to this proposal.
It was no empty warning that Pangulèë Beunaròë had received from his mother. At the outset the cannon and musketry fire from Jeumalōy's ​forts caused fearful ravages in the army of Prince Muhamat, which was formed for the most part of Pidië men. Even the prince's courage threatened for a moment to forsake him, and it was his new ally who roused him to action. Beunaròë bound the fold of his garment to that of Muhamat, and constrained him, thus coupled with himself to join in leading the attack.
Gradually Jeumalōy's forts succumbed, and there remained only Gampōng Jawa to be taken. This last stronghold was blockaded, and the means of subsistence began to fail those shut up therein. In one of the combats which relieve the monotony of the blockade, Jeumalōy and his disloyal "son" the Pangulèë Beunaròë come within speaking distance of one another. The king reproaches his recreant ally for his faithless conduct, and though his tone is kind and fatherly, so keen was the irony of his words that every one of them passed like a sword through the soul of the ulèëbalang. At the end of his speech the sayyid takes aim with his musket, not at the renegade, but at a glumpang-tree in the distance. He strikes a branch, which drops, but is borne along by the force of the wind till its shadow falls on the Pangulèës body.
The hero falls senseless. There is hardly a sign to show the astonished bystanders that he still lives. His friends press round, curious to know whether he has received a wound, or been seized with sudden illness. The poet answers: Nay, he was smitten by the vengeance of Allah, who will not brook that any man should play the traitor to a descendant of the Prophet.
Pòchut Muhamat gives orders in all haste for the conveyance home to his own country of his unhappy ally, who still lives, but is bereft both of speech and motion. He gives the escort camphor and other things to be used at the burial. Beunaròé breathes his last at the moment when he reaches his home.
The prince was deeply grieved at the loss of his friend, yet did not yield to that gloomy feeling which the poet excites in his readers. At any rate he proceeded with the blockade, and the fate of Gampōng Jawa was soon decided. He wished to spare Jeumalōy, for the latter's high rank and sacred descent withheld him from taking his life. As however it was very doubtful whether his wild fighting men enraged by the losses they had sustained, would pay any heed to such a prohibition, he gladly complied with Jeumalōy's request that he might be allowed to leave the Dalam with his women and in female disguise, ​whereupon the besiegers would be admitted. This was done, and then began the plundering of the Dalam, which Jeumalōy's followers had thought impregnable, and in which they had accordingly brought all their valuables. The chief part of the loot was gold and opium. The poet declares that during the sack some looked on inactive, and when asked why they stood aloof, replied that it was forbidden to plunder the goods of fellow-believers as though they were infidels.
Jeumalōy fled successively to Lam Baruëh, Gampōng Meulayu, Kruëng Raba and Kruëng Kala, and after that was pursued no further; but some Achehnese chiefs who connived at his escape had to pay dearly for their adhesion to his cause. The Mukims Buëng, for instance, were ravaged with fire to the very last house.
Thus Pòteu Uëʾ, thanks to the energy and courage of his youngest brother, became almost in his own despite master of all Acheh. When order had been fully restored and trade revived, Pòchut Muhamat received as his reward half the port dues, and a year later married a lady of royal lineage at Gampōng Lham Bhuʾ.
Our short resumé of this heroic poem is entirely inadequate to enable the reader to appreciate its beauties. Even a complete translation would fall short in this respect, for the Achehnese rhyme and metre are difficult to reproduce, and many a proverb and saying would lose its force in the rendering. The merits of the author would, however, be brought out better in a complete translation, since they consist to a great extent in the graphic pictures which he draws of the details of life, thought and speech in Acheh.
This much will however, I hope, be apparent from my short analysis, that the author, by his grasp of his subject, his arrangement of his materials, his unostentatious and objective treatment of the matter in hand and his skill in word-painting, shows himself to be a man of literary gifts of an unusually high order.
We may add that he is a greater master of form than any other Achehnese poet we know of. The facility with which an Achehnese sentence lends itself to the "sanjaʾ" form is apt to lead to slovenly versification, and in most Achehnese hikayats we find side by side with pieces of fine composition passages which give evidence of the sloth​fulness or weariness of the poet. In the Pòchut Muhamat, which contains only about 2500 verses, such intermixture is rare, and the style is curt and trenchant throughout. We do not go too far in saying that this heroic poem is a gem of Achehnese, nay of Oriental literature. Moreover, as the reader will have observed, it has a peculiar historic value and furnishes us with a graphic picture of the past of Acheh.
Copies of this epic are very rare. Nothwithstanding my incessant search, I have only succeeded in obtaining the loan of two ill-written and incomplete specimens.
In the text which may be constituted from these two copies the sequence is thus sometimes interrupted, and there are certain peculiarities which defy all attempts at explanation.
As a rule, indeed, good and complete copies of Achehnese writings are rarely to be met with. Many know the most popular hikayats by heart, and when they come to recite them fill up from their own imagination and skill in rhyming the deficiencies of their memory or of the written copies. There are however other special reasons for the rarity of written specimens of the Pòchut Muhamat.
Even at the present day there are to be found in Acheh persons whose good taste is sufficient to make them prefer a recitation of Pòchut Muhamat to one of any of the numerous Malay stories that have been translated into Achehnese verse, tales of fabulous princes who performed all kinds of impossibilities to gain possession of the chosen one of their soul. And yet the epic is seldom recited.
Heroic though the prince who gives the poem its name may be, he wages war against a sayyid, who had formerly been the lawful and recognized sovereign of Acheh, and who had also been bereft of the crown by that prince's father. Jeumalōy, whose tomb is still to be seen not far from the principal mosque of Acheh, is universally revered as a saint by the Achehnese. Pòteu Uëʾ, for whose sake his younger brother drove out the sayyid, and that too with the help of subjects turned from their allegiance, is the founder of the present Achehnese dynasty. No wonder then that the scions of the royal house of Acheh will brook no mention of the Hikayat Pòchut Muhamat and regard it as a forbidden thing for anyone of their family to order or listen to its recitation.
This feeling, originating in shame and superstition, makes itself felt even outside the circle of the royal family. Among those who dare to recite the epic, there are many who think it their duty to offer their ​excuses to the saints and the "kings now in bliss" by burning incense or giving a kanduri.
Hikayat prang Gōmpeuni.Hikayat prang Gōmpeuni (VIII).
In Vol I of this work we have already given a brief outline of this latest of Achehnese heroic poems, referring more especially to the political attitude of the poet,—or we might rather say the feeling prevalent among the common people in the lowlands of Acheh, and which pervades this poem throughout.
DŌKARIM, THE AUTHOR OF THE "PRANG GŌMPEUNI".
Dōkarim (i. e. Abdulkarim) of Glumpang Dua in the VI Mukims of the XXV is the composer of this hikayat. Writer we may not call him, for he can neither read not write. He went on, as he tells us for five years gradually composing this poem in celebration of the heroic deeds of the Achehnese in their conflict against the Dutch, adding fresh matter from time to time as he gained enlightenment from eye-witnesses. The popularity which he quickly won and which led him to recite the poem constantly for the sake of the handsome presents he received for doing so, saved it from being lost, although for the time being it was preserved in his memory alone.
This does not prevent him from giving himself, at each recitation, license to modify add or omit as he thinks fit or from filling up the ​gaps from his really subtle poetic vein, whenever his memory fails him.
We can here witness for ourselves one of the methods by which an Achehnese heroic poem is brought into the world. Some one man, who like most of his fellow countrymen knows by heart the classic descriptions of certain events and situations as expressed in verse by the people of the olden time, but whose knowledge, owing to his training and environment, is somewhat greater than that of others; one who is endowed, besides, with a good memory and enthusiasm for the poesy of his country, puts his powers to the test by celebrating in verse the great events of more recent years.
Just as a literate poet reads his work again and again, and by the free use of his pen makes it conform more and more to the canons of art, so does our bard by means of incessant recitation. The events of which he sings have not yet reached their final development, so he keeps on adding, as occasion arises, fresh episodes to his poem.
So it goes on, till at last some literate amateur writes out the epic at the dictation of its composer. By this means sundry faults and irregularities and overbold flights of imagination come to light, which, though a listener might overlook them, are not to be endured in a written hikayat. The copyist, with the full concurrence of the poet, gives himself license to make all the necessary corrections, and subsequent copyists or reciters take the like liberty.
The Hikayat Prang Gōmpeuni has only just entered on this last phase of development, for until I had it taken down from the poet's lips, there was not a single copy extant in writing; only one single Achehnese chief had caused a few fragments of it to be perpetuated by the pen. Thus it may be noticed here and there, in regard to the language in which the poem is at present couched, that the "latest hand" has not yet left its mark upon it.
There are also other ways in which the form and contents of this hikayat testify to the character of its author. Those who are well disposed towards him honour him with the name of teungku, but he has not earned this title either by his learning or by specially devout practice of religious observances. Dōkarim was formerly a director of sadati-performances and other such pastimes condemned by the Mohammedan religion, and master of ceremonies at marriage festivities, which presupposes a high degree of oratorical skill and knowledge of traditional sayings in prose and verse, and of pantōns and ceremonial ​formulas. In these particulars he was of course in the habit of conforming to the tastes and requirements of his public.
Dōkarim's great object was to win the approval of his hearers, so that they might set a high value (and that too in the material sense of the word) upon his recitations.
Now his public consisted chiefly, not of the members of the guerilla bands which fought against the Gōmpeuni, nor yet of persons specially trained up in religious ideas, but of the common folk of the gampōngs; and they, as we know, comprise reconcilable as well as fanatical spirits, even though the former may not be for the moment ripe for reconciliation. Thus it has been Dōkarim's endeavour to express, in verses pleasant to the ear, the impressions and feelings of the mean between these two extremes of Achehnese society. Accordingly we meet with him, as elsewhere, that hatred of the infidel which has become a matter of custom, but no deep-seated and unyielding fanaticism. Indeed I feel convinced that a gentle transition might under certain circumstances induce him to recast his poem into a glorification of the Gōmpeuni.
The fact that he tells his tale as an Achehnese and a contemporary of the events of which he sings, of course raises the historical reliability of his epic immeasurably above the nonsensical Malay poem which has been printed at Singapore under the title of "Prang Acheh". This does not prevent some of his facts, seen as they are through Achehnese spectacles, from assuming a wrong perspective. Indeed some of his statements in connection with the origin of the war in Acheh belong entirely to the domain of legendary tradition. Nor is there any lack of intentional romance, introduced in all innocence.
As might be expected, events in which the VI Mukims, the author's own country, were more or less specially concerned, are treated at greater length and with more closeness of detail than any others. To the poet's being a resident of that place is also due the respect he ​displays for Teuku Uma, who had great influence there, and also the fact that he exhibits more sympathy for Teungku Kutakarang than for his rival Teungku Tirò. To the same cause is to be attributed his constant abuse of the chiefs of Meuraʾsa (who were as a matter of fact enemies of the ulèëbalang of the VI Mukims) for their speedy reconciliation with the Gōmpeuni; and this though he was neither combative nor a fanatic by nature. We shall now proceed to give a brief summary of the contents of the poem.
Contents of the poem.Once upon a time the raja of Acheh called in all his ulamas to explain an evil dream which had visited him. None save Teungku Kuta Karang was able to interpret it; he declared that an appalling misfortune was hanging over Acheh, to wit a war with the Dutch.
In this connection the poet takes occasion to extol the meritorious nature of a holy war, but reminds his hearers at the same time that it can only be waged with success when coupled with true conversion and superabundant good works. In this way alone, he says, can the Dutch, who have already had to incur a debt of thirty millions to maintain the war, be driven from the country, and if this be not done we shall be made subject to their insupportable yoke.
Hereupon the author plunges in medias res and narrates a legend of the still living Panglima Tibang, which had already gained much popularity in a different form.
This man is a Hindu by birth, who in the days of his youth came over with a troupe of conjurors from his native country to Acheh. His quickness and ingenuity attracted the attention of a chief on the Eeast Coast, and he remained in Acheh, at first in the service of that chief and later on in the suite of the Sultan. He embraced Islam, not so much from conviction as to make his path easier. Since then he has been called Panglima Tibang, after the Gampōng of Tibang, where his conversion took place. He enjoyed the confidence of Sultans Ibrahim and Mahmut and was even made shahbandar of the capital.
The Achehnese quite wrongly ascribe to him pro-Dutch sympathies ​even before the commencement of the war. This notion finds support in the fact that the Panglima was a member of Achehnese embassies to Riouw and Singapore.
From the time of his surrender to General Van der Heijden, Panglima Tibang showed himself as ready to render faithful service to the Dutch Raja as he had previously been to the two last rajas of Acheh. He has been ever since so loyal in his new partisanship as to incur the hatred of the majority of the Achehnese as a false renegade; and this hatred has furnished the motif of sundry stories now in circulation which attribute the fall of the country to this Hindu.
Our poet's story runs as follows. Panglima Tibang purchased a ship in the Sultan's name for 44000 dollars, to convey him to the ports of the dependencies to collect tribute for his master. Whilst on her voyage the vessel fell into the hands of the Dutch, and Panglima Tibang was taken prisoner. He recovered his freedom however and received a handsome money present to boot, in return for a parchment sealed with the chab sikureuëng and a flag, which he gave to the Dutch as tokens of possession of the kingdom of Acheh.
Armed with these false tokens, the Dutch declared to the Powers that Acheh had become theirs by purchase; thus it was that no other Power interfered when the Gōmpeuni came to occupy Acheh by force of arms.
At this time the Achehnese were warned of the approaching end of the world by a wasiët (Arab. waçiyyat = admonition) of the Prophet, brought by certain hajis from Mecca.
During the month Asan-Usén of this year of calamity, four of the Gōmpeuni's ships came with a demand for submission. Council was held thereon in the Dalam, the chief speakers being Teuku Kali and an aged woman. The latter's advice, namely to accept the Dutch flag but to keep concealed from the up-country people the significance of its being hoisted, was rejected.
TEUKU RADJA ITAM, ULÈËBALANG OF THE VI MUKIMS SINCE 1896.
The Gōmpeuni would not hear of any delay, and thus the strife began. Foremost in the field was the brave Imeum of Lueng Bata; Teuku Chèʾ (i.e. Teuku Lam Nga, the first husband of the daughter of the ulèëbalang of the VI Mukims, afterwards married to Teuku Uma) and Teuku Lam Reuëng also receive honourable mention.
The Sultan soon fled from the Dalam, first to Luëng Bata and afterwards to Lam Teungòh (XXII Mukims), where he surrendered the reins of power with tears to Panglima Pòlém.
The poet does not fail to comment on the "treacherous" action of the people of Meuraʾsa and certain of their kindred who only made a show of taking part in the ​warlike preparations, and surrendered to the Gōmpeuni without striking a blow.
A passionate appeal for help to the saint Teungku Anjōng was not in vain, and the kafirs were compelled to return home without
SOME DISTINGUISHED ACHEHNESE: ON THE LEFT THE LATE TEUKU KALI MALIKŌN ADÉ; IN THE CENTRE THE IMEUM OF THE LUËNG BATA.
completing their task. The enemy's failure was further due to the fact that before this first fight the people had truly repented of their sins ​and turned to Allah; later on, when their religious zeal abated, the fortune of war also turned against them.
The ships which the Dutch left lying off Acheh barred all access to the port. The Gōmpeuni meanwhile enlisted the aid of English, French and Portuguese vessels, and, thus reinforced, resumed the attack after 10 months. The Imeum of Luëng Bata and Teungku Lam Nga fought once more with heroic valour. The Sultan fled a second time, on this occasion to Pagarayé, where he died.
After the conquest of the Dalam the war was waged with varying fortune. Meantime Habib Abdurrahman returned to the Straits from his journey to the West.
The poet now surveys a period of nearly nine months duration, during which the combatants remained almost inactive, and at the end of which the Mukim Luëng Bata (whose brave imeum was sick at the time) and the Mukim Lhòng (= Lam Ara) were overcome by the Gōmpeuni. Soon after the VI Mukims (the author's country) and the IV Mukims shared the same fate.
The people of the gampōngs who had taken to flight began by degrees to return to the parts occupied by the Gōmpeuni, attracted by the profits arising from the sale of provisions. Teuku Lam Nga tried in vain to hold them back by force.
When "the Habib" set foot once more on Achehnese soil, he assumed a considerable share in the conduct of the war. Establishing himself at Mon Tasiëʾ, he undertook several expeditions from that place, and among them one to Kruëng Raba. This however led to nothing, for (as the Achehnese later on pretended to have observed) the Habib's investment of the Gōmpeuni's stronghold was not seriously meant. In like manner they now ascribe to the treachery of the Habib the success of the Dutch in defeating and slaying Teuku Lam Nga near Peukan Bada a short time afterwards.
The efforts of the Gōmpeuni to win over the Imeum of Luëng Bata with bribes proved all in vain. In the enemy's onslaught upon the XXVI Mukims he stood firm in the defence along with Teuku Paya the father ​of Teuku Asan, whom we shall have to notice presently. But when the XXVI Mukims had been conquered, and the "one-eyed general" shortly afterwards made victorious progress even through the XXII Mukims, to the amazement of the hitherto braggart inhabitants of the upper country, the Imeum of Luëng Bata thrust his sword into its sheath and withdrew from public life.
Now dawns the period of three years of repose, during which the General strengthened the positions he had won. The "Raja Muda", Teuku Nyaʾ Muhamat, used all his efforts to advance the prosperity of the capital and of Ulèë Lheuë (Olehleh). He was so far successful that the people who had fled from their villages came pouring back in a continuous stream to the capital and fraternised with the kafirs. Life was a round of festivities, trade flourished, and the leaders of the party of resistance were bereft of their following.
All things conspired to bring homage to the one-eyed King.
The people of the VI Mukims, the poet tells us, had nevertheless much to endure, since the Raja Muda compelled them to work hard for the Gōmpeuni and himself.
No sooner did the one-eyed King depart, than all this repose was at an end. That brave warrior Teuku Asan, still in the pride of his youth, sought leave of his father in Pidië, whither the latter had fled, to go and do battle with the Gōmpeuni. The desired consent was given, with a father's blessing on his pious purpose. Teuka Asan quickly gathered some panglimas and a small force, and fixed his head-quarters in the neighbourhood of Lam Bada, the place of his birth.
The gampōng-folk were at first disposed to resist his establishing himself in that place, as they viewed with distaste the disturbance of their peace, but Teuku Asan and his followers soon taught them to throw off their equivocal attitude.
​The kupalas (headmen) soon saw that they had acted rashly in permitting themselves to enjoy the favour of the Gōmpeuni. The latter required of them reliable information as to the movements of the guerilla bands, but whenever they furnished it they were severely punished by Teuku Asan, and the Gōmpeuni gave them little help. Finally an alarming example was set by the execution of the arch-traitor kupala Punteuët, and all the remaining headmen embraced, either openly or in secret, the cause of Teuku Asan.
Thereupon the Raja Muda called on his subjects to purchase firearms to defend themselves against Teuku Asan, so that for them too peace was at an end.
The headman of the Chinese succeeded by a money present in inducing Teuku Asan to refrain from attacking the coolies of his nationality, the more so as they waged no war, but earned their livelihood by labour. At the same time this headman facilitated the visits which the Teuku occasionally made to Kuta Raja for scouting purposes. He used to disguise himself on such occasions as a seller of firewood; his price was so high that no one would ever buy from him, and so as he passed from place to place with his load he was able to gather all the information he required.
The principal panglimas who took up arms under the leadership of Teuku Asan were Nyaʾ Bintang, Teuku Usén of Pagarayé, his brother Teuku Ali, and Teuku Usén of Luëng Bata, brother of the imeum of that Mukim. We are told of their feats of arms—usually attacks upon convoys of provisions. Even at this period (an example is quoted in the IV Mukims) the people of the gampōngs used often to misinform the leaders of the guerilla bands as to the movements of the Gōmpeuni, so as to rid themselves of the presence of both.
Later on a new leader, Teuku Uma (Umar), came up from the West to drive the Dutch out of the IV Mukims. The people joined him the more readily as they were weary of the burdens laid upon them by the Raja Muda. The poet, who himself received many gifts from Teuku Uma's generous hand, details at some length the exploits of this hero till his return to Daya.
​The death of Teuku Asan at Ulèë Lheuë occurred under such peculiar circumstances that the Achehnese onlookers gathered therefrom that Allah in his wisdom had determined to take this warrior to himself as a martyr (shahīd). There was indeed an unusual want of caution displayed by Teuku Asan on this occasion, when without any previous organisation he marched into the territory of Meuraʾsa at the head of a few followers. In the gampōngs he passed on his way he enjoined all who had noticed his presence to keep it a secret, promising that he would spare them, as he had come, not to punish the men of Meuraʾsa for their defection, but to fight with the Dutch. He earnestly besought his followers to abstain from plunder on this occasion.
After a brief engagement he was badly wounded; most Achehnese attribute the fatal shot to the followers of Teuku Neʾ, though it was really fired by the soldiers who occupied the mosque of Ulèë Lheuë. Teuku Asan was rescued by his comrades, but died on the way home.
The epic now approaches the period of the "concentration" and the appearance on the scene of Teungku Tirò, who first came to Lam Panaïh, his following being composed chiefly of men from Pidië. This ulama gave a great impetus to the holy war. All who came from the Gōmpeuni's territory to join his standard had first to go through the ceremony of re-conversion to the true faith. A spy from Lhōʾ Nga who was taken prisoner by the Teungku's people was put to death without mercy.
The ulèëbalangs who were on good terms with the Gōmpeuni, now exhibited respect for the Teungku, not unmixed with fear. Thus Teuku Aneuʾ Paya (ulèëbalang of the IV Mukims, who has a wife in the gampōng of Meureuduati within the "linie") when chosen to act as guide to the Dutch troops on an expedition against Teungku Tirò's folk, secretly informed the ulama of the plans of the Gōmpeuni.
The kupalas were now more alarmed than ever and held aloof as much as possible from the Gōmpeuni. Now that the ulama had charge of the holy cause, not only the free lances, but many of the common people as well, took part with zeal in the resistance. Teungku Tirò applied a portion of the contributions which flowed into his coffers to the giving of solemn feasts, which added to the number of his adherents.
Teuku Uma also returned once more from the West Coast and began to give trouble to the Gōmpeuni at Peukan Bada. During this period he had a ceremonious meeting with Teungku Tirò in the IV Mukims, ​where a great fortified house was built for the ulama, to provide him with a lodging on his future visits to that district. Teuku Uma declared himself ready to conform in all things to the Teungku's will.
Teungku Tirò now continued his journey to Seubun. Here the poet gives an ironical description of a kanduri or religious feast organized by the ulama on a grand scale, which was unfortunately disturbed by an onset of the Dutch troops. The assembled guests found it hard, even with the bullets whistling about their ears, to tear themselves away from the dainty feast of buffalo-meat just done to a turn, with all the accompanying good cheer.
From Seubun the ulama directed his steps to Aneu Galōng and Indrapuri; in every place along his route he gave the chiefs instructions for the raising of sabil-contributions, to support the garrisons of the forts which the ulama had erected in every direction. He also took the opportunity on this tour to settle questions of religious law etc. in his capacity as the interpreter of the sacred code.
Arriving at Lam Panaïh he went through seven days of seclusion and mortification (tapa) and received sundry "converts", comprising certain Chinamen and convicts and also two European non-commissioned officers, who assisted Teungku Tirò's people in the manufacture of gunpowder.
Day by day the Teungku's influence waxed greater, and though the ulèëbalangs appear to have watched his progress with jealous eyes, they neither dared nor indeed were able to oppose him. Teungku Tirò's son Nyaʾ Amin (in full Nyaʾ Mat or Maʾ Amin), was placed in command of the forces. The ulama then returned from Lam Panaïh to Aneuʾ Galōng.
Here the poet introduces a passage regarding Teungku Kuta Karang, telling how he was the first to conceive the idea of placing bombs beneath the rails of the Gōmpeuni's military line. The object of this digression seems to be to give the admirers of Teungku Kuta Karang some compensation for the superabundant praise he pours upon his great rival.
Teungku Tirò now returned from the XXII Mukims to the lowland ​districts. At the tomb of Teungku di Kuala (Abdōraʾōh) a severe conflict took place with the troops of the Gōmpeuni, and in other places there were numbers of smaller engagements.
Teuku Uma, who had again spent a considerable time on the West Coast, now arrived at Leupuëng, but none of his followers knew of the scheme which he was now fostering. To the amazement of all, he unexpectedly tendered his submission to the Gōmpeuni, who received this powerful leader with open arms. The poet gives a graphic picture of his journey to Ulèë Lheuë and Kuta Raja.
This submission, pursues our bard, was no more nor less than a stratagem to lure on the Gōmpeuni to their destruction.
At Kuta Raja he succeeded in obtaining from a Chinese trader an advance of 12000 dollars against pepper to be delivered later, but which he never did deliver. Subsequently the Gōmpeuni at his request supplied him with a man-of-war to convey him home.
At Lam Beusòë one of the ships boats landed the Teuku and his followers, but as soon as he had withdrawn, his panglimas fell upon the sailors and slew them all except two who escaped to the shore. These two fugitives betook themselves to Teuku Uma, who expressed great indignation at the conduct of his followers, and threatened to put all of them to death.
The measures taken by the Gōmpeuni to avenge this treacherous act, such as for instance the bombardment of Lhōʾ Glumpang, were of no effect, for Teuku Uma was not a ulèëbalang, and had no territory or property that might be injured.
Subsequently Teuku Uma passed some time at Rigaïh and became master of Kruëng Sabé without striking a blow.
​Now follows the story, told at great length, of the cutting out of the Hok Canton (Ach. Kōntōm) by T. Uma. Here too the narrative is vitiated by the poet's anxiety to represent the whole affair as the outcome of a well concerted plan of T. Uma's for the discomfiture of the kafirs.
The expeditions of the Gōmpeuni against Lhōʾ Glumpang and Rigaïh were also fruitless. They could not succeed either in overtaking and punishing Teuku Uma, nor in liberating the imprisoned "Nyōnya." The chief Pòchut Mamat with a number of women were indeed brought as captives to Kuta Raja, but the Tuan Beusa (Governor) himself had to admit upon enquiry that these people were wholly free from all blame for what had occurred.
The poet describes the expeditions of T. Uma with the imprisoned nyōnya, and the great concourse of people brought together by curiosity to behold for the first time in their lives an European woman.
The Tuan Beusa was covered with shame, especially when he reflected on the possible criticisms of the English. He took counsel in the first place with the Panglima Meuseugit Raya, a relative of Teuku Uma. The Panglima undertook a mission to negotiate with the latter, but could obtain no better terms for the release of the captive than a ransom of $40,000. Recourse was then had to Teuku Baʾét (ulèëbalang of the VII Mukims of the XXII). His negotiations with T. Uma are described in a jocose vein; they result in the reduction of the sum demanded to $ 25,000.
​The ransom was paid and the nyōnya released. T. Uma distributed the money with a generous hand,—a further proof of the tact with which he kept his people faithful to his cause.
PANGLIMA MEUSEUGIT RAVA.
Teuku Baʾét, who conducted the negociations, received 500 dollars, and Teuku Uma's friends and followers all received presents proportioned to their rank.
The bard gives a humorous description of the sending of a present of 500 dollars of the ransom-money to Teungku Tirò; we mark herein the critical spirit of the worldly Achehnese, who with all his reverence for the great expounder of the law sees beneath the robe of the ulama a heart as little free from the love of gold as his own. When the messengers of Teuku Uma brought this sum of money as a "worthless gift" from their chief to the ulama, the latter first asked for a full explanation as to the source from whence the money was derived. Adat-chiefs, as he knew, are not always overscrupulous as to the means they use to win gold, and no good ulama could touch such a gift were he not assured that it had been acquired in a manner sanctioned by religious law!
The Teungku was told that the money was spoil won from the kafirs and was enlightened as to the manner of its acquisition. Then the pious man smiled, for there was indeed no fault to find, and said that henceforth Teuku Uma might look on him as a father.
Not long after this Teuku Uma came by invitation to share in a ​kanduri given by Teungku Tirò. Flattering speeches flowed from the lips of both, but the Teungku took this opportunity earnestly to admonish his friend to hold fast by the true religion and to have no dealings with the infidels. In reply Teuku Uma authorised the ulama to punish with rigour any of his followers who should transgress that prohibition, while he promised that for his part he should never be found false to his creed.
Teungku Tirò's active enterprises against the Gōmpeuni were now varied for a time by progresses through the XXVI Mukims and other parts of the country, for the purpose of instructing and admonishing both chiefs and people.
The masterly tone which he assumed drew upon him the hatred of the ulèëbalangs through whose territories he passed, but they could do nothing to check the influence acquired by the powerful ulama.
During this period of comparative repose the great Teungku was poisoned. From the moment that he began to feel the fatal working of the poison, he ceased not to admonish his followers with all the earnestness of a dying man, and he especially adjured his son Mat Amin to be guided by the wise counsel of the ulamas. But when his father died, Mat Amin and his guerilla bands followed their own devices, caring neither for the laws of God nor man. Thus the great crowd of followers who had gathered round Teungku Tirò soon dispersed and vanished from the scene.
A new centre of operations in the "holy war" was now formed in the IX Mukims; the leader of the movement was the great Teungku Kuta Karang, whose disciples formed the kernel of his army. At his command hand-grenades were laid beneath the rails of the Dutch line, and the trains were attacked and fired upon by his followers. These attacks were generally made on a Friday, since pious deeds done on that day have a special value in the eyes of Allah.
In vain the Gōmpeuni sought to overcome him; the captain of Lam Baruëh (i.e. Lam Jamèë) fell in an attack on Kuta Kandang, and the ​Gōmpeuni after this fight were compelled to desist from such enterprises. In the above engagement the followers of Maʾ Amin and of Habib Samalanga found themselves fighting shoulder to shoulder with those of Teungku Kuta Karang.
The policy of Teungku Kuta Karang, the poet tells us, differed from that of the other ulamas in this respect, that he permitted his people to have intercourse with those within the "linie" or pale. His object in this was to increase the sabil-contributions, to obtain news of the Gōmpeuni's movements and to give courageous warriors an opportunity of ambuscading the Dutch troops. The Habib of Samalanga punished all who had gone within the "linie" with seven days penitential seclusion (kaluët, from the Arab. chalwat). It is said that the bodies of any that had the temerity to disregard the Habibs commands became swollen with disease.
After Teungku Tirò's death Habib Samalanga obtained from the Sultan a letter with the royal seal. He made this authorization known to all the ulèëbalangs, and sought to rouse them to action. They pretended to adhere to his cause, but in reality thought of nothing but their own wordly interests.
At the close of the poem (1891) the Gōmpeuni is busy in stopping all imports, to the great discomfort of the people within the "linie". To make this system of exclusion effective they constitute a new corps of soldiery, the masusé. These guardians of the frontier are very arrogant and self-important. They show much courage when they meet a few stray Gampōng folk; these they arrest with much unnecessary commotion and hustle over the boundary with kicks and blows. But when they see a band of fighting men they slink away.
As the Dutch are now (1891) going to work, says the poet, they will never be masters of Acheh. The one-eyed General was right!
The above brief abstract should suffice to show the spirit of the poet, that is to say the spirit of his public. Although his work in addition to its being incomplete is far inferior in point of artistic merit to the epic of Teungku Lam Rukam, and also to that of the anonymous ​author of Malém Dagang, it has from its actuality just as much claim on our interest as either of these. At the same time it forms a remarkable example of the preservation of epic literature without the intermediary of writing. I can testify from my own experience that two recitations of this poem delivered by the author himself on two separate occasions, differed from one another as little as any two written copies of any Achehnese book.
Hikayat Raja Sulòyman.The Hikayat Raja Sulòyman (IX) is the production of a poet from the IX Mukims. I have never seen a copy, but from what I can ascertain it celebrates the strife waged by the young prince of that name from his coming of age to his death (1857) against his uncle and guardian Mansō Shah. The prince established himself in the VI Mukims, for Teuku Nanta the ulèëbalang of that territory was his chief ally, while his guardian who refused to vacate the throne in his favour, settled in the Dalam at the capital.
Hikayat Teungku di Meukéʾ. Hikayat Teungku di Meukéʾ (X).
This is a short and insignificant heroic poem. The author is one Teungku Malém, a native of Trumon, married to a woman of Peunaga. The poet celebrates the conflict waged in 1893 and 1894 by the chiefs of Meulabōh, friendly to the Dutch, against the party of resistance, whose chief stronghold was Runèng and who were led by the holy Teungku di Meukéʾ.
The poem is an imitation of the older epics, without any attempt at accuracy or completeness. It ends with the death of Teungku di Meukéʾ.
It is characteristically Achehnese that the poet, though belonging to the side of the Government, depicts Teungku Meukéʾ as a holy martyr to the faith and his followers as the representatives of religion. It matters not on what side an Achehnese finds himself, he always regards the enemies of the unbelievers as upholders of the right cause.
§ 4. Original treatises.
We have dealt first with the heroic poems of the Achehnese, because they are purely Achehnese both in form, subject and origin. The few short treatises which we are now about to mention might properly be ​regarded as coming under the head of literature of religion or edification. Their genuine Achehnese character however, distinguishes them from other Achehnese works of the same sort, most of which are based on Malay or Arabic originals. For this reason we assign them a separate place.
Teungku Tirò's "lessons".Teungku Tirò's "lessons on the holy war" (XI) are in the form of small pamphlets. Only two have come into my hands, filling not more than a quire of paper; but there were undoubtedly more besides. These two, however, enjoy a special popularity. They deal all through with one and the same subject, and consist of strong exhortations to sacrifice life and property to the holy cause, which it is said, should for the moment throw all other considerations into the shade in Acheh. These exhortations are enforced with the requisite texts of holy writ showing the prang sabi to be a bounden duty and promising to all who take part in it an incomparable reward in the hereafter.
Admonition to laggards.Taḍkirat ar-rākidīn (XII).
We have already noticed the pamphlet disseminated by Teungku Kuta Karang, the greatest rival of Teungku Tirò, under the title of "admonition to laggards". It should rather be called a collection of pamphlets repeatedly revised and added to by the author. This compilation is more comprehensive than the two treatises of Teungku Tirò and is also remarkable for certain peculiar ideas which it advances. For instance the author would have the Friday service performed in Achehnese and not, as is now everywhere done, in Arabic.
He suggests fitting out a fleet of war-ships to harass the "kafirs" by sea as was being done with so much success on land. All alike, sultan, chiefs, ulamas and people must throw off their half-heartedness, working together with one consent and overlooking all paltry matters, "louse-questions" as the writer calls them, so that they may assail the "elephant" that stands in their way. The rebuilding of mosques and reforming of morals are indeed most desirable things, but even these must stand aside for a moment, while everyone devotes his zeal, his time and above all, his money to the carrying on of the war. All contributions must be gathered into a single treasury, under the control of some able and trusty leader, as for instance Teungku Kuta Karang himself. Let no one ​inveigh against occasional acts of rapine on the part of the fighters in the holy cause, since much is forgiven to those who dedicate themselves to so pious and so hard a task!
Nasihat ureuëng muprang.Nasihat ureuëng muprang (XIII).
The author of this hikayat, which extends to some 2000 verses, himself tells us that he has borrowed most of his materials from a treatise written by the Palembang pandit Abduṣṣamad, who gained a high reputation about a century ago by his theological works. By his Malay translations Abduṣṣamad gave a wide circulation to the works of the revered master of mysticism, al-Ghazâlî; in the sphere of practical mysticism he took lessons at Medina from the mystic teacher Moḥammad as-Sammân (born in A.D. 1720), whom we shall have occasion to mention again hereafter (ch. III, § 3). He also wrote an "Admonition to Muslims" (naçîḥat al-muslimîn), which supports by numerous texts from the Qurân and traditions of Mohammad the meritorious character of the holy war against unbelievers.
It was this last treatise which served as a model for the Achehnese "Admonition to those engaged in the war", composed in August 1894 by Nyaʾ Ahmat alias Uri bin Mahmut bin Jalalōdin bin Abdosalam of the gampōng Chòt Paleuë. It is a fanatical exhortation of all believers and the Achehnese in particular to do battle with all unbelievers and in particular the Dutch. According to Nyaʾ Ahmat this ranks higher than all other religious obligations, and the future recompense for the waging of the holy war is greater than that assigned to any other good deed, even although the purpose (niët) of him who fights against the infidel is not free from the taint of worldly motives.
The writer severely censures the inactive section of the people and the ulèëbalangs; they bethink them not, he says, that through their lack of energy the Mohammedan religion runs the danger of being extirpated from Acheh, as has already been done at Batavia, Padang, Singapore, Penang etc.
There are without doubt other treatises of similar tendency in existence, but owing to their authors being of less celebrity they are not so generally known or so widely circulated.
​In many manuscripts of which I succeeded in having copies made, I have met with exhortations in verse to zeal in waging the war, prayers for the downfall of the Dutch, and the like. These were inserted to fill up the blank pages, and appeared at the end of works of the most diverse character. They were the fanatic effusions of the copyists, who for the best of reasons, generally belong to the "leubè" class.
Hikayat rantò.Hikayat rantò (XIV).
This essay is also most characteristically Achehnese, but is of a considerably less warlike nature than the last two. The author is one Leubè Isa (= Jesus) who lived in Pidië, first in gampōng Bambi, after which he is called Teungku Bambi, and later at Klibeuët. According to his own "confession" (as we may aptly term it) he passed a portion of his life in the colonies of the pepper planters on the West Coast. These lonesome districts whose desolation is only broken at intervals by a small gampōng, are known as rantò, particularly in the phrase "the 12 rantò's" of the West Coast, though this round number has no statistical value.
The writer testifies that no Achehnese who leaves his birth-place to seek his fortune from pepper planting out there, returns unharmed in body and soul. Fevers undermine the health, and all the comforts of life are wanting. Morals in the rantò are at the lowest ebb, for the Achehnese neither may nor can transport wife or child thither. Gambling, opium-smoking and paederasty are the chief relaxations of a society composed exclusively of males. When means are lacking for opium-smoking, many supply the deficiency by plundering solitary travellers in the rantòs. Quarrels speedily result in bloodshed. Few give a thought to the families they have left behind. Religion is wholly forgotten.
The Teungku describes in an affecting manner the melancholy lot of the women and children whose husbands and fathers often sojourn in the rantòs for years at a time without sending tidings to those at home. At the annual slaughter which precedes the fasting month and the religious feasts, while the husbands of others "bring meat home", the deserted ones stand by pale with shame; perchance some pitying fellow-villager gives them a small portion of his own share!
​This passage is calculated to touch the feelings of the truants and recall them to their duties as fathers of families. On the other hand, however, the author does not wish to let his female readers go unadmonished. Many women, he says, embitter the lives of their husbands by demanding more than they can bestow in the matter of clothing and personal adornments. Thus they have themselves to blame if their spouses, weary of domestic strife, go forth to seek happiness in the rantòs.
§ 5. Fiction.
Character of Achehnese fiction.We now come to the literature of romance. The materials from whence the tales we are now about to describe are drawn are known to all who are versed in Malayan literature. Princes or princesses, the very manner of whose birth transcends the ordinary course of nature, attain to the splendour to which they are predestined, in spite of the obstacles which the envy of men and the cunning of demons set in their path. Heroes, driven by dreams and omens to wander through the world, encounter at every step seemingly invincible monsters, unsolvable enigmas and unapproachable princesses; but they also meet with well-disposed déwas, sages or beasts who enable them to fulfil their heroic part without an effort. Each romance contains sundry love-stories, in which the hero after a brief period of bliss is separated from the objects of his passion, but at the final catastroph beholds his princesses (from one to four in number) and generally their parents as well, all happily united round him while the enemies of his happiness either undergo the punishment they deserve or are spared by his clemency.
The inevitable combats are decided less by the prowess or generalship of the heroes than by their invulnerability, and the secret lore and charms obtained by them from hermits, spirits or giants of the wilds. They call into being, whenever they require them, flourishing towns and glittering palaces from a magic box; in like manner by smiting on the ground or on some part of their own bodies or by the utterance of a magic word they bring to light armies of jéns and men, who fight on their behalf with supernatural weapons.
Connection between Achehnese and Malay fiction.A large majority of Achehnese romances show unmistakeable traces of the same origin as those of the Malays; indeed a great number ofthem are expressly imitated from Malay models. To decide in any ​given case whether an Achehnese work has been borrowed from a Malay one or is derived from the same source as the latter would require an acquaintance with the whole range of Malay literature both past and present. We may in any case certainly regard as the birthplace of the great majority of romances in both tongues that portion of South India which is also the source whence are derived the popular mysticism and the popular religious legends of the Mohammedan peoples of the E. Indian Archipelago.
Their Indian origin.The appearance of the déwas, raksasas and other denizens of the skies, the air, the forest and the sea are often portrayed in somewhat pagan fashion. At the same time their character is as a rule so modified that there is no difficulty in classifying them among either the Moslim or the infidel jéns, while all their acts and omissions alike testify to the power and wisdom of Allah. Not only are the names of Indian gods and heroes presented in an altered form, but the poets have also given themselves liberty to add new characters to those they found and to place personalities from Persian and Arabian myth and legend on the same stage with those of Indian origin. It may be, perhaps, that this degeneration and admixture took place to a considerable extent in South Indian popular romances, but this could only be decided by a thorough study of the latter. At present we are unable even to fix the portion of South-India where the threads meet which unite that country with the mental life of the Indonesians.
In addition to Indian names the Achehnese romances contain distinguished Persian ones, which appertain to the mythic or historic heroes of the Shāhnāme (such as Qubād, Jamshīd, Bahrāmshāh). We must not however expect to find reproduced here one single particular of the actual traditions respecting these princes of Iran. The fact of the introduction of Islam into Hindustan has caused the language, literature and traditions of Persia to be known to all civilized persons in the former country. It was of course impossible that the lower classes of the people should be equally affected by this influence, but they made their own the strange names from Persian myth and history and attached to these names popular tales which were most likely already in existence. It was some of these last that found their way to the East Indies, and not the traditional history or finer classical works of the Persian nation. In these tales it is as impossible to detect a nucleus of history or tradition as in the romance of Amīr Hamzah which came hither from ​Persia by way of India. Here too fuller data are required for a more exact analysis of the relation of Achehnese fiction with its sources; what we have just said may simply serve to prevent anyone from being misled by the sight of well known Persian names, into speaking of the "influence of Persia on the Achehnese".
Certain works which have been known in Acheh within the memory of men way probably have been borrowed directly from the common South Indian source, without the intervention of Malay. At present we may safely say that it is Malay literature alone that supplies the Achehnese market with fresh material. This is indeed what might have been expected; the mental intercourse of Acheh with more distant countries was bound to decrease when the trade relations, once so flourishing, were reduced to a minimum.
The better educated of the Achehnese, who are not scholars in the strict sense, read Malay hikayats which are either entirely new or not formerly known in Acheh. Such as suit their taste are disseminated as haba until some poet or rhymster thinks it worth while to make of them an Achehnese hikayat. And so lacking in refinement of taste have the modern Achehnese become, as for the most part to find more pleasure in these flavourless impossibilities than in their own historical epics.
Tales of foreign origin are however, not only dressed in the attire of the Achehnese sanja, but so modified and added to as to suit the comprehension of their Achehnese readers. Wherever the opportunity has occurred, the compilers have given to social and political relations an Achehnese colouring.
Belief in the reality of the stories.To comprehend the significance of these romances in the mental life of the Achehnese, we must remember one thing which is too often forgotten in discussing Native literature. Although the readers and hearers are not all blind to the fact that composers and editors occasionally modify their materials a little to suit their own taste, still they are in the main firmly convinced of the truth of the stories told them. Nothing short of absolute conflict with the teachings of religion makes them doubt the genuineness of a poet's representations; and in any case, all these heroes flying and striding through air, sky, sea and forest, with their miraculous palaces and magic armies, are for the Achehnese actual persons of an actual past.
​Our separation of heroic poems from romances would thus have no raison d'être in their eyes. All that they could see in it would be a distinction between hikayats which chronicle past events in Acheh, and those which tell in verse the history of the people of other lands or of the skies, the country of the jéns and the like.
The scene laid in Acheh.Several even of those romances which are most closely akin to Malay works or resemble them in all respects, have the scene laid in Acheh. Similarly we find the Javanese translating to their own country a number of the personages of the Indian mythology.
The hikayat of Malém Diwa for instance, is composed of the same materials as a well-known Malay tale which is also current among the Bataks. This does not prevent the Achehnese from representing their hero as being born, growing up and performing most of his exploits in Acheh, or from imagining that he still exists, wandering about in the highlands of the North and East Coasts. They are convinced that anyone who has practised the science of invulnerability with success may enjoy the privilege of a meeting with this invincible immortal. They point out in more than one locality the traces of Malém Diwa's activity, just as they show on the West Coast the former haunts of Banta Beuransah, and see in the romances of Éseukanda Ali and Nun Parisi a fragment of the history of Timu ("the East", the name they give to the North and East Coasts of Acheh).
Achehnese method of arrangement of the hikayats.Did we wish to conform to Achehnese ideas, we should have to assign Malém Diwa a place above Malém Dagang in the chronologically arranged list of Achehnese heroic poems. So long as the scene of a narrative lies outside Acheh, the Achehnese are entirely indifferent to accurate definitions of place and time. The only chronological rule to which they occasionally adhere, is that stories in which the heroes soar and fly carry us back to an ante-Mohammedan period, for ever since the appearance of the Seal of the Prophets the art of flying has been denied to human beings.
All the works which we have placed under the head of 'fiction' are composed in sanjaʾ, and thus bear the name of hikayat, like the fourteen we have already described. Their contents furnish us with no basis for arrangement; but apart from this their comparatively small number ​renders it easy to pass them in review. We rest content with giving the first place to those hikayats the principal scene of which is laid by the Achehnese within the limits of their own country.
Malém Diwa (XV).
Hikayat Malém Diwa.Malém Diwa was the son of Raja Tampōʾ, a prince who ruled in the gampōng of Piadah on the kruëng (river) of Pasè, commonly known as Pasei. His mother was Putròë Sahbawa. He was at first called Malém Diman, but the teacher to whom he was sent to school in his 7th year, changed his name to Diwa. Dalikha, the daughter of this pandit, was his destined bride, for when the marriages both of Raja Tampōʾ and of the pandit had long remained unblessed with issue, the prince had made a vow that if children were vouchsafed to them both, they should if possible be united in wedlock with one another. But when the boy came to her father’s house, Dalikha greeted him as "younger brother". This was considered as rendering marriage impossible, and Dalikha, who in after years married a certain Malém Panjang, continued to watch over Malém Diwa as a faithful elder sister. As soon as the hero has completed his schooling he begins his wanderings, which are destined to bring him into contact with three princesses in succession, Putròë Bungsu in the firmament, Putròë Alōïh in Nata (= Natal) and Putròë Meureundam Diwi in Lhōʾ Sinibōng on the river of Jambō Ayé.
It was a dream which gave the impetus to his quest of the first; it seemed to him that while bathing he came across a princess's hair. The princess of the skyey realm, the youngest daughter of Raja Din, dreamed at the same time that she was encircled by a snake. Not long after, Malém Diwa, changed for the moment into a fish, swam about in the water where Putròë Bungsu with her sisters and their attendants were bathing. He stole her upper garment and thus she lost the power to fly back with her companions to her father's aërial kingdom. Hero and heroine are brought together by the agency of Ni Keubayan, a well-known figure in Malay tales, and soon the lovers are joined in wedlock.
They settle in Malém Jawa, the abode of Malém Diwa's mother, close to Piadah. Here a son named Ahmat is born to them. As this child ​grows up he develops vicious tendencies. He strikes his grandmother and by this act causes a rupture between her and her daughter-in-law. One day whilst at play Ahmat brings to light his mother’s upper garment, which his father had carefully hidden. Putròë Bungsu takes it from him, and, weary of domestic strife, flies away with her child to the airy realms.
Malém Diwa, who spent nearly all his time in the cock-fighting arenas, was not at home when this took place, but a little later he saw his wife soaring in the air with her child and had just time to receive her last admonition at the "gate that leads to the skies". "After three rice-harvests", she said, "you must come and fetch me, else I shall become another's wife". Meanwhile go to Nata (Natal) and there you shall wed the princess Alōïh; but beware lest you fall victim to a passion for the Putròë Meureundam Diwi.
Malém Diwa undertook the journey to Nata with the aid of Dalikha and her heroic spouse Malém Panyang. Peuduka Lila, the king of that region, was compelled to succumb to the courage and magic power of the three. But Putròë Alōïh remained still unconquered. Over against the window of her chamber there stood an areca-palm of fabulous height, on the top of which hung two betelnuts, one of gold and the other of suasa. The hand of the princess was the destined reward of him who should succeed in plucking these fruits. Already no less than ninety-nine princes had made the attempt at the cost of their lives; for no sooner had they climbed to a level with the princess's window and beheld her, than they swooned at the sight of her marvellous beauty, and so fell down and were killed. Malém Diwa, however, was assisted in his task by a squirrel (tupè), a number of white ants (kamuë), a swarm of walang sangit (geusòng) and a kite (kleuëng), all of which creatures he had taken with him by the advice of Putròë Bungsu. Dalikha also spread a bed of tree-cotton at the fort of the areca-palm by way of precaution.
So Malém Diwa wins his princess and spends happy days at Nata. He is however warned in a dream that Putròë Bungsu is in danger. Mounted on a buraʾ which awaits him, he ascends into the upper air, and betakes himself disguised as a beggar to the kingdom of the sky. Here he becomes acquainted with Ahmat (his own son) who informs ​him that his mother is soon about to be forced to marry the Raja Muda. Malém Diwa and Ahmat now make war upon Raja Din and his son the Raja Muda, with the result that Putròë Bungsu is shortly re-united with her lawful consort. The joy of the pair is however once more disturbed by a dream. It is now the Putròë Alōïh that is in danger. The king of China has waged a successful war against Nata and carried off the beautiful lady in a crystal chest.
Malém Diwa descends on the buraʾ to the sublunary world; he alights at Pasè (vulg. Pasei), whence he traverses various places on the East Coast of Acheh and finally arrives at Lhōʾ Sinibōng the domain of Raja Angkasa. The whole kingdom has been laid waste and its inhabitants devoured by the geureuda (= garuda); the beautiful princess Meureundam Diwi alone, hidden in a beam of timber by her unhappy father, awaited the coming of her deliverer. As a matter of course Malém Diwa slays the geureuda and weds the princess.
Another vision, warning him of impending danger, causes Malém Diwa to determine on fortifying his abode in this place. Sure enough the Raja Jawa soon comes to assail his third experience of wedded bliss. By magic arts he succeeds in rendering Malém Diwa as helpless as an inanimate corpse, after which he carries off the princess in a crystal chest. Meureundam Diwi, however, has instructed a helpful bird (bayeuën) to rouse Malém Diwa after her departure by fomentations of rose-water, and then to fly both to Nata and Dalikha's country, and to bear to the latter and to the Putròë Bungsu news of what has occurred.
Restored to life once more, Malém Diwa sails for China, but during a sea-fight he is thrown into the sea by the Chinese and swallowed by a whale.
This monster dies at sea and drifts to Java where he is cast on shore. The carrion attracts the notice of one Malé Kaya, a relative of the king of Java, who is walking on the sea-shore with his childless wife. In the whale's carcase they find Malém Diwa, who has assumed the form of a little boy, adopt him joyfully as their child and give him the name of Malém Muda.
When Malém Muda had grown up, the Raja Muda wished to provide ​him with a wife, but he stoutly declared that he would marry none other than Meureundam Diwi. Hence arose a quarrel that led to war. Dalikha and the princess Bungsu having in the meantime arrived with their fleets, took an active part in the contest. The Raja Jawa was overcome and slain, and Meureundam Diwi set free. A war against China was crowned with the like success and the Putròë Alōïh rescued from her crystal prison. They now all returned to Nata and from thence each went back to his own country. Ahmat became a sub-king of the airy realm and married Janagaru the daughter of the Raja Muda of that kingdom.
A copy of the Menangkabau "Malim Diman" preserved in the library of the Batavian Association, gives an account of the adventures of this hero with Putri Bungsu, which while varying in some details from Malém Diwa, harmonizes with it in its main outline, but is much more prolix. No mention is made of Dalikha or the two other objects of Malém Diwa’s love, and what we are told of Malém Diwa's early life is quite different from the Achehnese hikayat. The Batak story of Malin Deman has only isolated points of resemblance with either of the above.
Of Malém Diwa's immortality and his wanderings in the wilderness of the North and East Coasts of Acheh we have already spoken in our introductory remarks.
[In June 1898 an illiterate man of Gayō origin succeeded in rousing a tumult among the people of the East and North Coasts of Acheh by giving out that he was invulnerable and that he had the power of rendering harmless the weapons of the unbelievers. He was known as Teungku Tapa, but the majority of the people regarded him as Malém Diwa returned to life, or at least as one clothed with Malém Diwa's authority; most of the Achehnese with whom I spoke of him regarded his pretensions as far from preposterous. Teungku Tapa and his followers were defeated by the Dutch troops, after which he disappeared for a time. In 1899, however, he again renewed his activity, this time with a band of followers from the Gayo country. This second effort was suppressed still more promptly than the former. In 1900 Teungku Tapa was slain in the neighbourhood of Piadah].
​Eseukanda Ali or Suganda Ali (XVI).
In times of old Sultan Ali held sway in the kingdom of Chamtalira, by which the Achehnese mean the same that is called Sumatra in the writings of Marco Polo and Ibn Baṭuṭah. In this kingdom was a merchant of great wealth named Didi, who sent forth his son Ali Juhari with ships to trade. This he did first in Pasè, but when the market there declined, his father had a ship fitted out to send on a voyage of enquiry as to where his son might find a fruitful field for his enterprises. The ship's company found out that the best plan was to make the young man a sugarcane planter in Keureutòë (Kěrti). With this in view they purchased land from Ahli, king of Keureutòë and built a sumptuous residence which was called Indra Siluka. When all was ready, Ali Juhari was fetched thither.
Raʾna Jamin, the daughter of the sovereign of Keureutòë had woven a cloth of which all the merchants had till now in vain endeavoured to gain possession, for it might only be purchased by him who should succeed in opening the chest in which it lay. On his arrival in the country Ali Juhari learns of this, and succeeds in opening the chest. He carries off the cloth to Indra Siluka and there hoists it as a flag in the hope that its maker will some day come to him through curiosity as to the meaning of this decoration.
His wish is fulfilled, and in a twinkling Cupid welds together the hearts of both. The princess however tells him that her hand has been promised by her father to Sulutan Sulòyman (Suleiman) of Salbian. She is meanwhile ready to live in a secret union with Ali Juhari and to visit him each day at nightfall.
On three successive evenings she comes to him at an appointed hour; but each time Allah lays on him so deep a sleep that she is fain to depart leaving a letter as token of her faith to the tryst. The unhappy lover on the third night cuts open his finger and rubs red pepper into the wound to drive away slumber; yet he sleeps notwithstanding and cannot be awakened. The third letter is the last he receives; the princess becomes disheartened and discontinues her visits.
​In deep distress Ali Juhari now sends all his people back to Chamtalira and himself enters on a series of objectless wanderings.
While thus engaged he meets in a garden in the midst of the wilderness a hermit, Dahét ((Arabic characters)) Amin, who imparts to him sundry useful knowledge, gives him certain objects endowed with miraculous power and changes his name to Eseukanda (Achehnese form of Alexander) Ali.
Resuming his journey, he has soon reason to be thankful for these charms, which enable him to make a conquest of the giant Malaʾōy Rimba on the plain of Indra Chahya. The latter had just returned to his forest haunt from Keureutòë, bringing with him from thence the dead body of a girl whom he had slain at a punishment for pelting him with stones. When the giant had discovered that Eseukanda Ali was his master in all magic arts, they became friends, and the giant told him as the latest news from Keureutòë, that the espousal of the princess to Sulòyman was on the eve of being celebrated.
They then consulted together as to how best to frustrate the marriage. Eseukanda Ali was to assume the form of the girl Siti Ubat who has been slain by the giant and thus disguised to go to her mistress the flower-seller Samiʾun, and pretend to have been carried off into the forest by a jén, but to have had the good luck to escape.
The strategem succeeds, and Eseukanda Ali, in the female form he has assumed, not only succeeds in meeting his beloved, but actually becomes her servant. Thus after secretly revealing to her his true shape, he manages to escape with her upon the wedding-day.
Two pahlawans (warriors) pursue him, but lose their senses by Eseukanda Ali's magic art. Through a number of occurrences described in a humorous vein, the lovers become separated from one another, and the princess barely succeeds in escaping from two assailants of her honour; one is a Kringgi sweet meat-seller, the other a one-legged man named Si Pantōng.
Disguised as a man she finally finds a resting-place in the kingdom of Tahtanun, whose king Ahmat was at that very time seeking a husband for his daughter Keumala Hayati; only he who could beat the Princess in a horse-race, was esteemed worthy to obtain her hand. Raʾna Jamin achieves this feat and weds the princess, whereupon her father-in-law hands over the throne to her.
This assumption of government by a woman in disguise is to be met with again in the tale of Qamar Az-zaman in the Thousand and One ​Nights, which has also been rendered into Achehnese and enjoys much popularity. The sequel puts one in mind of the dénouements of many of the Malay hikayats.
The "king" has a golden statue of himself placed at the entrance to the capital under strict guard and with instructions to bring to the court all such passers-by as are seen to gaze at it with emotion. Thus there come in succession the Kringgi, Si Puntōng (both of whom are thrown into prison) and Eseukanda Ali, on whose arrival Raʾna Jamin reveals her sex.
The wanderer, happy once more, marries both princesses together, and becomes king of Tahtanun. The Kringgi and Si Puntōng are set at liberty.
When the rumour of these tings spreads abroad, Sulòyman prepares for war, but is of course defeated, and Sulutan Ahli who had pretended to take his part through fear, is soon reconciled to his daughter's marriage. All now return to Keureutòë.
Some time after, Eseukanda Ali is reminded of his father in a dream and leaving both his wives behind starts off to pay him a visit. Raja Hadan of Hidian avails himself of his absence to make war on Keureutòë in revenge for the death of his relative Sulòyman. Eseukanda's two wives send letters asking aid of the old king of Tahtanun; he comes, quickly followed by Eseukanda Ali himself, who, informed by a dream of what is taking place, has hastened back again. By their united forces this last disturber of Eseukanda's happiness is also overthrown.
Hikayat Nun Parisi.Nun Parisi (XVII).
Nun Parisi was the son of Raja Sarah, the ruler of Chamtalira (a corruption of Sumatra). His companions from early youth were Lidam, son of a mantri or state official, and ʿArian, son of a professional singer. The poet also brings on the scene three young girls, daughters of three advisers of Raja Sarah, thus at once prefiguring that the romance lies in store for the three young men.
While the boys are playing one day, a golden panta belonging to Nun Parisi finds its way into the pocket of one of his companions without his noticing it. He finds it later on, but keeps his discovery of ​the toy concealed from shame, as there has been a long and fruitless search made for it. The matter is enquired into by the king and his three gurus without result, but in the end one of the three young damsels solves the riddle to the satisfaction of all concerned, and the occurrence gives rise to the three betrothals to which the reader has been looking forward.
The three young men now declare their intention of going on a journey to pursue their studies; the difficulties suggested by the queen Dabiah are overcome by Nun Parisi's talking bayeuën-bird.
They prooceed to Aseuhan, the territory of the powerful prince Bahrun Diwa, who has married ninety-nine wives one after another and beheld them all disappear in an inexplicable manner immediately after he has wedded them. No king will any longer venture to give him his daughter in marriage, so he remains childless and is thus overjoyed at the arrival of the three youths, whom he adopts as his sons.
After taking counsel with them the king puts his fortune to the test once more, and marries the daughter of a mantri. On the night of the marriage the three students keep watch armed to the teeth and repeating exorcising formulas of known efficacy. A violent storm arises which causes all but the three young men to swoon. Under cover of the storm comes the wicked naga (dragon) which has destroyed the happiness of the king, but this time he is slain by the young heroes before he can carry off the new queen, Sambang Deureuma Subra.
Their noble deed nearly cost them their lives, for the young queen accused them of attempts upon her honour. Bahrun Diwa had already after taking counsel with the teacher Banu ʿUbat, resolved to put them to death, when they came before him and each recited a tale the moral of which was that hasty actions lead to repentance. The king made a searching enquiry which established the innocence of the heroes, whereupon he divorced his wife and married Deulima Rawan, daughter of the Raja of Langkat and had children by her.
Some years after they had thus secured the wedded bliss of the king of Aseuhan, the young men proceed to the country of Kabu (Gayò?) to study under the renowned teacher ʿUrupiah.
Meantime mischief was brewing in Chamtalira. The powerful wazir Keujruën had great influence over the king, and his son Saʾit Burian had become the special favourite of the queen. In company with Si Reusam, known from his immoral life as the 'gampōng-dog', he abused ​the royal favour to the utmost, forming an intrigue with the betrothed of Nun Parisi, which was, however betrayed to the latter by the talking bird.
Nun Parisi and his three companions, after three years of study, returned home to Chamtalira. On the way one of them wedded a daughter of Raja Bahrun, and that prince escorted them on their homeward journey. Nun Parisi, who had received from his teacher the name of Paréh Sulutan, wedded both his own betrothed and that of his comrade who had married in Aseuhan. Saʾit Burian continued his adulterous intercourse with the bride, and succeeded in getting the better of Paréh Sulutan in gaming by the aid of the latter's own talisman, which the false wife secretly conveyed to her lover. Later on, however, the prince got back his magic mango-stone, and was invincible as before.
A series of evil deeds committed by Saʾit Burian and Si Reusam resulted at last in open hostility between the king and his family on the one hand and Keujruën Kandang on the other. They waged war on one another for six years with varying fortune. Then the talking bird Tiu Wareuchit went to bear the news to the prince of Aseuhan and his son-in-law and to implore their help.
A man of Aseuhan called Paréh Suri repairs to the camp of Keujruën Kandang representing himself as a son of a relative of his, the king of Bangka Ulu. He gains time by deceiving him as to the intentions of the raja of Aseuhan, who in the meantime raises a large army and goes to the assistance of the father of Paréh Sulutan. Finally Saʾit Burian, ashamed of his misdeeds, flies to Meuruda and thence to the West Coast. The king of Chamtalira pardons Keujruën Kandang and appoints the latter's nephew Matang Silanga alias Gajah Pungò (the "Mad Elephant") to succeed him as wazir.
On Raja Sarah's death Paréh Sulutan succeeds him on the throne and reigns in peace and prosperity; his playmate Lidam who married the princess of Aseuhan, succeeds his father-in-law as ruler of that country. The widow of Raja Sarah goes with some followers of rank on a pilgrimage to Mekka, where she remains till her death.
Parég Sulutan, or as he was at first called, Nun Parisi, is blessed with a son and heir, to whom he gives the name of Useuman Arch.
​Hikayat Banta Beuransah.Banta Beuransah (XVIII).
Jamishah, king of Aramiah, had three sons; Banta Beusiah and Keureutaïh by his first, Banta Barausah or Beuransah by his second wife.
He dreams of a beautiful princess Ruhōn Apenlah who possesses a miraculous bird called Malaʾōn Dirin and dwells in the land of Gulita Ebeuram, of which her father Maléʾ Sarah is ruler. Jamishah sends his three sons forth to seek this princess of his dream and her magic belongings.
Presently the sons come to a place where three ways meet. Those whom they question describe the two side roads as easy but leading nowhere in particular, the middle one as fraught with danger but rich in promise. The two eldest choose each one of the easy paths, while Beuransah defies the difficulties of the middle one, keeping his eyes fixed on the future.
The two elder brothers are soon reduced to beggary; one falls into the hands of gamblers, the other is despoiled by thieves.
Banta Beuransah at the beginning of his journey encounters many strange things all of which have a symbolic meaning, which is later on explained to him by an èëlia (holy man or saint). He sees a tree full of fruits each one of which beseeches him to pluck it, as being the best of all; three barrels of water the middle one of which is empty, the other two full; men eagerly employed in collecting wood-shavings, an unborn goat which bleats in its mother's womb; a great tree in which there is a small hole, whence issues to view a mosquito which gradually increases in size until it is as big as a mountain; people carrying loads of wood, who when they find their burden too heavy, keep on adding to, in place of lightening it; two hind quarters of a slaughtered buffalo fighting with one another; and a number of men gathering the leaves of trees.
The saint, who expounds to him the meaning of all these symbols, ​imparts to him at the same time much useful knowledge, and advises him to pursue his journey towards the East.
On the far side of a river which he crosses, he finds a deserted town, where he makes the acquaintance of Ni Keumaya, the mother of a gògasi (gěrgasi), a giant of the forest, who devours both men and beasts. Fortunately the giant is at the moment out hunting, and Banta Beuransah wins the favour of his mother to such an extent that she hides him, and after her son's return draws from the latter all the secret lore that is likely to aid our traveller in attaining his object. According to the giant seven hairs from his head will provide an infallible charm against the dangers of the road. While the gògasi sleeps, the woman cuts off the hairs and gives them to Beuransah who pursues his journey.
On a mountain he finds the soul of the gògasi in the form of a bird, guarded by two princesses. He makes himself master of this soul; the gògasi feels this and hastens to the place where his soul is kept, but is here slain by Beuransah. Beuransah leaves the princesses behind him on the mountain, intending to fetch them away on his return journey.
He now attaches to himself a grurenda (garuda = griffin) which has had 98 of its young devoured by a gluttonous naza; our hero kills this dragon and thus saves the last two survivors of its brood. The geureuda in gratitude carries him safely over the sea of fire which separates him from the land of his vision, and awaits his further disposal.
Presently he arrives at the court of Gulita Ebeuram and gains possession of both the princess and her bird.
For the present he takes the bird only and journeys home, fetching en passant the princesses who guarded the giant's soul. On his way he meets his two brothers, now reduced to poverty. He gives them rich presents but they, moved by envy, plot against him and cast him into a well. Then they take the bird and the princesses to their father and pretend that it is they who have reached the object of the quest, while their younger brother has disappeared. Soon however their evil conscience drives them into the forest, where they gradually grow hairy like the beasts of the field.
Beuransah is discovered by a rich travelling merchant, delivered from his perilous position and adopted as a son. After the death of his bene​factor he inherits his wealth including a bird called Blanta in whose stomach is a magic stone (malakat) whence may be raised seven serviceable lords of jéns. A Jewish pandit endeavours to deprive him of the bird by trickery but as this miscarries for the time being, he joins Beuransah as a fellow-traveller. They go together to Gulita Ebeuram, and Beuransah who enters the place as the meanest of beggars is soon the happy consort of the princess as he succeeds by the aid of his malakat in fulfilling her every wish.
The Jew, who has established himself here as a teacher of magic art, succeeds at length in gaining possession of the malakat and causes Beuransah to be cast into the sea. Swallowed by a fish he comes, now in the likeness of a little child, into the hands of a fisherman, who brings him up. By the help of a mouse, a cat and a dog, all of which belong to this fisherman, Beuransah succeeds in recovering the malakat and has himself conveyed back to his wife by the seven lords of jéns. Thereafter these kindly-disposed spirits transport the whole family, palace and all, to Beuransah's native country.
Here there takes place a general meeting and reconciliation; Beuransah restores his bestialized brothers to their former state and gives them to wife the princesses who guarded the giant's soul. This would form a very suitable ending to the story, and it does as a matter of fact look very much as though the sequel was an addition from the hand of later copyists.
Beuransah succeeds his father and begets a son, Sanggila, and a daughter Ruhōy Akeuba; his brother Keureutaïh has a daughter Ruhōy Aʾla. The last is, by Beuransah's wish, to be given in marriage to Ahmat, son of Indrapatra, and ruler of the aërial kingdom.
Ahmat descends to the world beneath to carry off his bride, but on the way has to do battle with sundry evil powers, such as the Putròë Pari on the mountain of Indra, who has boiled 99 kings in her caldron but now herself suffers the same fate at Ahmat's hands; also a couple of gògasis, man and wife.
Not long after all these difficulties have been overcome and the marriage with the celestial prince has been concluded, the king of China ​tries to kidnap Beuransah's wife and after a destructive war, succeeds in carrying her off to his own kingdom in a crystal chest.
Avery prolix account of the war which Beuransah then wages against China and from which he at length returns home victorious, forms the end of the tedious sequel of this hikayat the earlier part of which is composed with care and skill.
Certain places on the West Coast are indicated by oral tradition as the scene of Beuransah's deeds. In the edition with which I am acquainted no such localization appears, except in the episode of the war waged by the king of China. His expedition by sea is described at length. The poet makes him touch successively at almost all the harbours of the East, West and North Coasts of Acheh and its dependencies, and finally arrive in Aramiah "at the source of the river of Singké (Singkel)".
Hikayat Malém Diwandaʾ. Malém Diwandaʾ (XIX).
The adventures of Malém Diwandaʾ, son of Sulutan Rōïh (Sultan Rus) of Panjalarah, are just like those of the majority of hikayat heroes. Having won his wife Siti Chahya after overcoming many obstacles and enjoyed a brief period of wedded bless, he finds her guilty of adultery and has her trampled to death by horses. A well-disposed buliadari (= bidadari) named Mandé Rubiah restores her to life without the knowledge of Diwandaʾ and gives her a palace with all its accessories in the midst of the forest; here bring already with child by Diwandaʾ, she bears a son who is named Malém or Banta Sidi.
M. Diwandaʾ, mad with grief after the execution of the sentence goes forth as a wanderer, and is re-united to his wife and child after sundry adventures. Not till after a protracted conflict with Raja Sara who tries to rob him of Siti, does he possess her undisturbed; he establishes himself with her in the country of Shahkubat whom he succeeds on the throne after his death.
Eager to behold his native land once more, he sets out on a journey thither. On the way he cures of a sickness the princess Santan Meu​taupi, daughter of the celestial king Raja Din, and afterwards marries her. For her sake also he is obliged to wage war with a disappointed lover, the prince Saʾti Indra Suara. He slays him and takes possession of his country.
The son of Saʾti Indra Suara makes war upon Malém Diwandaʾ to avenge his father, but he too loses his life.
Santan Meuteupi dies of a wound inflicted by an arrow of Brahma shot against her by the son of Saʾti Indra Suara in his eagerness for vengeance. The description of her death is a most favourite passage, and its recital draws tears from many an Achehnese audience. As she dies she advises Malém Diwandaʾ to return to the world below and warns him of a number of dangers which threaten him on the journey.
With the help of a flying garment and a malakat or magic stone given him by the dying princess, he overcomes all difficulties. He assists a raja of Mohammedan jéns of the sea to conquer his infidel kindred, marries the daughter of this prince (who appears to be a vassal of Shahkubat) and begets by her a son, Indra Peukasa, who reigns in his grandfather's stead.
Malém Diwandaʾ returns to his son and brings about a marriage between him and the princess Julusōy Asikin, daughter of Abdōy Mòʾmin. But his old enemy Raja Sara had already sought this lady's hand in vain for his son, and now casts about for some means of disturbing Sidi's wedded happiness.
After the honeymoon, Banta Sidi went on a journey as a merchant and arrived in due time at an island ruled by the giant Jén Indra Diu Keureuma, a man-eater having the shape of a horse. Ibu Nahya, the wife of this giant, saved the life of Sidi by a stratagem, and caused Djén Indra to adopt him as his child. This friendship was of great service to Sidi in his struggle with Banta Saʾti, the son of Raja Sara, who had in the meantime succeeded in entering his palace in the guise of a dancing girl, had poisoned his parents-in-law and was now living in adulterous intercourse with Julusōy Asikin. Here follows a tedious description of the war waged by Banta Sidi with the help of his adopted father after he has been told in a dream of his wife's treachery.
In the end he gains the day and resolves to put his faithless spouse to death, just as his father did before with Siti Chahya. Diu Keureuma, ​the prince of the giants, is however so benevolent as to charm up before him an image which resembles his wife in all respects. This shadow undergoes the death sentence; and when afterwards Banta Sidi makes acquaintance with a beautiful young widow of royal lineage under the name of Keumalahari and espouses her, he never suspects that this marriage is no more than a re-union with his now repentant wife. A son, Diu Kaʾindran is born to them.
A dream leads Banta Sidi to go and visit his father, and all his household accompanies him. Finally Malém Diwandaʾ vacates the throne in his favour, while his son Diu Kaʾindran becomes the successor of the man-eater Diu Keureuma.
Hikayat Gajah tujō ulèë.Gajah tujōh ulèë (XX).
In this story of the "seven-headed elephant" it is Saʾdōymanan, son of Tō Sulòyman, Raja of Teuleukin, that wins his four princesses in succession.
The first of these fair ladies is made known to him in a dream. She is called Meureudum Bunga and owing to a careless vow of her father; Sulutan Sab, she has to be sacrificed to a seven-headed elephant, which roams solitary in the forest. Seated among these seven heads she awaits her deliverer. After a protracted combat, in the course of which Saʾdōymanan is once killed, but having been restored to life again through the benevolence of an ascetic pair of eungkòngs (cocoanut monkeys) the prince slays the elephant.
But then his own pahlawan plays him false; having cut off his master's hands and feet, he bears to his father the tale that he is dead, hoping thereby to win for himself the princess' hand.
Saʾdōy, however, recovers his hands and feet through the aid of the eungkòngs and marries the celestial (adara) princess Meulu China. The king of China comes with a great army to take the princess from him, but Saʾdōy and his allies entirely frustrate his designs. Habib Nada the daughter of the king of China is the sole survivor of her father's defeat, and takes the third place in Saʾdōy's affections.
By the aid of the aged Ni, a lonely widow, the prince on returning to his native land, recovers his first love.
After all these adventures Saʾdōy completes the tale of four by a marriage with princess Malòyri. Finally the poet makes these princesses entertain their lord with five witty tales.
​Hikayat gumbaʾ Meuïh.
Gumbaʾ Meuïh (XXI).
Gumbaʾ Meuïh (goldenhead) is the daughter of king Hamsōykasa, who rules in the country of Gulitan Sagōb (in Sumatra, according to the Achehnese). His first two wives gave him no children; the third on the other hand, a woman of humble origin, after 12 months of pregnancy gave birth on one and the same day to ninety-nine boys and one girl whose hair was of pure gold and diamonds. The barren wives, full of envy, had all these children thrown into the water in a chest. They then exhibited to their spouse all manner of ordure as being that which was born of their rival, and so worked on him that he had her imprisoned as a witch.
The hundred children fell into the hands of a pair of gògasi (gěrgasi), man and wife, who tended and brought them up. Goldenhead is subsequently enlightened by a celestial bird as to the true descent of herself and her brothers, and after an adventurous journey she and they succeed in reaching their father, who thereupon restores his imprisoned consort to honour and banishes the other two.
Goldenhead, long urged in vain to marry, finds at length in the celestial (adara) prince Lila Bangguna the man whose piety makes him worthy of her hand. With him she goes to the aërial realm, but is there tormented by Bangguna's sister and the second wife whom he has married by this sister's advice. In the end however these envious ones are unmasked. In her conflict with them Goldenhead is assisted by her ninety-nine brothers. She returns with her husband to the world below, and the latter succeeds his step-father on the throne.
The wedded happiness of this heroine, as of so many others in Achehnese hikayats is assailed by the king of China, whom Lila Bangguna defeats after a protracted struggle.
The son whom Goldenhead in due time brings into the world is called Miraʾ Diwangga. He marries a princess from the kingdom of Atrah (the territory of Shah Kubat; see N°. XXVII) named Cheureupu Intan (Diamond Sandal); the correspondence which results in this marriage is conveyed to and fro by a well-disposed bayeuën bird.
The hostile role played by the king of China against Goldenhead is fulfilled in the case of her daughter-in-law by the raja of Siam, who ​meets with the same ill-success as his predecessor, for the king of Atrah with all his vassals tenders his help to Goldenhead and her husband, ninety-nine brothers and son.
Of the marriage of Miraʾ Diwangga is born a daughter, Gènggòng Intan, who marries prince Kaharōlah of Silan (Ceylon).
Cham Nadiman (XXII).
Prince Cham Nadiman, the son of Meunua Jhō, king of Irandamin (i.e. Irân zemin), loses his way in the chase while vainly pursuing the miraculous goat Krukha. Coming to a deserted palace he there finds an inscription which tells him that the beautiful princess Paridōh awaits him in China. He journeys thither; on the way he slays the man-eater Si Madōn-dangki and becomes king of Kawadamin (a corruption of Chwârizm), whose sovereign has just died.
Further on his journey he conquers a magic stronghold in which Paridat, the sister of Pridōdh is imprisoned, and brings her back to her father the king of China.
Here he is at first received with open arms, but afterwards, having forced his way into Paridōh's villa, he is imprisoned by his royal host. Cham Nadiman is released by a lady named Kamarah who has conceived a passion for him, but his intrigue with her causes him to forfeit Paridōh's favour for a time. Yet soon after, Paridōh follows him on his new series of wanderings; they live together for some time concealed in a Brahman's cell and wed one another.
At the demand of the king of China Cham Nadiman restores him his daughter, but succeeds in maintaining his intercourse with her till at last the king shuts her up in the house of a wazir and announces to the world that she is dead. In the wazir's house a new betrothal takes place, to wit between Kamareutaïh the son of this courtier, and Paridat, who pays occasional visits to her sister Paridōh.
​Cham Nadiman and Kamareutaïh have no peaceful enjoyment of their loves till after a war with their father-in-law, in which the latter loses his life. Finally they all go away to Irandamin, the country of the hero's birth.
Hikayat Banta Ahmat.Banta Ahmat or Amat (XXIII).
Banta Ahmat came into the world shortly after the death of his father Ansari, king of the country of Nabati. He began his life in deep poverty, for his uncle Tapeuhi kept the whole inheritance for himself leaving to the widow Rila and her son nothing but the house they lived in and an old broken parang or chopping-knife.
When Ahmat grew up he went and cleared forest with this parang, but the rice he planted was carried off by floods the first time and each later crop devoured by a bayeuën-bird. A young dragon, which Ahmat rears, teaches him how to catch this bird; after some time the bayeuën turns out to be a princess in disguise, Putròë Indra or Rihan, and Ahmat weds her.
By degrees the dragon becomes too big for the river in which Ahmat had placed it, and desires once more to behold its parents in the sea. Ahmat accompanies it on this journey during which there is no lack of adventurous rencontres and fighting. The parents of his "naga" give Ahmat sundry instructions and the requisite magic charms (malakat). Armed with these he returns to his mother and then sets off disguised as a beggar for his father's kingdom.
On the way he finds the opportinity of becoming secretly betrothed to the princess Chahya in Iran Supah. The marriage is not consummated till Ahmat has made war upon and defeated his godless uncle Tapeuhi.
The infidel (kaphé) king of Piraʾ in vain endeavours to wrest the beauteous Chahya from her husband. Ahmat's elder wife presents him with a successor to the throne, who is called Lila Kaha.
Hikayat Putròë Barén.Putròë Barén (XXIV).
Banta Sulutan is the son, and Putròë Barén (Bahrén) Miga the daughter of Raja Barén Nasi, king of Bōreudat (Baghdad).
At his sister's request the Banta goes forth to wrest from its four guardian jéns a silver tree which she wants to use in building a palace. While this palace is being erected, the king of Yaman comes to carry off the beautiful princess. He is however driven back by the Banta who ​pursues him to Yaman and converts the people of that country to Islam.
Peutròë Barén's mother died during a period of religious seclusion (tapa), which she had imposed upon herself. The daughter, who in a previous existence before her birth had made a study of sacred things wished to accompany her mother to the tomb, but the latter assured her that before she died she must live through nine great events.
These events are then detailed. They resemble in essentials the adventures of the chaste Johar Manikam in the Malay tale of this name. Thus Putròé Barén, while her father is on a pilgrimage to Mecca, is seduced by the kali and afterwards killed by her brother, but restored to life again by Jébrai (Gabriel) and brought to a forest where she makes acquaintance with king Abdōlah of Cham (or Sham) and becomes his wife. She is again seduced on her journey over the sea by a meuntròë (mantri); and is subsequently troubled with the attentions of a jén pari and of an Abeusi. Finally she assumes male shape and becomes Raja muda of Meulabari (Malabar). Thence she journeys to Mecca where the happy reunion of the chief characters of the story and its dénouement take place.
Banta Ali or Banta Peureudan (XXV).
This tale celebrates the adventures of Banta Peureudan, son of Banta Ali, king of Bòytay Jami.
At the age of seven Peureudan and his younger sister Bungsu Juhari, are taken into the forest by their father, who has given ear to the false predictions of certain wicked soothsayers who had announced to him that evil would result from their presence in the palace.
A hermit in the forest adopts the girl and brings her up, and imparts to Peureudan divers hidden knowledge. The two children as well as a prince named Maharaja Sinha and the wazir of the latter are transformed by the magic skill of their teacher into a kind of ape (himbèë). In this shape Peureudan gains sovereignty over the beasts of the forest.
Peureudan then goes forth to win the lovely princess Sahbandi, ​daughter of king Kisōy Kaseumi, for whose hand there are already ninety-nine suitors, and whose six elder sisters are all married to kings. He makes war upon her father, whom he defeats and compels to give him his daughter's hand.
His father-in-law while lying on his death-bed is seized with a desire for a deer with golden horns, which roams the depths of the forest. The seven sons-in-law seek for it, each in his own way. By the help of his old teacher, Peureudan gains possession of the deer. The other six meet him in the forest without recognizing him, as he has once more assumed his human form. They ask his help to fulfil their father's wish, and he gives them what is in fact a duplicate of his deer, in exchange for which they are obliged to declare themselves his slaves and as token thereof he sets his seal upon their thighs.
Their joy was shortlived for on the way home, hunger compelled them to slaughter the animal, and all they could offer their father was a fragment of its putrefying flesh.
Peureudan having reverted to the form of an ape brings his deer home in safety, which is in itself sufficient to indicate him as the successor of his dying father. He now finally assumes his human form and thus shows his astonished brethren-in-law that it is he whose slaves they have become. Thereupon they leave the country to seek for allies and gain a knowledge of magic.
After the old kings death Peureudan, who succeeds him on the throne, fetches his sister from the forest and gives her in marriage to prince Kachah Peureudan, son of the king of Tambōn Parisi, and appoints his son-in-law his chief minister of state.
The six brethren-in-law, supported by ninety-nine princes as allies, make war on Peureudan, but suffer a defeat.
Banta Ali and his wife have been all this time pursued by misfortune. At last they go forth to seek for their lost children, and find them in Darōy Aman as that land was called of which Peureudan's father-in-law once was king. After living here happily with his children for a time, Banta Ali dies. Banta Peureudan begets a son, Chambō Ali, and his sister bears a daughter; these cousins are eventually married to one another.
​My attention has been drawn by Dr. Brandes to the fact that some of the special features of this story reappear in popular tales of Hindustan. In the story of Prince Ape we find a beautiful prince, who originally appears as an ape; and in that of the Boy with a moon on his forehead and a star on his chin, we meet with six brethren-in-law who are constrained to let themselves be branded in the forest by the lover of one of the seven princesses. Both these appear in the collection of Maive Stokes.
A similar story of branding is to be met with in the Hikayat Indra Bangsawan (XXVI) and another in the Contes Kabyles of A. Mouliéras, "les Fourberies de Si Jehʾa", p. 152 et seq. (N° L).
Hikayat Indra Bangsawan.Indra Bangsawan (XXVI).
This story is a fairly faithful reproduction of the Malay one of the same name, of which there are three copies at Batavia and one at Berlin. In respect both of its style and subject it may be classed among the more entertaining kind of native fiction.
Indra Bungsu king of Chahrilah after praying and waiting for issue for years, at last begets twin sons. The first born Chahpari comes into the world with an arrow, the second, Indra Bangsawan, with a sword. The question is, which of the two is to be the Crown Prince? The king dreams of a magic musical instrument (bulōh meurindu) and decides that whichever of the two procures him this, shall succeed him on the throne.
The brothers go on their travels together, but are soon separated by a storm.
Chahpari comes to a city whose inhabitants have all been eaten up ​by a geureuda (griffin) with the exception of a princess who has escaped by hiding in a drum, and her eight maids of honour who have concealed themselves in a box. He slays the geureuda and weds the princess.
Indra Bangsawan meets in the forest a well disposed raʾsasa (giant) who tells him of princess Sangirah daughter of king Gumbiran. A monster called Buraʾsa with seven eyes and noses demands her, and her father sees no way of avoiding the difficulty other than to propose to her suitors (nine princes up till then) as the condition for aspiring to her hand, that they should bring him Beuraʾsa's eyes and noses.
The raʾsasa gives Indra Bangsawan a charm which enables him to change to any shape he pleases; whereupon he makes himself into a little forest mannikin with a mangy skin, and goes to offer his services to Raja Gumbiran.
The king gives the little fellow as a plaything to his daughter. He receives the name of Si Uneun and the princess gives him a pair of goats to look after. Soon, in spite of his ludicrous exterior he wins her favour and receives from her the new name of Si Gamba (Gambar). She tells him her story, and how it has been revealed to her from books that one Indra Bangsawan is destined to be her deliverer.
The princess gets a disease of the eyes, which the physicians declare can only be cured by the application of tigress's milk. Indra Bangsawan procures this from his raʾsasa. The nine princes also go in quest of this milk, and Indra Bangsawan, in his true form, deceives them by giving them goat's-milk in return for which they are obliged to brand themselves as his slaves.
Maimed by the branding the nine return to the palace with their goat's milk and are there put to shame by Si Gamba, whose tigress's milk works the cure.
​The princess is now borne off by Buraʾsa. The nine suitors besiege his stronghold in vain, but Indra Bangsawan, thanks to the instructions of his raʾsasa, succeeds in slaying the monster, and handing over to Gumbiran the wished for fourteen members. Still in the form of Si Gamba, Indra Bangsawan espouses the princess.
The nine now make war on Gumbiran, but Indra Bangsawan in his princely shape turns the tide of battle, and the princess finally succeeds in removing the roughness of his skin. The marriage ceremony is repeated with much display, and Indra Bangsawan acts as regent in his step-father's kingdom.
By the raʾsasa's help he obtains possession of the bulōh meurindu; his brother finds him out, and they go together to their father, who joyfully recognizes Indra Bangsawan as his successor.
Hikayat Chah(=Shah) Kubat.Chah Kubat (XXVII).
The adventurous expeditions of Chah Kubat were originally undertaken because this young hero could not endure the ignominy of a heavy tribute which his father Chah Peurasat Indra Laʾsana, king of Atrah, had yearly to pay to Blia Indra, king of the apes.
Chah Kubat belonged by origin to the realm of Indra where his grandfather Beureuma Saʾti still occupied the throne. In olden days this grandfather had made war against Blia Dikra, the father of Blia Indra. When the latter died it was only due to the friendly mediation of the prophet Sulòyman (Salomon) that the kingdom of the apes was not entirely laid waste. But Chah Kubat's father had been compelled to bow before the king of the apes who had at his command whole armies of wild beasts.
Chah Kubat was urged to his undertaking by a man in Arab dress who appeared to him in a dream. The poet describes at great length his journeyings throughout all lands. By the aid of his grandfather whom he first visits, he overcomes all manner of supernatural difficulties and dangers.
The main incidents are his complete conquest of the kingdom of apes, and his union before this war with the two princesses Jamani Raʾna Diwi and Suganda Kumala. After the war is over he gradually fills ​up the tale of four by the addition of the princesses Chahya Hirani and Keumala Deureuja.
This hikayat appears to have been composed after a Malay original as may be deduced from the short abstract of the contents of the Malay romance of the same name by Dr. H. N. van der Tuuk.
Indrapatra (XXVIII).
This romance is a very free imitation of its Malay namesake. In it most of the proper names of the Malay hikayat recur, as do also various features of the actual story, but the bulk of the narrative is entirely different.
Prince Indrapatra, son of the celestial prince Bakrama, urged by a dream, undertakes a wandering journey through the world. His first halting place of importance is a charmed pond in which there is a naga with a diamond flower on its head; close by is a garden watched by Ni Kubayan (elsewhere Ni Keubayan; see p. 135 above), together with a palace in which is the portrait of a princess guarded by various monsters. The original of this portrait, the princess Jamjama Raʾna Diwi, is destined to become the wife of him who succeeds in taking the flower from the naga, but ninety-nine princes who have hitherto undertaken this quest have paid for it with their lives. Indrapatra succeeds, marries the princess and becomes king in her father's stead.
His subsequent wanderings form a concatenation of marvellous adventures, which the author or compiler uses to illustrate the boundless power of God.
One of his latest deeds is the restoration to life of a prince, who, enticed by the bayeuën bird of princess Chandralila to go and demand her hand in marriage, had met his death on the stair of her palace through want of magic power.
Hikayat Diwa Sangsaréh.Diwa Sangsaréh (XXIX).
Prince Diwa Sangsaréh was the son of the king of Meusé, Useuman ​Saréh, and was born at the same instant as Aminōlah, the son of the wazir of that country.
In his father's palace was a portrait of the celestial princess Badiʾōy Jami of the land of Iram. The prince was so smitten with its charms that he could not rest till he had found the original. This he succeeds in doing after a long journey throughout the world, on which he is attended by Aminōlah, and after fierce conflicts with all manner of fabled monsters, such as geureudas, nagas, milōns and other spirits of the forest, which threaten his life. Occasionally too he meets with kindness, as in the case of Hanuman, who introduces him to the king of the apes, and of the princess Nurōy Asikin who slightly resembles the portrait, yet is not she for whom he seeks. She helps Sangsaréh on his way and afterwards becomes the wife of his follower Aminōlah.
Even after Sangsaréh has for the moment attained his object and his celestial princess has come down to him in Silan (Ceylon) sundry new difficulties arise, and it is only by the help of her father, Saʾit Bimaran Indra, that he succeeds in subduing the hostile milōns once for all.
In the end the two brave wayfarers are happily wedded and return to Meusé, where Sangsaréh now mounts the throne of his forefathers under the name of Sulutan Alam Chahya Nurōlah.
Hikayat Chintabuhan.Chintabuhan (XXX).
Chintabuhan is the Malay Kén Tambuhan or Tabuhan; the Achehnese romance corresponds in the main with Klinkert's edition of the Malay poem of that name.
In the Achehnese hikayat the princess's country is called Tanjōng Puri and she is not borne away to the forest by supernatural force as in the Malay tale, but carried off by Radén Meuntròë's own father who makes war on her sire for refusing to pay him tribute.
The Achehnese composer has also given to the whole a slightly Mohammadan tinge. The diwas, it is true, play a weighty part and work all manner of marvels, but not till Allah has expressly charged them so to do; and people in distress invoke the aid, not of the all-administering diwas, but of the almighty Creator.
​Hikayat Diu Plinggam. Diu Plinggam (XXXI).
This knight-errant was the younger of two sons whom his wife Putròë Hina bore to Raja Muda Saʾti. His mother owed her name to the dislike cherished against her by her six fellow consorts. Putròë Hina was actually put to death by the other six during her first pregnancy, but was restored to life by the celestial nymph Sitōn Glima.
A celestial princess named Putròë Nilawanti changed rings with Diu Plinggam whilst the latter slept. When he awoke, he beheld the princess hovering over his head in the air, and it was this that first gave the impetus to his wanderings. The journeyings of his brother Budiman Saʾti Indra also fill a considerable portion of the hikayat. As however the conclusion is missing in the only copy of the story which I possess, I shall only mention that Diu Plinggam carries off another princess called Indra Kayangan and weds her after overcoming her father in battle.
Hikayat Kamarōdaman.Kamarōdaman (XXXII).
In the hikayat Kamarōdaman we have the Achehnese rendering of one of the Thousand and One Nights. The composer has not followed his original very closely. He has added many incidents of the kind which Achehnese audiences usually expect to meet in hikayats, omitted many others and altered nearly all the names except those of the hero (Arab. Qamar-az-zamān) and the heroine Badu (Arab. Badur).
I have only been able to obtain an incomplete copy, in which the narrative breaks off after the marriage of Badu, who adopted male dress and was exalted to the throne under the name of Raja Muda Dō. The story up to this point, however, follows the Arabic version so closely in all essentials, that we may safely assume the sequel does so too.
We should not be surprised to find that this story was taken from a Malay version, for the only Achehnese who know enough Arabic to read the language are the pandits and theologians, who never translate romances of this description.
​Hikayat Meudeuhaʾ.Meudeuhaʾ (XXXII).
The history of Meudeuhaʾ, the keen witted and just, is really more a collection of choice anecdotes than a romance. The Achehnese, and especially their chiefs, regard it as a short epitome of all statesmanship. It is a fairly faithful rendering of the Malay story of Mashuduʾl-haqq, of which there are two copies in the collection of the Batavian Association and of which a portion has been published by A. F. Von de Wall. The names only are changed to some extent—that of the leading character is, as we see, abbreviated—and the Achehnese composer has omitted some anecdotes, but has on the other hand added a few trifles to the original.
Meudeuhaʾ grows up under the protection of his father Buka Saʾti, a wise and wealthy man, whose village lies not far from Watu, the residence of the king Wadihirah. Even in his early youth he displays so much knowledge and cleverness that he is called in as arbitrator in all manner of disputes; see for instance the "three sentences of Meudeuhaʾ" published by Van Langen in the Reader of his "Practical Manual of the Achehnese language", pp. 66–83.
Rumours of his infallible wisdom reach the king, who would at once have given Meudeuhaʾ a position of honour at the court, had not the four royal "teachers", moved by envy, done their best to hinder the promotion of their rival. They lay before him numberless riddles and problems for solution, they persecute him with cunning artifices and false accusations; but he, supported by the wisdom of his wife Putròë Chindu Kaseumi, the daughter of the Brahman Diu Saʾti, rises superior to all and catches his persecutors in the nets that they themselves have spread.
Finally Meudeuhaʾ is made supreme judge. Even in this high position he is exposed to the assaults of his crafty enemies, but all they succeed in doing is to thrust on him the conduct of a war which Jiran king of Panjalarah levies against the ruler of Watu and a hundred other princes.
Both in actual strategic art and in his interview and dispute with Jiran's teacher, Brahman Kayuti, Meudeuhaʾ continues to show himself ​complete master of the situation. Thanks to his advice, king Wadihirah proves invincible, and finally marries Jiran's daughter, and has by her a son Juhan Pahlawan, who succeeds him on the throne.
The attractiveness of this book lies not so much in the occurrences it narrates as in the ingenious solution of the various riddles and problems propounded.
Pha Suasa.Pha Suasa (XXXIV).
Raja Ahmat, the king of Baghdad (Boreudat) has seven wives. It is foretold him in a dream that he will have a son with silver and a daughter with golden (or rather "suasa" thighs. One day as the king is walking on the bank of a stream, he finds a fig, which he picks up and throws away in sport. Again and again, as he hurls it from him, it comes back to him of its own accord. He takes this marvellous fruit home and gives it to his wives, in the hope that she who eats it will become the mother of the promised children. Only one of the seven, Jaliman, has the courage to taste the fig. She thus becomes the mother of Prince Silver-thigh and Princess Golden-thigh (Pha Suasa); the other six, consumed with envy immediately plot against the life of the twins. Shortly after their birth, the children are changed into flowers and Jaliman to save them from harm, gives them in charge to a cock. The latter, owing to the cunning devices of the envious wives, finds himself compelled to entrust them to the protection of a goat, and in like manner they are thus passed on to a bull, a buffalo and an elephant, and finally to a tiger.
One day this tiger resolves to devour them but while crossing a river in pursuit of the children he is slain by a crocodile. The infants are found by Pawang Kuala on the river-bank; he takes them up and tends them till they are adopted by the childless Raja of Parisi. Princess Pha Suasa, the admiration of all who behold her, makes acquainance with a prince of the aerial kingdom, the son of Raja Diu, who is doing tapa (penance) upon earth in the guise of a bird; she secretly promises him her hand.
​Meantime Raja Ahmat has thrust her mother whom he suspects of having made away with the two children, in a filthy dungeon. Presently the princess Pha Suasa is seized with longing to return to her home and behold her mother once more; accompanied by her brother and a crowd of attendants she embarks for Baghdad. The secret is now disclosed, Jaliman is liberated from prison, and the other six consorts of the king fly to the forest. Raja Ahmat journeys with his wife and their son and daughter to Parisi where a number of princes seek the latter's hand in marriage. She however stoutly refuses all suitors, till her betrothed, Raja Intan, who has meantime changed from the shape of a bird to that of a man comes to claim her hand. They are married, and after the wedding the prince goes back to the aerial kingdom to fetch his father Diu, who descends with his son to earth to visit his daughter-in-law.
The young husband is soon compelled to wage war against the king of Habeusah (Abyssinia) who lays claim to the hand of his bride. A colossal conflict supervenes, ending in the conquest of the raja of Habeusah and his conversion to Islam.
The king of Siam, who has been driven from his territory by the raja of China, flies to Parisi, where he embraces Islam and invokes the help of Pha Suasa's army. This alliance, however, results on an attack upon Parisi by various infidel kings; one after another Eumpiëng Beusòë, the English, Portuguese and Dutch are beaten off. Pha Suasa is equally successful in a war with the Batak king Kabeulat, and she then subdues once more the kingdom of Habeusi Raya ("Great Abyssinia").
This last undertaking seems to have no proper connection with the Story of Pha Suasa, but the concluding portion of the copy I possess contains a further narrative still more foreign to the subject. This is an account of a war waged by the kings of Cham (= Syria), Rōm (Turkey), Meusé (Egypt) etc. against a certain pagan Raja Akeuram, who demands in marriage the princess called Putròë Rōm, the daughter of the Raja of Cham. Pha Suasa takes no part whatever in this enterprise.
Sulutan Bōseutaman.Sulutan Bōseutaman (XXXV).
Although this tale introduces itself under the name Bōseutaman, it does not appear that the name belongs to any of the characters of the story; the principal royal personage is called Yahya, his minister ​Meuntròë Apeulaïh, and his country Samteurani. On the death of Yahya's father, the throne is disputed between him and his elder brother Ami Sujaʾ. The latter worsted in the conflict, the scene of which is a dependency called Dameuchah, flies into the forest with his wife and establishes himself on the borders of Samteurani; where a daughter, the princess Saleumah or Salamiah is born to him.
One day Sulutan Yahya goes forth to hunt the deer. Finding that he is late in returning, the queen sends out her brother Ami Bahut with an elephant to bring him food. The animal succumbs under the load, and Ami Bahut, who has by this time arrived at the abode of Ami Sujaʾ, mercilessly compels him and his wife to bear the burden, leaving their daughter behind alone. Meantime king Yahya, who knows nothing of all this sends one of his attendants to seek for water; this man discovers the forsaken princess Saleumah, and the adventure ends in her marriage with Sulutan Yahya.
The king's first wife is seized with jealousy and plots to get rid of her rival; during the absence of Yahya she sells her to Malém Malabari who carries her off in his ship. On her lord's return home she tells him that Saleumah has gone off to seek her lost parents. The latter after many sufferings, had returned to their home in the forest and have now gone forth once more to search for their missing daughter.
Saleumah's presence on board the ship makes the voyage a most unlucky one; so Malém Malabari puts her on shore. After wandering for a time in the forest she gives birth to a son; just about the same time a princess is born of her jealous rival in the royal palace.
The minister Apeulaïh is sent forth by Sulutan Yahya to seek for Saleumah; he first finds her parents whom he joins in their search, and after many wanderings they discover their daughter and her child hidden in the aerial roots of a rambōng-tree. They all go together to the palace of the king, where everything is cleared up; the king throws his first wife and her brother Ami Bahut into prison and puts to death the maids of honour, who lent themselves to the sale of Saleumah to the master of the strange ship. After the lapse of some years the sons of the queen and of Saleumah named respectively Meureuhōm Shah and Ahmat Charéh determine to beg forgiveness for the imprisoned ​lady and for Ami Bahut. King Yahya complies with their request and the story ends with a general reconciliation.
Chut Gambang China (XXVI).
Meureudan Hiali, king of Parisi while on a hunting expedition lost his way and strayed into the country of the Jén Diu. Here he obtained the hand of a princess who bore him a son, Banta Ahmat, and a daughter, Keumala Intan; later on she had by him another son called Indra Jōhari. Banta Ahmat grew up and was sent to receive instruction in the spirit-land of his mother. Here he was equipped with a number of magic charms, which enabled him at will to call into existence an army, a palace, an ocean, etc., and was also given a miraculous bird (bayeuën) which was able to carry him through the air and to do his bidding in the remotest parts of the earth.
By the intermediary of this bird Banta Ahmat made the acquaintance of the princess Chut Gambang China of the kingdom of Kawa Mandari. After an adventurous journey through the world, in the course of which both giants and the beasts of the forests yielded to the hero's magic power, he won this princess and made her his wife.
Thereafter he was compelled to wage a great war against the country of Daʾirōn Banun, the king of which, Kubat Jōhari was betrothed to the princess Chut Gambang. In the end he was completely victorious and not only remained in undisturbed possession of his beloved consort, but also took to wife the beautiful Sangila, a daughter of Kubat.
Accompanied by his two wives and a train of men and animals, Banta Ahmat now returns to Parisi, slaying sundry troublesome giants on the way. With him also came his sister Keumala Intan, whom he had found in a lonely wood; she had been unjustly banished on a charge of unchastity through the intrigues of her father's chief minister, Peudana Meuntròë. On arriving in Parisi, Banta Ahmat vindicates his sister's honour and causes the false minister to be put to death. Finally Keumala Intan is wedded to Budiman Cham, king of Andara, who reaches Parisi in safety after a victorious progress through the world with an invincible cock endowed with miraculous powers.
Diwa Akaïh Chahya (XXXVII).
The hero of this tale is the son of a royal pair of celestial origin, Diwa Laʾsana and Mandu Diwi, king and queen of Neureuta Gangsa. ​Before his birth it is foretold of him that his fame will fill the world. He must however, in the first place do battle with certain hostile powers whose baneful influence begins to be felt while he is still in his mother's womb.
Diwi Seundari, a princess of the race of raʾsasas has conceived a passion for Diwa Laʾsana; one day while Mandu Diwi is in her bathing chamber, the other succeeds in assuming her form and taking her place. The true Mandu Diwi on finding out what has happened, withdraws without a protest to the house of Mangkubumi, the chief minister of the kingdom, whom she forbids to reveal the secret. While thus hidden in his house she gives birth to Diwa Akaïh Chahya Meungindra.
As soon as Diwa Akaih has grown up and learned what has taken place in his father's court, he takes leave of his mother and starts on his journey through the world. In the forest he meets the aged queen Diwi Peureuba Nanta, who before her death presents him with a magic sword. He also subdues a tree-spirit who provides him with a charm whereby he can call into existence fortresses, palaces and seas. He obtains similar gifts from the prince Peuraʾna Lila, after he has convinced him of his superiority. He meets another prince who is related to his mother, and who advises him to go and seek instruction from the Brahman Diwa Saʾti, in order to prepare himself for his great conflict with the raʾsasas. Here Diwa Akaïh excites the jealousy of his ninety seven royal fellow-pupils.
By the advice of his teacher he demands the hand of the princess Raʾna Keumala of Nayarapuri. It is not till after he has waged a protracted conflict with his rivals and also with the father of the princess, that the latter at length consents to accept him as a son-in-law.
His next enemy is a powerful young prince named Keureuma Wanda. The latter comes one day to Nagarapuri flying through the air in his magic car, and alights in a garden, where he catches sight of Raʾna Keumala, and from that moment can think of nothing but carrying her off by force from her husband's arms.
Thus is kindled a long and fierce conflict, in which all the friends whom Diwa Akaïh made on his journeys join one by one. The king of the raʾsasas, Keureuma Wanda's most powerful ally, finally succeeds in casting Diwa Akaïh into the belly of the king of the dragons, but he is liberated thence by his teacher Diwa Saʾti, and the dragon-king presents him with a new charm. The war goes on till Keureuma Wanda ​is slain by Diwa Akaïh, and. the king of the raʾsasas by Diwa Saʾti. After having thus subdued all his enemies, Diwa Akaïh returns to his native land. He meets his pretended mother who on seeing him resumes her true shape as a raʾsasa, and is slain by him. He then reunites with his father his true mother who is still living with Mangkubumi, and all is well once more. The marriages of certain of the friends of Diwa Akaíh are celebrated with much rejoicing.
Diwa Akaih's spouse Raʾna Keumala presents him with a son, and he succeeds to the throne of Meureuta Gangsa and rules in peace and prosperity.
Names of some other tales.I have gradually obtained possession of more or less complete copies of all the tales above described. There remain others which are only known to me by name and by incomplete oral information as to their contents.
The titles of some at once suggest Malay works with similar names, but we are not in a position to say if the resemblance goes further. The names of these hikayats are as follows: Juha Maʾnikam (XXXVIII), a rendering of the Malay tale quoted above on p. 143, (published by Dr. de Hollander), Raja Budaʾ (XXXIX), Budaʾ Meuseukin (XL), Abdōmulōʾ (XLI), Abu Nawaïh (XLII), Siri (= Sri) Rama (XLIII) whose war with Rawana is localized in Acheh by the popular tradition, Peureuléng (XLIV), Blantasina or Plantasina (XLV), Lutōng (XLVI), Sépu Alam (XLVI), Putròë Bunga Jeumpa (XLVI), Siti Dabidah (XLIX), Banta Raʾna (L), Jugi Tapa or Milōn (LI), Indra Peutawi (LII).
§ 6. Fables relating to Animals.
Although animals occasionally play an important part in the Achehnese romances, none of the latter can properly be classed among fables of this order, for as a rule the beasts who take part in the action of the story are human beings or jéns (diwas etc.) who have adopted the shape of animals.
The two collections which we are now about to describe, comprise, as we shall see, genuine fables relating to animals borrowed both from indigenous folklore and from foreign (Indian) books of fables. Most Achehnese listeners are as convinced of the truth of these tales as they are of that of the romances. The sacred tradition that the prophet-king Sulòyman (Solomon) understood the language of animals is changed in the popular imagination into a belief that in Solomon's time beasts were gifted with speech and reason.
Thus stories in which genuine animals are made to think and speak are regarded as accounts of what actually took place in those times.
Plandōʾ kanchi (LIII).
We know how popular stories about the crafty mouse-deer are among a great proportion of the Indonesians; yet it is only very occasionally that we find a collection of these tales forming part of their written literature. But in Acheh such is the case; an unknown author has collected a number of them and formed them into a hikayat which he divides into 26 sections or bhaïh. Copies of this are rare; I was able to obtain possession of one only, and this lacks the last part of the 26th bhaïh.
Anxiety to offer more to his readers has perhaps induced the com​piler to give the mouse-deer a place in popular tales of a different description, and thus to include them in his hikayat.
This is true for example of the story in bhaïh 10, where the plandōʾ fulfils the rôle of judge, which properly appertains to a human being; for no mention is to be found of the mouse-deer in the European and Javanese versions of this story.
On the other hand the author has omitted other tales which well deserved to be included both on account of their characteristic qualities and their popularity in Acheh.
Thus for instance he leaves out the race with the snails which appears in the Javanese kanchil series, but is also universally known in Acheh.
More data than we possess would be of course required to enable us in each case of striking agreement of one of these Achehnese stories with a Malay, Sundanese, or Javanese version, to decide whether it is the common inheritance of the race or has been imported from elsewhere through some foreign channel of literature.
We now append a short list of the contents of the 26 sections.
Bhaïh 1. The plandōʾ, the frog, the gardener and the dog (just as in Jav.). In a Sundanese "dongeng of the ape and the tortoise", which I got transcribed at Bantěn, the ape plays the part here assigned to the frog and the dog, while the tortoise takes the place of the mouse-deer. The sequel of this dongeng corresponds with that which is here found in Bhaïh 5. It much more nearly resembles the contents of our Bhaïhs 1 and 5 than the version published in Sundanese by A. W. Holle in 1851, and those composed by A. F. Von de Wall (Batavia, Kolff 1885) in Batavian Malay, and by K. F. Holle (Batavia, Kolff 1885) in Dutch.
Bhaïh 2. The plandōʾ, the otter, the night-owl, the gatheuëʾ (a sort of land prawn?) the land crab, the snail, the biëng phō (a small sort of prawn?) and the prawn.
This fable is akin to that of "the otter and the crab" published in ​Sundanese by Dr. Engelmann, but the details are entirely different. In the Achehnese the plandōʾ poses both as the murderer and as the assessor of king Solomon who helps the latter to decide the issue of the interminable lawsuit. In this respect the Achehnese version much more closely resembles the Batak tale of "the otter and the roebuck" (see the Batak Reader of H. N. van der Tuuk, part 4, pp. 86 et seq.).
Bhaïh 3. The man, the crocodile, the pestle, the rice-mortar, the winnowing basket and the plandōʾ (Ingratitude the reward of kindness). A similar fable appears in the Javanese Kanchil.
Bhaïh 4. The plandōʾ and the elephant out fishing; the elephant slain by men.
Bhaïh 5. The tiger cheated by the plandōʾ, who palms off on him buffalo’s dung as Raja Slimeum's food, a lhan-snake as his head-cloth, a wasp's nest as his gong, and two trees grating against one another as his violin. Part of this is the same in Jav.; the deceit with the wasp's nest, which is wanting in the Javanese versions, appears in another form in H. C. Klinkert's Bloemlezing (Leiden 1890), pp. 50–54. The Sundanese dongeng which I mentioned under Bhaïh 1, puts the ape in the tiger's place, and the tortoise in that of the mouse-deer. The dung in there represented as the boreh of Batara Guru and the snake as his girdle, and in the conclusion the ape misled by the voice of the tortoise becomes so enraged against his own person that he mutilates himself and dies. According to another version he did not die but the result of his violence was that his descendants were born emasculate.
Bhaïh 6. The heritage of steel and salt, the king, the plandōʾ and the burning sea. This is a variant of what we find in the Kalila dan Damina ed. Gonggrijp, p. 128 et seq., but the Achehnese version is prettier.
Bhaïh 7. The plandōʾ, the ram, the tiger and the bear. The tiger is ​by a stratagem rendered innocuous to the sheep, but not in the same way as in Mal. and Jav.
Bhaïh 8. The plandōʾ, the frog, the iguana, the carrion, the dog, the tiger, the two buffaloes, the two tigers, the elephant and the human beings.
Bhaïh 9. The plandōʾ, the smith, the sikin (Achehnese long knife or sword), the fisherman and the eel (leujeu).
Bhaïh 10. Lawsuit between the rich and the poor as to the price of the savours of the former's kitchen, in which suit the plandōʾ gives judgment. This tale is one of those spoken of on p. 159 above, which do not-really belong to the mouse-deer series.
Bhaïh 11. The cultivator who goes a-fishing. The imprisoned snake, the plandōʾ, the whale, the cocoanut monkeys and their king. Part similar to Jav.
Bhaïh 12. The téʾ-téʾ birds (Batavia: kějit), Sulòyman (Solomon), the plandōʾ, the herd of oxen and the black bull.
Bhaïh 13. The plandōʾ, the dogs, and the bakòh-bird.
Bhaïh 14. (Continuation of 13). The plandōʾ, the kuëʾ-bird, the fishes known as the meudabah and the thōʾ.
Bhaïh 15. The plandōʾ, the turtle and the tiger.
Bhaïh 16. The plandōʾ and the bridge of crocodiles. (Similar in Jav.).
Bhaïh 17. The plandōʾ, the two oxen, the tiger and the crocodiles.
Bhaïh 18. (Continuation of 17). The two oxen, the tiger and his dream. Sulòyman, the plandōʾ and his dream, the sugar-mill.
Bhaïh 19. Alliance of all the beasts under the tiger as king and the plandōʾ as his deputy. The tiger deceived by the plandōʾ. This resembles in its main features the story we have numbered 7 in the Kisah Hiweuën or Nasruan adé (LIV).
Bhaïh 20. The elephant in the well (quite different from its namesake in Jav.); he is afterwards devoured by crocodiles in the river.
Bhaïh 21. All the animals fish with seines under direction of the plandōʾ, the himbèës (a kind of ape) serve as sentries.
Bhaïh 22. Continuation of 21. The geureuda or griffin (which here plays the part of the buta or gěrgasi in Jav. and Mal.), the tiger, the bear, the elephant and the plandōʾ (the same in Jav. and Mal.).
Bhaïh 23. All the beasts converted to Islam by the plandōʾ, gathered together in the mosque and cheated by him.
Bhaïh 24. The plandōʾ cheats Nabi Sulòyman (Solomon) over the chopping of wood.
​Bhaïh 25. The plandōʾ, the jackfruit and the oil-seller; the gardener who plants dried peas, and the deer.
Bhaïh 26. Contest between the plandōʾ and a jén (Arab. jinn) as to who can keep awake the longest. (The conclusion of this fable is lacking in the only copy I have seen).
In the Javanese Book of the Kanchil we find a similar contest in wakefulness between a wild cat and a night-bird. A Javanese dongeng makes this night-bird (chabaʾ), which according to popular belief flies and cries in its sleep, hold a contest in keeping awake with the sikatan (wagtail). The latter abandons the duel as his opponent keeps on making a noise. In the above-quoted Sangireesche teksten of Dr. N. Adriani we find a similar contest between an ape and a heron (IVa) and two samples of such contests between an ape and a sheitan (IVb and VI).
In the Achehnese just as in the Javanese kanchil-tales, the mouse-deer appears as the assessor (waki) of the prophet-king Sulòyman or Solomon.
His title is thus always Teungku Waki, and he also bears the names or nicknames Si Anin, Tuan Chut (Master Little one), Waki Saba (after Saba the kingdom of the queen who had relations with Solomon), Waki Buyōng ("mannikin").
The style of the hikayat is somewhat defective. The author is no master of the sanjaʾ; he treats his readers over and over again to the same rhyming words and thus finds himself constantly obliged to alter the syllables which rhyme.
Not only in the orally transmitted, but also in the written literature of the Achehnese, the plandōʾ appears in various other stories which are not included in this hikayat.
Hikayat Nasruan adé.Hikayat Nasruan Adé or Kisah Hiweuën (LIV).
Under these names is circulated the Achehnese version of that ​collection of fables known in their Malay form as Kalila dan Damina and Panjatanděran.
The sole example that I have been able to obtain appears to be incomplete at the conclusion, but I am not certain of this, as the whole composition is slovenly and confused. It has not been taken direct from any known Malay version, and indeed it is possible that it has been rendered into Achehnese verse from an imperfect recollection of a not over-accurate recitation of the Malay work.
Certain inconsistencies and additions, however, seem to indicate a different origin.
| 1. | The Brahman Badrawiah (Barzōyeh) is here sent on behalf of Nasruan king of Hindustan, and the goal of his mission is also Hindustan. This identity of the names of the countries is probably due to a mistake of the compiler or copyist. Kuja Buzurjmihr Hakim composes the panegyric on Badrawiah. Then the compiler gives the following tales or comparisons, of which I shall notice those which more or less agree with the Malay Kalila dan Damina. | The Brahman Badrawiah (Barzōyeh) is here sent on behalf of Nasruan king of Hindustan, and the goal of his mission is also Hindustan. This identity of the names of the countries is probably due to a mistake of the compiler or copyist. Kuja Buzurjmihr Hakim composes the panegyric on Badrawiah. Then the compiler gives the following tales or comparisons, of which I shall notice those which more or less agree with the Malay Kalila dan Damina. | The Brahman Badrawiah (Barzōyeh) is here sent on behalf of Nasruan king of Hindustan, and the goal of his mission is also Hindustan. This identity of the names of the countries is probably due to a mistake of the compiler or copyist. Kuja Buzurjmihr Hakim composes the panegyric on Badrawiah. Then the compiler gives the following tales or comparisons, of which I shall notice those which more or less agree with the Malay Kalila dan Damina. |
| 2. | The world as a mad camel | Ms. | 18 |
| 3. | The thief cheated | G. | 17 |
| 4. | The dog and the bone | G.„ | |
| 5. | Dream of the raja of Hindustan, told by Badrawiah at the request of Nasruan. In place of the Brahman and Hilar the Achehnese text has Brahmana Hilal; it also makes no mention of the water of life | G.„ | 327 |
| 6. | The jackal, the deundang-bird, the snake and the man. The fable of the heron and crab is here wanting | G.„ | 66 ​ |
| 7. | The keureukōïh (explained as being the plandōʾ) slays the tiger. | G. | 78 |
| 8. | The crows and the owls | G.„ | 194 |
| 9. | The plandōʾ as ambassador of the moon | G.„ | 209 |
| 10. | The cat as judge between the plandōʾ and the murōng-bird | G.„ | 215 |
| 11. | The utōïh (tradesman) of Silan and his adulterous wife | G.„ | 222 |
| 12. | The marriage proposals of the mouse | G.„ | 228 |
| 13. | The snake and the frogs | G.„ | 260 |
| 14. | The ape and the turtle | G.„ | 265 |
| 15. | The jackal, the tiger and the ass | G.„ | 274 |
| 16. | The peuteurah-bird and the king | G.„ | 292 |
| 17. | The tiger as pupil of the jackal | G.„ | 301 |
| 18. | The jackal judge among the tigers that hunt the deer | G.„ | 321 |
| 19. | The night-owl, the apes and the toadstool | G.„ | 122 |
| 20. | The ape and the wedge—and here, but not in the Malay versions,—the rice-bird and the horses | G.„ | 34 |
| 21. | The goldsmith, the snake, the ape and the tiger (a fable of gratitude) | G.„ | 340 |
| 22. | The bull, the ass and the cock (this story is not to be found in Mal.; we meet it in the Thousand and One Nights, ed. Cairo, 1297 Heg., Vol. I, pp. 5–6). | | |
| 23. | The musang, the tiger and the man (not in Mal.). | | |
| 24. | The bull and the lion | G.„ | 28 |
| 25. | The dervish and the king (not in Mal.). | | |
| 26. | The dahét (hermit), the king and the thief; the two huntsmen and the jackal; the poison blown back in the giver's face; the amputated nose | G.„ | 53 |
| 27. | Damina's stratagem against the bull | G.„ | 114 |
| 28. | Admonitions of the queen mother to the lion | G.„ | 131 |
Their heroic poems, their romances and their fables (but especially their romances), supply both recreation and instruction to old and young, high and low of both sexes in Acheh. Thence they draw a ​considerable portion of their knowledge of the world and of life, and almost all that they know of what has happened in the past, or what goes on outside their own country. Whoever wishes to understand the spirit of the Achehnese must not fail to bear in mind the nature of this, their mental pabulum; and should anyone desire to try to lead the civilization of Acheh along a new channel, it would be undoubtedly worth his while to make his innovations palatable to them by presenting them in 'hikayat' form.
§ 7. Religious Works.
a. Legends relating to the Pre-Mohammedan period.
The three kinds of Achehnese works which it still remains for us to describe, have in common with one another a religious character. The great majority are composed. in hikayat form; some (only the third variety) are to be found in nalam and in prose.
Origin of the religious legends of the Achehnese.The channels through which religious stories and legends reached the Achehnese are in the main the same as those by which they received their romantic literature. The fabric of sacred history woven by the popular mind in Mohammadan India, partly with materials derived from the common and unlearned tradition of Persia, partly from pure fiction, reached the far East, including Acheh, before the catholic tradition of which the more or less canonical Arabic works testify. And in spite of the still surviving opposition of the pandits, these quasi-religious romances, largely coloured with the Shiʾite and other heresies, enjoyed and still continue to enjoy a considerable popularity.
The South-Indian Islam, the oldest form in which Mohammedanism came to this Archipelago still survives in these works, not without a large admixture of native superstition. With its semi-pantheistic mysticism, its prayers and mysterious formularies, its popular works on sacred history which we have just alluded to, it will long bid defiance to the orthodoxy of Mecca and Hadramaut, which is seeking to supplant it, and which has in theory driven it entirely from the field.
The materials of these popular works may have been imported into Acheh partly direct from South India and partly by way of the Malayan Countries. They are in either case undoubtedly foreign wares, which ​the Achehnese have greatly adulterated or improved, however we choose to express it.
Hikayat Asay padé.Hikayat asay padé (LV).
The aim of this poem is to explain the origin of rice and of some of the customs and superstitions connected with its culture.
When Adam and Hawa (Eve) were driven from paradise, and after they had wandered apart over the earth and met once more near the mountain of Rahmat, Jébraʾi (Gabriel) gave Adam lessons in agriculture and brought him the necessary seeds from paradise.
When he had ploughed and sown all his fields, Adam's seed supply ran short. By God's command he slew his son, who bore the four names Umahmani, Nurani, Acheuki and Seureujani. The members of his body were turned into rice-grains of various kinds wherewith Adam sowed his last field.
Hawa on learning of this, went to the padifield and begged her son who had been turned into seed, not to remain away too long. He answered that he would come home once a year—the yearly harvest.
Custom of some Achehnese in connection with rice culture.Hawa took with her seven blades; in imitation hereof it is customary for the Achehnese women, on the day before the harvest begins, to pluck from the neighbourhood of the inòng padé of the field seven blades, which they call the ulèë padé (head or beginning of rice).
At the sowing of the rice an abundant crop is assured by the utterance of the four names of the son of Adam who was changed into seed.
From this it may be concluded that the tilling of the soil is a sacred and prophetic task which brings both a blessing in this world and a recompense hereafter.
The rainbow.The writer, who tells us that he is a native of the gampōng of Lam Teumèn and that he wrote the book in the month Haji 1206 (1792) also appends to his story an explanation of the significance of the Rainbow (beuneung raja timòh). He warns his readers against a pagan conception of that phenomenon prevalent among the ancient Arabs, and explains it in connection with the history of Nòh (Noah) as a token of storm and rain, of overflowing and prosperity.
​Hikayat masa jeuët dōnya.The Hikayat masa jeuët dōnya (LVI), i.e. history of the origin of the world, contains a collection of absurdities such as are to be occasionally met with in Arabic works about the primeval world. We find sundry information about the worlds that preceded our own, the beasts that sustain the earth, the primeval Adam and Muhammad's mysterious first principle for whose sake all that exists was created. The story lays claim to authenticity, for it is no less a one than Allah himself that satisfies the curiosity of Moses by giving him this representation of the order of things.
Hikayat Nabi Usōh.Nabi Usōh (LVI).
This Achehnese version of the story of Yusuf and Zuleikha varies in a marked degree not only from the Bible and Qurān stories of Joseph, but also from the legends which in the Malay and Arabic books known as the Kitab Anbia, are moulded on the XIIth chapter of the Qurān.
The man who buys Usōh is a nahuda or seafaring merchant, who was prepared beforehand by a dream for his meeting with the beautiful boy. After the purchase the nahuda encounters a storm at sea, which can only be exorcised by the loosening of Usōh's chains. They land at Baghdad (or Bitay Mukadih = Jerusalem). Here the king is converted to the true faith by Usōh, and the latter becomes such a favourite that in the end he has to fly with his master for fear of being forcibly withheld from further journeyings.
Arrived at the land of Tambasan, they meet king Timus ((Arabic characters)), whose daughter Dalikha (= Zuleikha) dreams that Usōh, the son of a king is destined to be her lord. Afterward she journeys to Meusé (= Miçr, Egypt) to seek for him, but there she meets Adid the king and becomes his wife. Then Usōh comes to Egypt, and Adid offers to buy him for his weight in gold; but the scale does not turn till Dalikha throws into it her golden head-ornament.
One day Adid goes out to witness a cockfight(!), but forgets one of his weapons and sends Usōh home to fetch it. On this occasion the seduction takes place. A child but 40 days old witnesses it and after​wards gives the lie to Dalikha's preposterous explanation of the matter. Usōh is imprisoned, not as a suspect, but because he turns the heads of all women.
In the years of famine Usōh's brethren journey over the sea to Meusé. In the end, after Adid's death, Usōh weds Dalikha and becomes king. He begets a son, who is named Ahmat.
The meeting of Usōh with his father takes place in the plain of Hunòynèn>.
Hikayat Praʾun.Praʾun (LVIII).
This hikayat, which comes as a sequel to the last, gives with much wealth of detail the history of king Praʾun (Pharaoh) and the prophet Musa (Moses). It resembles in the main the same story in the Malay version of the history of the prophets, but exhibits many variations and additions. It would be impossible without a detailed review of its contents which would occupy far too much space, to give a correct idea of the nature and extent of these differences.
We shall however notice one which though not perhaps of Achehnese origin, particularly accords with the taste of the people, who have a great admiration for craftiness. In the long conflict between the heathen Praʾun and Musa, the line of conduct of this divine messenger is of course dictated by Allah. After sundry moral and miraculous victories Musa observes that Praʾun has not yet lost all his power. Allah discloses to him the reason of this; Praʾun has three virtues—he gives much in alms, lets his beard grow, and rises betimes in the morning. From these three habits, says God to his prophet, you must break him off, for as long as he continues to perform these good ​works he cannot be wholly overthrown! And Musa faithfully follows this diabolical advice of Allah.
Hikayat Raja Jōmjōmah.Raja Jōmjōmah (LIX).
The story of King Skull, whose skull speaks to Jesus, and who is restored to a new and sanctified life by that prophet, exists in Achehnese in hikayat form. I have never seen a copy of it, but it may well be assumed that its contents do not differ greatly from the Malay version of the story.
From the Orientalische Bibliographie (VI: 2119 and VII: 1571) it appears that this legend is also to be found in the Persian and the Georgian. An Afghan version ((Arabic characters)) is mentioned in the catalogues of the Fathul Kareem Press at Bombay.
Hikayat Tamlikha.Hikayat Tamlikha or Èëlia tujōh (LX).
The story of the seven sleepers is dealt with in the 18th chapter of the Qurān. The Moslim tradition calls one of them Jamlīchā = Jamlichus, from which the Achehnese have formed Tamlikha.
The names of the other six are still more corrupted. The names of these "seven saints" and that of their dog are regarded in Acheh as ajeumats or charms which avert all evil things and bring a blessing.
Besides the legend about the seven saints and their dog, this hikayat furnishes the story of the three devout men in the cave, which has been made up by the commentators on the Qurān on the strength of a text from the sacred book (ch. 18, verse 8). In addition to the alteration of the names the Achehnese version presents two other notable peculiarities.
In the first place the story is put in the mouth of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet, who tells it at the request of a Jew who has just been converted to Islam, after the solution by Ali of a number of theological catch-questions which he has propounded, and which Omar to his shame has proved unable to answer.
Secondly the "quarrel" spoken of in chapter 18 verse 20 of the Qurān is explained as a war between a Mohammedan prince who desires to erect a mosque close by the cave where the seven saints repose, and ​a Christian King who wishes to sanctify the same spot with a temple containing an idolatrous image!
Hikayat Patròë Peureukisōn.Putròë Peureukisōn (LXI).
Peureukisōn or Peureukòysōn is the name of a princess, daughter of king Nahi ((Arabic characters)) of Neujeuran (Najrán in Southern Arabia).
Though brought up in an atmosphere of paganism and immorality, she has deep religious instincts which impel her to seek after the true God. A golden dove from Paradise comes to teach her the creed of Islam. Her singing of the praises of Allah casts forth the Devil from the greatest of her father's idols, but kindles the latter's wrath against his daughter for despising the worship of her ancestors. Her efforts to convert the king are unavailing; enraged at her apostasy he causes her hands to be smitten off and banishes her to the mountains. Here this martyr to her faith lives in a cave and gives herself up to religious devotions.
Abdōlah, king of Éntakiah (Antioch) loses his way while out hunting and comes by chance to the dwelling-place of Peureukisōn. He falls in love with the princess, is converted by her to the faith of Islam and brings her home as his wife. They live happily for a time, but the king's former favourites deem themselves neglected and are filled with jealousy. One day Abdōdlah was compelled to go on a journey. Before his departure he committed his young wife to the care of his mother. During the king's absence the enemies of Peureukisōn caused to be delivered to the mother two forged letters purporting to come from Abdōlah, wherein the king charged his mother to drive forth his young spouse into the forest as being the enemy of the religion of his fathers. The mother was deeply grieved, but showed the letters to her daughter-in-law, who thereupon went forth into the wilds of her own accord with her new-born child. The child was suckled by a female mouse-deer, but one day as they were crossing a river in flood, the infant fell into the water and was drowned.
The golden dove appeared once more and taught the princess the power of prayer. Then she besought Allah to restore her hands and to give her back her child, and the prayer was heard and her wish accomplished. Mother and child continued their journey along with the ​plandōʾ, till they came to a spot where Allah had created for her a pavilion with a well of water and a pomegranate tree beside it. There she took up her abode and led a life of prayer.
Meantime Abdōlah had returned from his journey and on arriving at Éntakiah he heard of the strategem which had robbed him of his wife.
He sallied forth through the world to seek for Peureukisōn accompanied by a whole army of followers, who gradually dwindled down to five. Finally the two are united once more by the intervention of the sacred dove. The long-suffering Peureukisōn restrained her husband from wreaking vengeance on his former favourites who had caused all their woes. He sent back his five companions to Éntakiah with the news that he had forsaken his royal state for good and all. Accompanied by his wife and child, he sought out a quiet abode where he could surrender himself entirely to godly exercises, prayer and fasting. When the pious pair died, the whole creation mourned and Allah took them up to Paradise.
This didactic tale, in which both the princess and the dove constantly give long disquisitions on the Mohammedan teaching, is said to be a tradition handed down by Kaʾb al-Aḥbar, an ancient to whom are ascribed many of the Jewish stories in the oldest Mohammedan literature.
§ 8. Religious Works.
b. Legends relating to the Mohammedan period.
The foregoing hikayats have given us some notion of the popular conceptions in Acheh in regard to pre-Mohammedan sacred history, while those that follow relate to the earlier period of the Mohammedan era itself.
From what we have already said, it may be gathered that these writings differ in details, but not in subject and essence, from the legends of the same kind which enjoy popularity among the Malays and Javanese.
Hikayat nubuët.Hikayat nubuët or Nubuët nabi (LXII).
The first hikayat of this series deals principally with the miracles connected with the birth of Mohammad, and his life up to his being called forth as the Apostle of God.
​By nubuët the Achehnese understand that eternal principle of the whole creation, which (like the Word in the 4th Gospel) was before all things, for whose sake all the rest were created, and which is specially conceived of as the principle of prophecy dwelling in all the Apostles of God. This divine essence is properly called Nûr Muḥammad ("The Light of Muḥammad") or Nûr an-nubuwwah ("The Light of Prophecy"). Ignorance of the meaning of the words however, has brought into use such names as nubuët (in Achehnese) or nurbuwat (in Sundanese) for the Logos of Islam.
Most of the histories of the Prophets begin with a description of this primary mystic principle. Sometimes this is followed by the history of the principal prophets, sometimes only by that of Muhammad; there are also treatises to be met with which confine themselves entirely to -the description of the Nur Muhammad.
It is in any case quite possible that our copy, which deals with the life of Muhammad up to his 40th year, is incomplete, and ought properly to be continued up to the time of his death.
To those who are not wholly unacquainted with the subject, the relation of the contents of this hikayat to history, or to the orthodox Mohammedan legend, will be fully apparent from the examples given below.
A certain woman named Fatimah Chami (from Sham = Syria) learns that the spirit of prophecy has descended on Abdallah (who afterwards becomes the father of Muhammad). Providing herself with the most costly presents, she journeys to Mecca to ask the hand of this favoured mortal so that she may become the mother of the last of the prophets. But at the moment of her arrival Abdallah slept with his wife and she became with child by him. He thus lost the visible token of "Muhammad's light".
In his tender youth Muhammad with the help of forty companions, waged a long war against Abu Jhay (Abu Jahl) who is represented as king of Mecca and who deemed himself slighted by the young lad. In his childhood too Muhammad more than once performed the miracle of feeding a multitude with a few loaves of bread.
When he wrought the famous miracle of the cleaving of the moon, and at the request of the king of the Arabians restored to an unmutilated state a girl without hands, feet or eyes, the people were converted by tens of thousands.
Hikayat Raja Buda.Raja Bada (LXIII).
The Malays (probably on the authority of South-Indian teachers) have personified the village of Badr, in the neighbourhood of which Muhammad gained his first victory, as a beautiful prince named Badar. The khandaq or canal which the Prophet had dug round Medina to defend himself against the attack of the men of Mekka, they have converted into the father of that prince, under the names Hondok, Handak, Hèndèk and so on. He is represented as a powerful infidel king ruling over men and jinns.
So is it also in the Achehnese version. Raja Handaʾ or Keundaʾ with his son Bada make war upon the Prophet and his followers. The battles fought in this war were entirely after the manner of those of the dewas and jinns.
Ali is generally made Muhammad's commander-in-chief in such romances. Indeed in South India the popular conception of Islam is Shiʾite, covered over with a veneer of orthodoxy. The entire part played by Ali and the members of his family in the sacred tradition there prevalent, is such as no Shiʾite could object to, but occasionally we find the Prophet appearing surrounded by his four companions (the first four Khalifas). Handaʾ and his son Bada suffer defeat and death though Ali's bravery in fighting for the true faith.
The penman of the copy which has come into my possession has been unable to resist adding to his transcription some lines of malediction on the Dutch with the prayer that Acheh may soon shake herself free of these dogs of kafirs.
Hikayat prang Raja Khiba.Under the name Hikayat prang Raja Khiba (XIV) there is said to exist in Achehnese a variation of a legend familiarly known from the Malay versions. This legend originated outside Arabia from the tradition of Muhammad's expedition against the Jews of Khaibar. I have never seen a copy of the Achehnese version.
Hikayat Seumaʾun.Seumaʾun (LXV).
There is, so far as I can ascertain, not a single peg in the accredited sacred tradition of Islam on which to fix the name of the hero of this narrative; it seems in fact to have fallen from the sky. Only in the ​second part of the hikayat do we meet a very garbled allusion to the tradition according to which the Prophet received as a gift from the then ruler of Egypt a beautiful concubine, Mariah al-Qibtiyyah (the Egyptian or Koptic).
The author of the story of Samaʾun has not however borrowed much more from this tradition than the name.
In the collection of Von de Wall at Batavia, we find, in addition to a Malay copy of this story translated from the Javanese, another copy which is written in Arabic. We must not however jump to the conclusion that the original was either the work of an Arab or even known at all in Arabia. The language of this Arabic copy clearly betrays the hand of a foreigner, nor are there lacking other like hybrid-Arabic products in the religious literature of the Eastern Archipelago.
The Achehnese version differs in details only from the Malay. Seumaʾun is the son of Halét ((Arabic characters)), a mantri (minister of state) of Abu Jhay (Abu Jahl), who here also appears as king of Mecca. While yet an unweaned infant Seumaʾun speaks and converts his parents to Islam. He slays a hero named Patian ((Arabic characters)) whose help Abu Jhay had invoked against the Prophet; he defeats an army of Abu Jhay that was brought against him to take vengeance for Patian's death; he converts a woman whom Abu Jhay had sent to decoy him, and gains possession of Abu Jhay's daughter who is there and then converted and becomes the wife of Seumaʾun.
Mariah, daughter of king Kōbeuti who was established in the land of Saʾri, dreamed a dream in which she saw herself the destined bride of the Prophet. She secretly had these tidings conveyed to Muhammad, who thereupon asked her hand in marriage. The haughty refusal of this request by Kōbeuti gave rise to a war, in which Seumaʾun took the field as a general. The war ended with the conversion to Islam of most of the inhabitants of Saʾri, and Mariah was carried off to Medina.
​Hikayat Nabi meuchukō.Nabi meuchukō or cheumukō (LXVI).
This edifying story is, according to its compiler, composed after a Malay original. It relates how once on a time Muhammad was shaven by Gabriel and received from that archangel a cap made of a leaf of one of the trees of paradise, and how the buliadari (celestial nymphs) almost fought with one another for the hairs, so that not one reached the ground. There are various different versions of this shaving story in Malay, Javanese and Sundanese. It is customary to have them recited by way of sacred reading on the occasion of various occurrences in domestic life, especially when they entail watching at night.
Hikayat mèʾreuët.Mèʾreuët (LXVII).
The Achehnese version of the sacred tradition of Muhammad's nocturnal journey to heaven (Arab. miʿrāj, pronounced in Ach. mèʿreuët) is probably derived from a Malay compilation from an Arabic original, so far at least as the subject is concerned. The style, however, of all these hikayats is purely Achehnese.
Hikayat Printaïh Salam.Printaïh Salam (LXVII).
Tales in which the Prophet enlarges upon the duties of the wife towards her husband are very numerous in popular Native literature. The best known is that in which Muhammad instructs his own daughter Fatimah. There are also, however, numerous copies of a story in which the Prophet at the request of a woman named Islam, Salam or Salamah, sets forth all that a woman has to do or refrain from in respect to her husband and the recompense that awaits her in the hereafter for the practice of wifely virtues.
In copies of the Achehnese version of this work we find before the ​name of Salamah a word which is written (Arabic characters) or (Arabic characters); but the Achehnese always speak of Printaïh Salam and understand thereby the work or duties of Salam, printaih having in Achehnese the meaning of "work, management".
Hikayat peudeuëng.Hikayat peudeuëng (LXIX).
Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad was once suspected of unchastity by her husband Ali, for one day as he sat in the front balcony of his house he heard her as he supposed conversing with a man within.
Inquiry however brought it to light that the chaste woman had but addressed her husband's famous sword (peudeuëng) Dōypaka (Dul-faqār) asking it how many infidels it had helped to rid of their heads by Ali's hand. The sword had replied than these slain infidels were past counting.
The occasion of the husband's suspicion and enquiry gives the opportunity for sundry profitable admonitions to women, though not couched in the form in which are conceived the Prophet's well-known lessons to Fatimah.
The two next stories we find sometimes united as one, sometimes attached as an appendix to the history of the life of Muhammad. The same is the case with the Malay versions.
Hikayat Sòydina Usén.Hikayat sòydina Usén or tuanteu Usén (LXX).
The martyrdom of Hasan and Husain the two grandsons of Muhammad, is certainly nowhere more curiously told than in this hikayat.
Asan was king at Medina; the infidel Yadib (Ach. pronunciation of Yazid) in Meusé (Egypt). Lila-majan, one of the two wives of Asan let herself be persuaded by Yadib to poison her husband.
Usén succeeded his brother on the throne, but was soon warned by Meuruan (Marwān) of the designs of Yadib and thereupon set off with an army of 70000 men for Kupah. He met Yadib in the plain of Akabala (Kerbela), and there Usén and most of the members of his ​family died for the faith. Yadib won his chief object by carrying off Sharibanun, Usén's wife, with whom he was madly in love.
The murderer of Usén was Sama Laʾin. The hands were severed from the body by a certain Hindu called Salitan.
Hikayat Napiah.Muhamat Napiah (LXXI).
Muhamat Napiah the son of Ali, ruled in Buniara, a subdivision of the kingdom of Medina. He was indicated by a dream as the avenger of the blood of Asan and Usén, and so assembled his hosts in the plain of Akabala (Kerbela). Yadib and his allies, among whom were the kings of China, Abyssinia, etc., also brought their armies thither.
Napiah gained the victory though he lost his two principal panglimas; Yadib was slain. A small remnant of Yadib's followers took refuge in a cave. Muhamat Napiah followed them in on horseback and slew them all. At this moment the cave closed of its own accord, and the holy man and his horse are still there, awaiting patiently the day appointed for their resurrection. The horse feeds on kōmkōma-(= saffron-) grass.
Hikayat Tamim Ansa.Tamim Ansa (LXXII).
According to the Arabic tradition, Tamīm ad-Dārī was a Christian, who seven years after the Hijrah became a Moslim; he then resided at Medina, transferring his abode to Jerusalem after the death of the third caliph. It is said that he was the first who "told stories". In the sacred traditions we are told how the Prophet quoted a story which he had heard from Tamīm in confirmation of what he had already taught the faithful with regard to Antichrist etc. Tamīm is represented as having narrated how once, before his conversion, he and a number of his comrades chanced to land upon an island, where they found ​Antichrist and another monster (Jassāsah) waiting to break loose at the approaching end of the world.
This more than apocryphal tradition is the basis of a story hitherto known only in its Malay form, and in which all the data of the ancient Moslim history are turned topsy-turvy and even made a mockery of. We are told that Tamīm was kidnapped by an infidel jén while bathing at Medina, and thereafter forcibly borne away on a highly adventurous expedition through the upper and lower worlds, in the course of which he was withheld far from Medina for one hundred years.
Among the many encounters which he had we are told of that with Daddjāl (Antichrist), the believing and infidel jéns that made war on one another, and the prophet Chidhr.
Meanwhile Tamīm's wife was divorced from her husband seven years after his disappearance, by the caliph Omar (for to this period the story belongs), and joined in marriage with another husband. Before the consummation of the marriage, Tamīm was brought back by good spirits, and his wife found him at the well; but he was covered with long hair and quite unrecognisable. After the necessary change of shape they were re-united, and Tamīm at Umar's command related to the faithful all that he had beheld and experienced in other worlds invisible to man.
This Malay story has been translated into Achehnese with much foreshortening and license. In the Achehnese poem Tamīm has been wrongly called a "helper" of the prophet; he is given three children (two too many), while his wife bears a name thas does not belong to her.
The narration of the occurrences is as insipid as can be, and would only please an audience which likes the absurd for its own sake. With ​regard to style also the work belongs to the poorest part of the Achehnese literature.
Hikayat Abu Samaïh.Abu Samaïh (LXXIII).
Abu Shaḥmah was the name of a son of the second caliph Umar. It is told of him that the Prefect of Egypt under the latter scourged him for using wine; when he returned to Medina Umar had him scourged a second time and he died shortly afterwards.
In the Achehnese legend which is embroidered on this framework, Abu Samaïh is said to have been an excellent reciter of the Qurān, but to have become a prey to self-conceit. As a means to cure himself of this fault, he let himself be over-persuaded by a Jew to take strong drink, and in his cups he had an intrigue with this Jew's daughter. When the child born of this intercourse was shown to Umar, he had his son scourged to death in spite of the prayers of the faithful and the tears of the celestial nymphs.
Hikayat Sòydina Amdah.Hikayat Sòydina Amdah or Tambihōnisa (LXXIV).
This little poem borrows its name, not from its actual theme but from its opening verses. It begins with a versified list of holy places, especially at Mekka and Medina, but elsewhere as well, set down without any regard to order. Every couplet in this list is followed by another containing a prayer for welfare and blessing. The first place mentioned is the grave of Mohammads' uncle Hamzah (Ach. Amdah) on the mountain of Uhud (Ach. Ahat).
Women are in the habit of chanting (meuchakri) this poem when they join in holding a ratéb Saman. It is to this custom that the poem owes its second name of Tambihōnisa ((Arabic characters)) i. e. "Admonition of women".
Another hikayat which is often chanted in the womens' ratébs, whence ​it is called Seulaweuët or Ratéb inòng (LXXV), contains a mystic commentary on the somewhat obscure verse of the Qurān 24: 35. This versified treatise deals in brief with sundry celestial and primeval matters, its doctrines being derived from those circles of pantheistic mystics, who were once represented in Acheh by the heretic Hamzah Pansuri and who won over to their teaching of the unity of God and the world a large majority of the people throughout the whole Indian Archipelago.
The three succeeding poems chiefly serve the purpose of recommending certain definite Arabic prayers. All manner of blessings, it is said, will fall upon the head of him who recites or wears them as an amulet upon his person.
Hikayat Ōteubahōy Rōlam.Ōteubahōy rōlam (LXXVI) appeared after his death in a state of complete bliss to a man in a dream, and told him that he owed his salvation to the continual recitation of a certain Arabic formulary.
Hikayat Édeurih Khōlani.It was revealed to Édeurih Khōlani (LXXVII) by Mohammed in a vision, that the prophet Khòylé (Ach. pronunciation of Khidhir, from the Arab. Khidhr) owed his long life and to some extent even his salvation to the multiplied repetition of certain passages from the Qurān.
Hikayat Hayaké Tujōh.The Hayaké ((Arabic characters)) tujōh (LXXVIII) or seven haikals are given by Mohammad to his companions as an infallible charm, which is inscribed upon the throne of Allah, and which guards its possessors against all evils, brings them every blessing and enables them to hurl their enemies to destruction.
Hikayat Palilat uròë Achura.Palilat uròë Achura (LXXIX).
This poem illustrates in some 125 verses the surpassing merit (palilat, Arab. (Arabic characters)) of the day Achura, the 10th of the month Muḥarram, by a recapitulation of various important events in the lives of certain prophets (Adam, Ibrahim, Yaʾḳub, Musa, Isa (Jesus), Ayyub, Yusuf, Dawôt (David), Sulòyman and Junus) which are stated to have occurred ​on this day. The faithful are therefore advised to take a ceremonial bath and to fast on the day Achura.
Hikayat Dari.Hikayat Dari (LXXX).
Dari (written Dahri) is the name of an impious, ungodly heretic, who silenced all the Moslim teachers by his unequalled powers of reasoning, so that the creed was in danger. Happily there still remained one great teacher to withstand him, named Ahmat. A disciple of the latter, Imeum Hanapi (i. e. Abu Hanīfah, after whom one of the four orthodox schools is named), though no more than a child, begs his master to let him measure his strength in open discussion with this enemy of God. Should he fail, Ahmad could then be appealed to.
Imeum Hanapi succeeded in making such brilliant replies to the two catch-questions given him that Dari was covered with shame and compelled to retire for good from the theological arena. The two questions were: "How can God exist without occupying space?", and "What is God doing at this present moment?"
Kisah Abdōlah Hadat.The Kisah Abdōlah Hadat (LXXXI) of Chèh Marahaban can hardly be regarded as a biography of Sayyid Abdallah al-Ḥaddād, the great saint of Ḥadramaut. The learned author, who also translated for the Achehnese a poetical version of the teaching of al-Ḥaddād, has confined himself to drawing attention to the excellences of that wali (saint), and the rich blessings given forth by him while yet alive and even after his death from his grave at Trīm (Ḥadramaut).
Surat kriman.Surat kriman (LXXXII).
The inhabitants of the meanest class in the sacred cities are in the habit of occasionally distributing among unsophisticated pilgrims the "Last Admonitions of the Prophet to his people", The purport is ​always the same, namely that a little while before, the Prophet has appeared to some devout man (generally called Abdallah or Çâliḥ) and revealed to him that the patience of Allah is exhausted by the ever-increasing sins of the Moslims; that great calamities are soon to come upon the world as a foreshadowing of the day of Judgment, but that the Lord has granted to Mohammad a period of respite in order that he may make some last efforts for the conversion of this people.
If all believers will now show themselves zealous of good works, if they will prepare themselves by fasting and almsgiving and break off all communion with those who refuse to believe in this vision and remain backward in the fulfilment of their duties, there still remains for them a chance of salvation.
A chief object of these waçiyyats, which are usually composed in the most slovenly style, appears to be to assure certain profits to those who distribute them, for they contain repeated and emphatic injunctions to hearers or readers to recompense the bearers of the tidings.
It is especially in the more distant parts of the Mohammedan world, such as West Africa and the East Indies, that the waçiyyat, in spite of its re-appearance at stated intervals, finds most widespread belief. Its dissemination always results in scattered Mohammedan revivals, coupled with religious intolerance.
In the Indische Gids of July 1884 I published a translation, with notes, of such an "admonition". It appeared in 1880 and was circulated during that year throughout the Indian Archipelago, and its consequences excited a good deal of attention. Since that time various Malay, Javanese and Sundanese editions of the wasiat nabi, as the natives call it, have come into my possession. They show different dates, extending over a period of about 200 years.
I discovered also that these treatises are in fact current at Medina but do not attract the serious attention of the public in the holy cities. We learn from Louis Rinn that they enjoy a great reputation in West Africa.
About 1891 there descended again upon the East Indian Archipelago ​a perfect shower of copies of a new edition. It was printed and reprinted in Malay at Singapore, Palembang etc., and led orthodox pandits both in Hindustan and at Batavia to publish polemical treatises in which the wasiat was branded as a lying vision.
As may well be supposed, all these publications find their way in some form or other to Acheh; but I know of only two Achehnese versions in hikayat form. One is old; according to this the vision appeared on the 12th Rabiʿ al-awwal 1217 Heg. (A.D. 1798), and the calamities predicted as being about to visit the world if the admonition were neglected, are announced for 1222 Heg. (A.D. 1807–8).
The seer of the vision is here called Çaliḥ (Ach. Salèh), and the compiler has given as Achehnese a complexion as possible to his subject. There is a curious prohibition against the slaughter of fat rams, with an injunction to eat fish only.
The other vision appeared to Sheikh Aḥmad (Ach. Amat) in Ḍuʾlqaʿdah 1287 (February 1871); in this version specific Achehnese vices, such as the increasing tendency to thieving as a result of opium-smoking, are quoted as among the causes of the approaching judgment.
§ 9. Religious works.
c. Books of instruction and edification.
The works which we have just dealt with might be called edifying legends from which the reader could draw sundry lessons. Those which follow (some in hikayat form, some in nalam and some in prose) contain edifying instruction on religious matters, with an occasional story by way of illustration.
In so far as they are free from heretical or corrupt traditions, they are capable of being of service to the student or the pandit, but they are more strictly intended for persons who have had no schooling to guide them to a knowledge of the Law, of religious teaching or of sacred history. To such they supply some compensation for this deficiency, and that too in the most agreeable form which appeals most to the multitude, and without any severity of discipline.
Some of these works are compiled from the Arabic. This I have ​noted where ascertained, but it may be true of one or two of the others as well.
Tujōh kisah.Tujōh kisah (LXXXIII).
These "seven stories” stand more or less on the boundary line which separates this class from the last; in fact the first two comprise the same sort of material as the Hikayat nubuët (N° LXII). The following is a table of their contents:
Kisah 1. On the Nur Mohammad (the Mohammadan "logos").
Kisah 2. The creation of Adam.
Kisah 3. On death.
Kisah 4. The signs of the approach of the resurrection.
Kisah 5. The resurrection.
Kisah 6. Hell.
Kisah 7. Paradise.
Tambihōy insan.Tambihōy insan (LXXXIV).
This "Admonition to man" contains a variegated but ill assorted collection of sacred legends interspersed with religious lessons of various kinds.
The writer first gives a long series of stories from the sacred history, both Mohammadan and pre-Mohammadan. Among them we find Karōn =the Korah of the Bible, Namrōt = Nimrod, Jōmjōmah = the skull raised to life (see LIX), and Ébeunu Adham = Ibrahim b. Adham. The main purpose of these legends is to draw the attention of mankind to the vanity of riches, fame, power and all that is of this world. Certain things are described as the counterpoise of man's apparent greatness, such as Allah's throne (araih), the fish which supports the earth and so on. After mention has been made of sundry events in the life of the Prophet, there follows by way of conclusion, just as in the preceding hikayat, a lengthy description of life in the next world.
Tambih tujōh blaïh.Tambih tujōh blaïh (LXXXV).
We give below a list of the contents of these "seventeen admonitions". No introductory remarks are required.
​Tambih 1. On belief. 2. On piety. 3. On apostasy. 4. The high significance of the religious obligations. 5. The high rank of pandits among the faithful. 6. Duties towards parents. 7. How to behave towards one's teacher. 8. Duties of the wife towards the husband. This contains the teaching given by the Prophet to his daughter Fatimah. 9. On bathing. 10. Our duty towards our neighbour. 11. The excellence of charity. 12. Usury. 13. Ritual religious exercises. 14. Irregularity in the performances of these exercises. 15. Story of a certain believer named Jadid bin Ata, who owing to the similarity of names was carried off by the angel of death by mistake in place of an infidel named Jadid bin Paréʾ. He was subsequently restored to life, so that he could narrate from actual experience the terrible doom that awaits kafirs after death. The history of Raja Jōmjōmah is also passingly alluded to. 16. On the punishments inflicted in the tomb. 17. The recompense for invoking a blessing (seulaweuët) on the Prophet.
Tambihōy Rapilin.Tambihōy Rapilin (LXXXVI).
In this bulky "Admonition to the thoughtless" we find some of the subjects which are dealt with in the seventeen admonitions, and many others besides. It was translated from the Arabic by the learned kali of the XXVI Mukims, who lived in the first half of this century and derived the name of Teungku di Lam Gut from the gampōng of his wife. He completed his hikayat in Jumada Pakhīr 1242 = January 1827. His son and successor was father-in-law to the well-known Chèh Marahaban, of whom mention has been made as an ulama and kali raja and subsequently as ulama of the Government.
A comprehensive table of contents of the Arabic original, the author of which, Abul-laith as-Samarqandī lived in the 4th century of the Hijrah, is to be found in Dr. O. Loth's Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts of the library of India Office (London 1877) p. 34, under N° 147.
The Achehnese rendering, which is somewhat free in regard to form, exhibits only a few trifling differences from the Arabic original as ​regards its division into chapters. It has 95 chapters, thus one more than the edition noticed by Loth.
A few years ago this work was printed at the lithographing establishment of Haji Tirmīdi in Singapore, but in a most slovenly manner. Even the last figure of the date is undecipherable. Probably this is the only Achehnese book that has up to the present appeared in print.
Mènhajōy abidin.Mènhajōy abidin (LXXXVII).
The Minhāj al-ʿAbidin of the celebrated Ghazālī († 1111), belongs to the same class as the worke we have just dealt with. It is a collection of sundry matters bearing on religious law, doctrinal teaching and even mysticism likely to be of use to the devout layman. The author of the much abbreviated Achehnese version is Chèh Marahaban.
Hikayat maʾripat (LXXXVIII).
This mystic disquisition introduces itself as a kasidah (qaçīdah), but the word seems to have been selected merely for purposes of rhyme, for there is nothing either in the form or contents of the hikayat that recalls an Arabic ḳasidah. The name given to the work above refers to its contents, for the first and most important part is devoted to the knowledge (Maʾripat) of the nature of mankind.
In this work, as in so many similar mystic writings popular among the Malays, Javanese and Sundanese, man's knowledge of himself is so conceived that every item in the description of his nature, his characteristics etc., corresponds to something in the nature and qualities of God. Man and the whole world are revelations of the Godhead, and reveal its image; this concept prepares the way for the second theme which is developed by our poet under the title of tawḥīd (pronounced tèëhit by the Achehnese), i. e. the unity of God, which embraces all things and in which man and the world are thus included as forms of its manifestation.
Finally the ḍikr (Ach. liké) is described at great length as the best mean for advancing oneself in this knowledge of self which is at the same time knowledge of God, and so to weld together the doctrine of unity with existence proper that the little Ego may be merged in the great. The peculiar method of this recital of the confession of faith which is recommended to his readers by the poet, is, as he himself expressly ​says, borrowed from the Malay work Umdat al-muḥtājīn written by the great Achehnese saint Addurraʾuf (Abdōraʾōh), alias Teungku di Kuala.
Besides this latter famous mystic work our author also quotes the Achehnese version of the Tanbīh al-ghāfilīn.
Though it does not appertain to the heretical form of mysticism, this Hikayat maʾripat is a stumbling-block to those who have been brought up in the school of theology and religious learning which is at present winning its way more and more in Acheh. It belongs to the posthumous products of a period in which Mohammedanism in this Archipelago exhibited an Indian character; under the Arabic influences which are continually gaining ground in our age the ideas which it upholds could only pass current among the less developed or in the remoter districts of the country.
Habib Hadat.Hikayat Habib Hadat (LXXXIX).
A didactic poem of the great Ḥadhramaut saint Sayyid Abdallah al-Haddād, is clothed in Achehnese dress by the same pandit, who also gives a biography of the author in verse. The World, Death, Paradise and Hell are the four themes of which he treats.
Hikayat Meunajat.The Meunajat (XC) i. e. "intimate converse" (especially with God), is also the work of Chèh Marahaban's pen. It is a prayer in verse which the author recommends the pious to recite during the last four hours of the night. It is thus similar in character to the three hymns mentioned above (p. 180) but in this last the narrative form is entirely absent, as the poet takes all the praise of his formularies to his own credit.
Of the following works, still more than of the foregoing, is it true that they take the place of "kitabs" or books of instruction for those who do not know enough Malay or Arabic to read the kitabs. It is from them that children and illiterate men and women gain a knowledge of the prime requirements of religion. Their chief contents are explanations of the attributes of God, of the angels and the prophets and some description of the laws as to purification and ritual prayers (seumayang).
​The twenty attributes of God (sipheuët dua plōh) have supplied the names of three works which however deal also with other kindred subjects.
Sipheuët dua plōh.Sipheuët dua plōh (XCI).
This subject is dealt with in prose by a pious authoress called Teungku Lam Bhuʾ after the name of her gampōng. She was the wife of the learned Malay Abduççamad Patani, and composed this treatise for the benefit of her own disciples.
Nalam sipheuët dua plōh.Nalam sipheuët dua plōh (XCII).
This is a somewhat prolix poem on the same subject by an unknown author, composed in nalam, the Achehnese imitation of the Arabic rajaz metre.
Second Nalam sipheuët dua plōh.Nalam sipheuët dua plōh (XCIII).
The same subject has also been cast in nalam form by a third writer Teungku Baʾ Jeuleupè, so called from his gampōng in Daya. He was a disciple of Chèh Marahaban and died fully 30 years ago. His version is much briefer and more terse than the last.
Beukeumeunan (prose).Beukeumeunan (XCIV).
This is a treatise much used for elementary teaching. It is composed in prose by an unknown author and deals with the same subject as the last and also those of ritual purification and prayer (seumayang.) Its name is a genuine Achehnese expletive. Beukeumeunan means "If this be the case", and the Achehnese when at fault for any other introduction, are wont to begin their sentences (in the colloquial only) with this word or one of its synonyms. The writer of this little book wishes in this as in all other respects to be a good Achehnese, so he introduces every fresh paragraph with beukeumeunan, whence the name.
With the exception of the above-mentioned treatise of the lady Teungku Lam Bhuʾ, this is the only prose work of the Achehnese with which I am acquainted.
Abdaʾu (nalam).Abdaʾu or Nalam Chèh Marduki (XCV).
This is the Achehnese version of "a catechism for laymen" (Aqidat ​alʿawāmm) in verse written by the Arabic pandit Abuʾl-Fauz al-Marzûḳî. It takes its name from the (Arabic) word with which the original begins.
Among the Malays also this didactic poem, which is largely recited in elementary schools, is known as Abdaʾu; and like the Malays the Achehnese are in the habit of repeating after each Arabic verse recited, its translation in nalam or an imitation of the rajaz-metre.
Akeubarō karim.Akeubarō karim (XCVI).
This somewhat lengthy work bears the peculiar title of "Tales of the Generous". It contains, in its ten chapters (pasay), the principle truths of the catechism, together with the laws of purification and prayer. It is composed, not in nalam, but in the Achehnese sanjaʾ and has thus the form of a hikayat.
Nalam Jawòë.Nalam Jawòë (XCVII).
Chèh Marahaban's Nalam Jawòë is more particularly devoted to the component parts of the seumayang or five daily prayers.
Although the name signifies "Malay didactic poem", the work is for the most part composed in Achehnese; but, as the author himself announces in his introduction, there is an occasional intermixture of Arabic and Malay.
Hikayat Basa Jawòë.Hikayat Basa Jawòë (XCVIII.
To complete our list we should mention the little work called Hikayat basa jawòë (Poem on the Malay language), in which without a semblance of method, a number of Malay words are given with their Achehnese equivalents. It is intended to serve as some sort of preparation for the reading of Malay books to those who are practically ignorant of Malay.
* ↑ "Twee hanen in één hok". The English equivalent of this expression is "two kings in Brentford", which is very close to the Achehnese. (Translator).
* ↑ Malay chěritra zěman dhulu. (Translator).
* ↑ From the Arab. ḥadīth = tradition.
* ↑ See also p. 43 above.
* ↑ Mouse-deer is pělanduk in Malay. For an English version of the Malayan tales about this little creature see Skeat's "Fables and Folk-tales." The qualities attributed by Indonesians to the pělanduk are somewhat similar to those with which we endow the fox. (Translator).
* ↑ Soendaneesch Leesbock, (Sundanese reader), Leiden 1874, pp. 58 et seq.
* ↑ The Arabic-Malay miskin = "poor": gasiën = the Malay kasikan ("poor" in the sense of "pitiable") but in Achehnese it is used to signify "unfortunate," "beggar."
* ↑ This name must not be understood in its ordinary sense of "blacksmith," but as the Achehnese pronunciation of the Menangkabau pandië = "silly."
* ↑ Dage is eaten as an adjunct to rice. It consists in fruits of a certain kind which secrete oil when partially decayed; after being kept a sufficient time they are cooked and eaten with the rice as a relish.
* ↑ Peuteuy (Anagyris L. = Mal. pětei) is a bean with an offensive odour, also used as a relish.
* ↑ See vol. I, p. 71.
* ↑ Bayan is the talking bird which so often appears in Malay hikayats; the Achehnese identify it with their tiōng i. e. the mina.
* ↑ We should expect to find here batèë, which occurs two words further on, but in this one instance the Malay pronunciation is followed.
* ↑ The same word as the Malay sajaʾ, derived from the Arabic sajʿ, which means rhyming prose.
* ↑ The feet are separated by the mark | , which is doubled || after the rhyming syllables.
* ↑ We give here only the divisions between each pair of feet.
* ↑ A similar example of the change of a or ë into u may be seen in the word kupala used to denote a head man of a gampōng appointed by the Dutch government. The good-natured patroness of lovers is sometimes called Ni Kubayan (Mal. Kěbayan).
* ↑ Juara, in Malay as well as Achehnese means the trainer of fighting cocks or other animals, the master of the ceremonies in the glanggang. The word is also used in Riau and Johor to signify a procuress. Wilkinson, Mal.-Eng. Dict. p. 235. (Translator).
* ↑ The Achehnese sometimes follow the Arabs in applying the name "Jawa" to the Malays as well as the Javanese. This name is especially used in a contemptuous sense; for instance an Achechnese abusing a Padang man will call him "Jawa paléh" = "miserable Malay!"
* ↑ Pò means "lord" or "master;" di is an abbreviation of the Arab. sīdi which also means "gentleman" or "sir."
* ↑ The Portuguese; the Achchnese, however, in their confusion of historical facts, wrongly describe this Power as the Dutch.
* ↑ F. Valentijn, pp. 7 and 8 of the "Beschrijvinge van Sumatra," which appeared in the 5th Volume of his Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën.
* ↑ See Veth's Atchin, p. 74.
* ↑ The Achehnese are not as a matter of fact, like the Javanese for example, accustomed to describe all Europeans as "Dutchmen" (Ulanda). They give Europeans the general name of kaphé ("unbelievers"), and for closer definition use the names of their nationalities (Inggréh, Peutugéh, Pranséh etc.). The Dutch are honoured with the epithet of "labu-planters" (Ulanda pula labu) because, say they, in every country of the Archipelago where the Dutch have established themselves, they have first asked the native ruler for a small piece of ground for the cultivation of labu (pumpkins) and subsequently laid claim to all the ground over which this quick-growing plant had spread.
* ↑ The modern Achehnese point out Raja Radén's tomb in the neighbourhood of the peculiar structure called the Gunòngan near the Dalam.
* ↑ See Vol. I, pp. 121 et seq.
* ↑ In other Achehnese works we find Europeans as well as other "kafirs" described as Jews, followers of Moses and Sun-worshippers.
* ↑ The great bell which now hangs from a tree near the Governor's house at Kuta Raja is believed by the Achehnese to be one of those of the Chakra Dōnya.
* ↑ Ja properly means grandfather or great-grandfather, and Pakèh is the Arabic faqīh = a teacher of the law. The designation of famous persons by the name of the place of their origin or residence is universal in Acheh.
* ↑ Malém means one who is distinguished from the common herd by his knowledge and practise of religion; dagang ordinarily signifies a foreigner, and in particular a Kling, or native of Southern India, In Acheh, however, especially in earlier times, a man might gain the title of malém, leubè etc., even though he followed national customs entirely at variance with the creed of Islam; for instance we sometimes find even the manager of a cock-fight dignified in an Achehnese tale with the title of leubè!
* ↑ This number seems to have been purposely chosen as being in excess of the maximum of four wives allowed by the creed of Islam, in order the better to emphasize that fact that Ujut was an unbeliever.
* ↑ Here we have another trait characteristic of the Achehnese poet, who magines that the husband follows the wife in other countries as in Acheh. The fact that the same "kafir" was ruler both of Malacca and of Guha he finds it easiest to explain by supposing that the prince of Malacca was the son-in-law of the king of Guha.
* ↑ The poet appears to have imagined that Guha lay on the way back from Johor or Pahang to Acheh.
* ↑ In his pamphlet described above (Vol. I, pp. 183 etc.) Teungku Kuta Karang alludes to this widespread tradition, exhorting his countrymen to bear in mind the wicked deeds of Si Ujut, and never to trust the Dutch.
* ↑ See Vol. I, p. 71.
* ↑ Atchin pp. 82–85.
* ↑ As to the high estimation and superstitious dread which the Achehnese entertain for the Sayyids, see Vol. I, pp. 155 et seq.; history shows that this fear has rather increased than diminished during the last century, a fact which is readily explained by the decay of the political institutions of the country.
* ↑ Hana digòb—na di geutanyòë—sabòh nanggròë—dua raja.
* ↑ It was this panglima who had previously made war on Jeumalōy and given the chief impetus to his dethronement.
* ↑ He especially advises irrigation. As a matter of fact the people of Pidië at the present day utilize the rivers for their wet rice cultivation, instead of depending on the rain as they do in Acheh.
* ↑ This word is the Achehnese form of the Malay pěnghulu běndahari, meaning chief treasurer or chief of the royal storehouses. Whatever may have been the original function of the bearer of the title in Acheh, it soon lost its proper significance (compare Vol. I, pp. 98, 126–7), and its bearer became an ulèëbalang, whose descendants and successors were in the lapse of time called Béndara Keumangan, chiefs of the federation of the "VI ulèëbalangs" which was more or less at variance with the federation of the "XII ulèëbalangs", with Teungku Pakèh of Pidië at its head.
* ↑ See Vol. I, p. 19.
* ↑ A common form of the oath of fidelity in Acheh especially between warriors, is for those who take the oath to drink together from a vessel of water in which a bullet has been dipped, or to hold the bullet in turn while they invoke the curse, that he who breaks the bond may be destroyed by that bullet. The subjects or allies of a chief also bind themselves to everlasting allegiance to him by drinking water into which he has plunged his sikin or reunchōng. A similar oath of the Amboinese rebel Captain Jonker and his followers is described by Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indië, Vol. IV p. 319.
* ↑ The part played by this woman in the epic affords a further example of the importance of women in the social life of Acheh already alluded to above (Vol I, p. 371).
* ↑ In vol. I (p. 169) we saw how the contempt of the lives and property of Klings is a byword in Acheh; they are extremely timorous and have no kawōm to take vengeance for their wrongs.
* ↑ Until the coming of the Dutch to Acheh, this was an extensive and flourishing Gampōng, and was included in the Banda Acheh.
* ↑ Since the above was written, but before it was printed, the circumstances hinted at have become a reality. Teuku Uma has surrendered and become a leader under the Dutch government, so we may shortly expect to hear Dōkarim celebrate the exploits of that chief in the service of his former foes. [Dōkarim did actually, since the first publication of this work, sing of the deeds of Teuku Uma in his new capacity. He was put to death by Uma's orders in September 1897 because he had acted as guide to the Dutch troops in their operations after Uma's second defection. Had he lived longer he would without doubt have immortalized in verse the great changes which have come about since Teuku Uma's second desertion and death].
* ↑ As to this rivalry see Vol. I, p. 182 et seq.
* ↑ This introduction is intentionally simulated and is an imitation of that of the "Pòchut Muhamat"; the dream being nearly identical with that by which Jeumalōy was prepared for the siege of Gampōng Jawa (p. 96 above). The summoning of the ulamas gives the poet an opportunity to sing the praises of Teungku Kuta Karang, although he is well aware that the latter at that time neither was nor could have been present at the capital.
* ↑ [He died in 1895, after the above was written.]
* ↑ See Vol, I, p. 130.
* ↑ Waçiyyat is the name given to the well-known "last admonition of the Prophet" (see my translation in De Indische Gids for July 1884). This was intended to excite religious zeal; it is distributed from time to time (with an altered date each time) among the native population of the countries of the E. Indian Archipelago and other distant countries. See also N°. LXXIX below.
* ↑ See Vol. I, p. 194.
* ↑ See Vol. I, p. 145.
* ↑ See Vol. I, pp. 158 et seq.
* ↑ See Vol I, pp. 134–5.
* ↑ See Vol I, p. 173.
* ↑ This last is pure poetic fiction in imitation of earlier models.
* ↑ See Vol I, pp. 156, 235 etc.
* ↑ The different Dutch expeditions against Acheh have not impressed the poet and his countrymen as separate episodes in the contest; nay he sometimes speaks of the "one-eyed general" as having been in chief command before the time he was appointed. Not unnaturally the history of the war is divided into periods to suit an Achehnese standpoint, and every such period has for its central point of interest one or more Achehnese leaders.
* ↑ Under this title is known that most energetic and reliable chief of Ulèë Lheuë, who with a loyal and upright heart lent his assistance to the establishment of the "Gōmpeuni" in Acheh, and whose example gradually encouraged other Achehnese chiefs to tender their submission.
* ↑ The ulèëbalang of this province (see Vol I p. 126) had fled; his territory had thus for a time once more become attached as of old to that of Teuku Nèʾ, and fallen under the supremacy of the Teuku Nyaʾ Muhamat just mentioned above. The inhabitants thus felt the burden of a double yoke, since they found themselves now subject to the commands of a master who to all intents and purposes was a foreigner.
* ↑ This name (most likely purposely corrupted from the Malay kapala) is used by the Achehnese to describe the heads of gampōngs established by the Dutch government in place of the keuchiʾs who took to flight and refused to return. The candidates for such offices were not of course always the most desirable people possible.
* ↑ Both Teuku Uma and Teungku Tirò were very well aware that this was merely one of those empty promises which Achehnese chiefs make with a view of keeping out of one another's way. Teuku Uma never undertook any matter of importance either at the command or by the counsel of Teungku Tirò.
* ↑ See Vol. I, p. 156 etc.
* ↑ This statement of the matter is incorrect; had Teuku Uma cherished any such intention there would have been no reason for his concealing it from his followers, and even from his stepfather. He was anxious for his own interests to get on terms with the government, and intended to overcome the objections of his people to such a step by confronting them with the fait accompli. Various circumstances made him change his mind, and as he found that the impression produced on the people by his surrender was even more unfavourable than he had anticipated, the cunning adventurer devised the plan of representing his subsequent treachery as the carrying out of a previously concerted scheme.
* ↑ In describing the position of T. Uma the poet applies to him the epithet "priman" (freeman) which the Achehnese, following the Javanese, employ in the sense of one without an office. [It is also used in this sense in the Straits settlements, where it is most generally heard in the expression "mata-mata pakei priman" = a policeman in plain clothes (Translator).]
* ↑ The Hok Canton was a British-owned steamer belonging to Chinese traders in Penang, trading to Acheh under Dutch colours. Her Captain was a Dane named Hansen, and his wife was with him on board at the time of the attack. On the 14th June 1886 at 9 A.M. as the vessel lay in the roads of Rigas (Rigaïh) on the W. Coast of Acheh, she was attacked by Teuku Uma and his followers, who had been received on board as guests by the captain. During the fight which ensued the chief mate and chief engineer were killed, and the captain seriously wounded; Mrs Hansen also received a slight wound, After plundering the vessel the Achehnese returned to shore taking with them as captives the Captain and his wife, the second engineer (an Englishman named John Fay) and six native seamen, A brig called the "Eagle" was in the roads at the time. Her Captain (Roura) was on shore awaiting Teuku Uma's return from the steamer. Finding that he did not return, he boarded the Hok Canton and took her to Olehleh. Negociations ensued between the English and Dutch governments, the captives being meantime held to ransom by Teuku Uma, who demanded $ 50,000 for their release. They were well treated, but in the absence of proper medical aid the Captain died of his wounds and Mrs Hansen (the nyōnya" of the present story) and the engineer Fay suffered much from sickness. A ransom of 62,500 guilders was eventually paid and they were liberated in the beginning of September 1886. (Translator).
* ↑ The period referred to was that during which the chiefs friendly to the Dutch paid visits to the "court" at Keumala, under the pretext of inducing the pretender to the title of Sultan to come to terms with the Government. Their true intention was to wring money from the Government for themselves and their crownless Sultan. Teungku Tirò who after some hesitation gave his approval to these visits, was of course obliged to relax his activity while they lasted.
* ↑ See Vol. I, pp. 184–85.
* ↑ Vol. I, p. 182.
* ↑ Maréchaussée. It is also sometimes called badusi or majusi. This last word is well known to all Mohammedans; it occurs in the kitabs and indicates a class of unbelievers standing next to the Christians (Naçrāni) and the Jews (Yahudi) but worse than either in their infidelity. The word really signifies the Magi or Persian fire-worshippers.
* ↑ See p. 88 above.
* ↑ Vol. I, p. 186 et seq.
* ↑ See L. W. C. Van den Berg's Verslag van eene versameling Maleische ens, handschriften (Batavia 1877), bladz. 2, 8, 10. The work employed by our Achehnese poet appears in Van den Berg's Catalogue as N°. 51.
* ↑ Vol. I, p. 71.
* ↑ Vol. I, p. 243.
* ↑ See pp. 88–9 above.
* ↑ See p. 36 above.
* ↑ This rule however is in conflict with the contents of some stories dealing with the Mohammedan period, and that too even where they are composed in Achehnese.
* ↑ The Achehnese form of Zuleikha, the name of Potiphar's wife.
* ↑ As to such "flying garments" see G. K. Niemann in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut for 1866, note to p. 257.
* ↑ An amalgam of gold and copper. (Translator).
* ↑ A kind of grasshopper (Mal. bělalang) with an offensive smell.
* ↑ A fabulous creature, a namesake of the Burâq on which the Prophet ascended to heaven.
* ↑ A fabulous monster of the griffin order. (Translator).
* ↑ According to a variant, in a drum (geundrang) cf. p. 145 below.
* ↑ I.e. "wealthy but childless".
* ↑ See G. K. Niemann's review of the contents of this story in Bijdragen Kon. Instituut for 1866, p. 255 et seq.
* ↑ The name of this country is sometimes written in Achehnese thus (Arabic characters), sometimes thus (Arabic characters).
* ↑ The holy Abdurraʾuf speaks in one of his Malay treatises of the Malay language of Sumatra (Arabic characters).
* ↑ See N°. XXXII below.
* ↑ The nature of the bòh panta is explained below chap. III, §1.
* ↑ This name (Arabic characters) is a corrupt form of (Arabic characters) Jamshīd, but as has been already noticed, the bearer of this name has nothing to do with the mythical king of the Persians. In various catalogues of the Fathul Kareem Press at Bombay there is to be found among the cheap and popular works an Afghan (Arabic characters) (Kesah or story of Shah Bahram); probably this is one of the popular Indian legends whence the Achehnese one is directly or indirectly borrowed.
* ↑ (Arabic characters)
* ↑ From Bahrāmshāh; very often written thus (Arabic characters) or the like. For the meaning of Banta see Vol. I, p. 92. In stories it is generally used in the sense of "prince".
* ↑ (Arabic characters)
* ↑ Possibly a variant of the Malay Kěbayan; this old woman often re-appears in Achehnese tales as Ni Kubayan or simply Keubayan.
* ↑ Just like Malém Diwa in Java; see p. 127.
* ↑ (Arabic characters)
* ↑ (Arabic characters)
* ↑ Compare the episode in Malém Diwa, p. 127 above.
* ↑ The same name is borne, in the story of Malém Diwa quoted above, by the woman who plays therein the part of Ni Keubayan.
* ↑ See Vol. I, p. 92.
* ↑ See below N°. XXVII.
* ↑ See below N°. XXVII.
* ↑ In this hikayat, as also in that of Banta Beuransah, the king of China has a brother who plays a most prominent part in the conflict and bears the genuinely Achehnese name of Eumpiëng Beusòë.
* ↑ Gènggòng is the name of a plaything made of iron used by children. They place it in their mouths and produce a musical note by drawing the lips over it.
* ↑ Sometimes pronounced Sam Nadiman (Arabic characters). This name is really an incorrect reading of the Persian (Arabic characters) the name of Rustam's father. The tale of which a resumé is here given is also probably of Indian origin, for we find among the popular Urdu literature in the catalogues of the Fathul Kareem Press at Bombay a book entitled (Arabic characters).
* ↑ A curious proper name formed from the Malay běnua Johor "the country of Johor".
* ↑ Pers. Parîzâd.
* ↑ Pers. Parîdocht.
* ↑ Published by Dr. de Hollander, Breda, 1845. Compare also Spitta-Bey's Contes arabes modernes, Leiden 1883, p. 80, N°. VI "Story of the virtuous maid".
* ↑ Abyssinian, applied in Acheh to all persons of negro blood, like habshi in Malay. (Translator).
* ↑ (Arabic characters) It is also pronounced Bòytōn Jami.
* ↑ Sometimes written Nakeusōy Keubandi, which appears to be formed from Naqshibandi, the name of a well known mystic order.
* ↑ Sometimes written (Arabic characters) sometimes (Arabic characters), the latter being the Achehnese way of pronouncing (Arabic characters).
* ↑ See pp. 39 vv. and 124 vv. of the Dutch translation which was published at the Hague in 1881 under the name of Indische Sprookjes by the Brothers van Cleef. Compare also Spitta Bey's Contes arabes modernes, Leiden, 1883, p. 153 et seq. N°. XII, Histoire du prince et de son cheval.
* ↑ Nos 160–162 of the collection of Von de Wall; but in Van den Bergs Verslag (p. 30) there is no account of their contents. Van den Berg himself appears not to have examined the manuscripts; otherwise how could it have escaped his notice that folios 39–45 of n° 161 contain the Hikayat Raja Jumjum? A lithographed edition of the Malay version of Indra Bangsawan was published in the month of Muharram A, H. 1310 by Haji Muhamad Tayib at Singapore.
* ↑ Königl Bibliothek, Collection Schumann. V, 21.
* ↑ These circumstances reappear to some extent in the Malay tale called Indra Kajangan, which appears as n° 57 of the Raffles Collection of the Royal Asiatic Society. See the paper of Dr. H. N. van der Tuuk in Essays relating to Indo-China, Second Series, II, p. 36.
* ↑ These towns devastated by geureudas appear in many hikayats; see for example the Hikayat Malém Diwa p. 127 above.
* ↑ We are reminded of the story of Banyakchatra prince of Pajajaran, who gained admission to the presence of the princess Chiptarasa, with whom he was in love, in the form of an ape and under the name of Lutung Kěsarung. This story appears e. g. in Babad Pasir, translated by J. Knebel, Batavia 1898, pp 61 et seq. [Lutung or lutong is the name of a large black monkey common in Malaya. Translator.]
* ↑ This form is derived from the more characteristic Malay name Si Utan. Uneun means "to the right".
* ↑ In the story of Banta Ali Peureudan (XXV) we find a like occurrence, while, as we noted in connection with that story, the incident of branding recurs in Indian children's tales.
* ↑ Arab. Aṭrāf = "extremities." According to our hikayat this country lay close to the mountain Kah (Arab. Qāf) and marched with the territory of the jéns.
* ↑ See his epitome of the Royal Asiatic Society's Mss. (n° 31) in "Essays relating to Indo-China", Second Series, Vol. II, p. 22–3 (London, 1887).
* ↑ Copies of this are to be found in the Mss. of the Royal Asiatic Society (see Essays relating to Indo-China, Second Series, Vol. II, p. 10); N° 9, 37, 553 at Leiden library N$^{os}$ 1690 and 1933 (Catalogue of Dr. H. H. Juynboll, pp. 121–125); at Batavia in n° 168 of the Catalogue of Mr. Van den Berg (p. 31), and at Berlin in the Schumann collection of the Hof-Bibliothek, V, 9.
* ↑ The written forms of these names, which are here given according to their Achchnes pronunciation, are (Arabic characters) (Egypt) and (Arabic characters).
* ↑ Drie Maleische gedichten ("Three Malay poems") Leiden 1886, pp. 1–151.
* ↑ In the Cairene edition of the the Thousand and One Nights of A. H. 1297 we find this tale in Vol. I, p. 568 et seq. There was also a separate lithographed edition of the story published at Cairo in A. H. 1299.
* ↑ Thus the country of Kamarōdaman is called Kōseutantiniah, the brother of Badu Muhamat Saman, while in place of the land of Abanus we here have Baghdad, etc.
* ↑ N$^{os}$ 180 and 181 in the collection of H. Von de Wall; see p. 33 of Mr. Van den Berg's Catalogue.
* ↑ Hikayat Mashuduʾl-hak diikhtisarkěn Batavia, G. A. Kolff, 1882.
* ↑ It is perhaps from this hikayat-prince that Teuku Uma has borrowed the new name, under which he pretended to serve the Gōmpeuni as a military leader from 1893 to 1896.
* ↑ "Pha" = the Malay paha, "a thigh". (Translator).
* ↑ Suasa is really an amalgam of gold and copper; but golden ornaments of European manufacture are also spoken of as "suasa" by the natives of the Archipelago.
* ↑ This name (Arabic characters) is probably derived from (Arabic characters) (Damascus).
* ↑ Compare N$^{os}$ 153 and 154 of Mr. L. C. W. van den Berg's Verslag van eene versa-meling Maleische etc. handschriften, Batavia 1877.
* ↑ Compare Dr. J. J. de Hollander's Handleiding bij de beoefening der Maleische taalen letterkunde, 5th Edition, N° 48, p. 344.
* ↑ Cf. Van den Berg, opere citato, n° 257.
* ↑ Cf. Van den Berg, opere citato, n° 124a. The Malay work however consists not so much of anecdotes from the life of "the Arab poet" Abu Nawās, as of a collection of popular tales respecting an imaginary court-fool, who has much in common with the German Eulenspiegel, and to whom the name of this poet has been given, Compare also the Comtes Kabyles of A. Mouliéras, Introduction: les Fourberies de Si Jehʾa, p. 12 (Bou Naʾas) and M. Hartmann's Schwänke und Schnurren, S. 55 and 61–62 (Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 1895).
* ↑ Names of a small black bird.
* ↑ This Jugi, who is undergoing penance, and whose soul in the shape of a bird is guarded by one or more princesses, turns to stone all who approach him. Banta Amat puts an end to this by gaining possession of the bird and slaying him, and then restoring to life all those who had been turned to stone.
* ↑ Kanché means in Achehnese not a variety of mouse-deer, as in other Malayan languages, but is an adjective meaning "crafty", "wicked", which is often applied to human beings. In Bimanese kanchi = "craft", "cunning". (See the dictionary of Dr. J. Jonker).
* ↑ See Dr. J. Brandes Dwerghert-verhalen in Vol. XXXVII of the Journal of the Batavian Association (Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap) pp. 27 et seq.
* ↑ Achehnese form of the Arabic baḥth ((Arabic characters)) = "enquiry", "subject".
* ↑ Numbers of Achehnese came and begged me to let them transcribe my copy of the Hikayat Plandōʾ, but I was obliged to refuse, having bound myself by a promise to the original owner not to lend the book to any of his fellow-countrymen!
* ↑ A story the main features of which are the same, is to be found in De vermakelijhe lotgevallen van Tijl Uilenspiegel (the delightful adventures of Tijl Uilenspiegel) pub. by J. Vlieger, Amsterdam, p. 66. A similar one was written down by me at the dictation of a Javanese dongèng-reciter at Jogjakarta.
* ↑ We refer here to Het boek van den kantjil (the book of the kanchil) published by the Koninklijk Instituut at the Hague, 1889, and the Sěrat kanchil pub. at Samarang, 1879. In our epitome of the contents we refer to these two versions, for the sake of brevity, by the contraction Jav.
* ↑ In the Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Ned. Ind. Instituut, 3° Series, Vol. II, p. 348 et seq.
* ↑ See Dr. J. Brandes' notes in Notulen Batav. Genootschap Vol. XXXI, p. 78 et seq.
* ↑ The prophet king Solomon is elsewhere always called Sulòyman by the Achehnese, even in this hikayat where the mouse-deer appears as his assessor; but in this one fable the form Slimeum is invariably used.
* ↑ A yellow cosmetic with which the skin is smeared on certain ceremonial occasions.
* ↑ With this may be now also compared the tales numbered IIb and IIf in Dr. N, Adriani's Sangireesche teksten (Bijdragen Kon. Inst. voor de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde for the year 1893, p. 321 et seq.). As we see, the tale of the wasps' nest is not, as the above-mentioned author supposed, a Sangirese innovation.
* ↑ He thus stands to the prophet-king in the same relation as the waki of an Achehnese gampōng (see Vol. I. p. 67) to his keuchiʾ.
* ↑ Nasruan is the Ach. form of the Persian royal name Anōsharwān, with the epithet adé (ʾadil) i.e. the just. The other name is the Achehnese pronunciation of the Arab. words aiççah ḥaiwan, stories about beasts, but the meaning of these words is understood by none in Acheh save the pandits.
* ↑ As to the nature of these compositions see the essay of Dr. J. Brandes in the Feestbundel (dedicated to Prof. de Goeje), Leiden 1891, pp. 79 et seq.
* ↑ This is also the name of a well known Tamil version, possibly the original of both the Malay and the Achehnese (Translator).
* ↑ In the Malay versions he who sends forth the Brahman on his mission is a son of this prince named Harman or Horman ((Arabic characters)). This name is based on a wrong reading of (Arabic characters) which is formed from (Arabic characters) = Hormizd.
* ↑ Ach. Bada Jameuhé or (Arabic characters).
* ↑ By the letter G. I refer to Gonggrijp's edition (Leiden, Kolff 1876). Portions marked Ms. are those which do not appear in this edition but are to be found in the Manuscript of Dr. de Hollander which is now in my possession (See Dr. Brandes' notes in Tijdschrift Batav. Gen. Vol. XXXVI, p. 394 et seq.). The numerals indicate the page.
* ↑ The contents are the same as those of bhaïh 10 of the Hikayat Plandōʾ.
* ↑ The Achehnese reading is (Arabic characters); in the Malay versions we find (Arabic characters) and (Arabic characters).
* ↑ A kind of pole-cat common in the Malay archipelago.
* ↑ This is called Sitěrubuh in the Malay version, and in Achehnese Sinadeubah ((Arabic characters)). The word as written in Arabic letters is almost the same.
* ↑ (Arabic characters).
* ↑ This and other customs alluded to in this story are still practised here and there, but by no means universally.
* ↑ See Vol. I, p. 265.
* ↑ "Agriculture is the prince of all breadwinning"—see Vol. I, p. 175.
* ↑ This name is borrowed from the epithet in the Qurān ʿAzīzʾ Miçr "the magnate of Egypt", applied to Potiphar. In the Achehnese story Adid is used as a proper name, and its bearer is made king of Egypt.
* ↑ One of the brethren was called Seumaʾun (= Simeon), and another Raja Lahat. This last name occurs in other native stories as that of an enemy of Muhammad. It is taken from the name of the mountain Uhud or from the name of Muhammads uncle Abu Lahab.
* ↑ This name seems to be a corruption of Ḥunain, a valley in Arabia, which was the scene of one of Muhammad's battles.
* ↑ The Moslim law looks with disfavour on the shaving of the beard. In Acheh, as also in Java, such shaving is however very customary and thus the wearing of a beard (whiskers are rarely given to the natives by nature) is regarded as a token of piety. As we have seen above (Vol. I, p. 163) people in Acheh call the wearing of the beard the sunat (custom) of the Prophet.
* ↑ The Achehnese, except such as are keen on the performance of their morning religious exercises are incorrigible sluggards.
* ↑ See Van den Berg's Verslag etc., N$^{os}$ 106b, 109 and 161. It has escaped that writer's notice that there is also a copy of Raja Jumjum" in N° 161 of the Batavian Collection.
* ↑ In this tale the dove is always called by its Arabic name (ḥamâmah).
* ↑ This is the Arabo-Achehnese form of the Scripture name Simeon.
* ↑ See Mr. L. W. C. van den Berg's Verslag pp. 15–16.
* ↑ In the Hofbibliothek at Berlin there are three copies (numbered Schumann V, 18, 19 and 20) of the story of Samaʾun in Malay, which similarly show clear tokens of a Javanese origin.
* ↑ Dr. Van der Tunk has given a short account of its contents in the Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut for the year 1866, pp. 357 et seq.
* ↑ Thus the word Qibti or Qubti is better preserved here than in the Malay version, which makes it into Baʾti.
* ↑ Compare Tambih 8 of the Tambih tujōh blaïh (N° LXXXV below) in which appears an Achehnese version of that story. A Turkish version of the "Admonition of the Apostle of God to Fatimah" is mentioned in the Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft LI: 38.
* ↑ In addition to the Malay copies mentioned by Dr. Van der Tuuk (in Essays relating to Indo-China, 2$^d$ series, II, p. 32–33), I know of two in particular which are to be found in the Hofbibliothek at Berlin under the numbers Schumann V, 24 and 44, which bear the title of (Arabic characters) in place of the previous one (Arabic characters) which occur in other versions. The Malay text is printed as an appendix to an edition (apparently lithographed at Bombay) of the Malay rendering of as-Shaʿrāni's al-Yawaqīt wal-jawāhir by Muhammad Ali of Sumbawa, written by him at Mekka in 1243 Heg. The woman is therein called (Arabic characters).
* ↑ Tuanteu = "Our Lord" is the Achehnese translation of the Arab. Sayyidunā, which. the Achehnese pronounce as sòydina.
* ↑ This name is evidently compounded of Laila and her lover Majnun for whom she had a desperate passion. Both Majnun and Laila are represented in the processions of the Hasan-Husain feast in South India. See Herklots Qanoon-e-islam, 2$^d$ edition p. 126–7.
* ↑ In the work of Herklots p. 110, the wife of Ḥusain is called Shahr-bano.
* ↑ (Arabic characters) properly = "Sama the accursed". The Arab. name is Shamir. In South India it seems to be pronounced Shumar; see Qanoon-e-islam p. 110.
* ↑ This Mohammad, called Ibnul-Ḥanafiyyah after his mother, borrowed his reputation almost in his own despite from an unsuccessful Shiʾite rebellion and afterwards became the patron saint of some branches of the Shiʿah. This corrupt tradition also comes from India. Among the Urdu books mentioned in the catalogues of the Fathul Kareem Press at Bombay we find both (Arabic characters)
* ↑ See the article on Tamīm in the Tahḍīb of Nawawī, ed. Wüstenfeld.
* ↑ See the Çaḥīḥ of Moslim ed. Būlāq 1290 H, Vol. II, pp. 379 et seq.
* ↑ Probably this tissue of impossibilities originated in South India and was brought thence to the Eastern Archipelago. In W. Geiger's Balucische Texte mit Uebersetsung (Zeitschrift d. deutschen morgenländ. Gesellschaft Bd. XLVII S. 440 ff.) we find on pp. 444–45 a story about a nameless infidel merchant in the time of Mohammad, whose adventures in the main recall those of the Tamīm of the Malay and Achehnese legend, though the details are very different. In the catalogues of the Fathul Kareem Press at Bombay there appear versions of the story of Tamim Ançari in Urdu and Afghan.
* ↑ This may be found in the collection of Von de Wall (Batav. Genootschap) under N° 101. See p. 17 of Van den Berg's Verslag and Van der Tuuks notes in "Essays relating to Indo-China", 2° series, p. 34, in which mention is made of the copies preserved elsewhere and of a lithographed edition.
* ↑ This is the proper meaning of Ansa, which is a corruption of the Arabic Ançār.
* ↑ See Nawawī's Tahḍīb al-Asmā ed, Wüstenfeld p. 385.
* ↑ The legendary story of Hamzah's deeds, so popular in these countries, may with satisfactory certainty be said to have been composed from a Persian original. (See De Roman van Amir Hamza by Dr. Ph. S. van Ronkel, Leiden 1895). So far as I have been able to ascertain, it is very well known in Acheh, but only in the Malay rendering. The subject of this romance is very popular in the form of haba, or stories transmitted by word of mouth. Persian, Afghan and Urdu versions are mentioned in the catalogues of the Fathul Kareem Press at Bombay.
* ↑ (Arabic characters) i.e. ʿUtbah the youth.
* ↑ (Arabic characters).
* ↑ Dakri in Arabic means materialist or atheist, but is used as a proper name in this story. It is even added that Dahri belonged to the sect of the Mujassimah or anthropomorphists; but the class of people in Acheh who amuse themselves with stories such as this, are more ready to regard this mysterious name as a family appellation rather than that of an heretical sect.
* ↑ The teacher of Abu Ḥanifah was in fact called Ḥammāḍ.
* ↑ The usual title which also appears in native versions is Waçiyyat, "admonition", and we find this name at the end of the Achehnese version, but its popular title is Surat Kriman (from the Mal. Kiriman) i. e. letter or epistle.
* ↑ In 1884, when I first obtained a copy, having then no data to guide me, I felt some doubt as to their being genuine Medina publications, owing to their clumsiness of arrangement and defects of style. But these phenomena are fully explained by the low social position of their editors.
* ↑ Marabouts et Khouan (Algiers 1884) p. 130. ff.
* ↑ (Arabic characters) Arab. = history, story, but in Ach, also = chapter.
* ↑ (Arabic characters).
* ↑ See p. 175 above.
* ↑ (Arabic characters).
* ↑ See Vol. I, p. 101 and Vol. II, p. 28.
* ↑ See Vol. I, pp. 101, 187.
* ↑ See Vol. I. pp. 101, 187 and Vol. II, p. 28.
* ↑ See above p. 17.
* ↑ See above pp. 185 and 186.
* ↑ See p. 181.
* ↑ Arab. (Arabic characters).
* ↑ The Malays often use "kalau běgitu" in the same way. (Translator.)
* ↑ It was lithographed by Ḥasan at-Tōchī at Cairo (1301 H.) in the Majmuʿ Latīf which contains sundry Maulidʾs and prayers. There is another edition with a commentary by Mohammad Nawawi the pandit of Banten.
* ↑ The first half-verse runs thus: "I begin (abdaʾu) with the name of Allah and of the Merciful".
* ↑ (Arabic characters).