The Atjehsche feestjas — the Atjeh ceremonial robe, Atjehsch gewaad in Godee Molsbergen’s phrase — was the festive robe given by the Sultana of Atjeh to the Dutch legation at the close of the formal audience of 1 July 1641. The robe was distinguished by three golden rings on the collar — “drie gouden ringen op den kraag” — “zooals nog nimmer tevoren aan een ambassade was gezonden” (such as had never before been sent to an embassy). The gift of the feestjas is one of the most striking ceremonial moments in the account of Soury’s embassy.
The gift of 1 July 1641
After the formal hand-over of the missive of the Gouverneur-Generaal and the Raden to the Sultana on 1 July 1641, and after the Sultana had come out of the palace to greet the embassy — “een buitengewone eer, nooit tevoren aan iemand bewezen” (an extraordinary honour, never before paid to anyone) — the Dutchmen were brought a beautiful Atjeh ceremonial robe with three golden rings on the collar. The gift was unprecedented: “zooals nog nimmer tevoren aan een ambassade was gezonden.”
Jacob Compostel, the outgoing Opperhoofd of the lodge, did not receive such a robe, “vermoedelijk omdat Hare Majesteit hem als niet tot het gezantschap behoorend rekende” — presumably because Her Majesty did not consider him part of the embassy. The gift thus marked a fine distinction: the robe went to the visiting embassy, not to the resident chief of the lodge.
The three golden rings and Van Riebeeck’s coat of arms
The three golden rings on the collar of the feestjas had a personal resonance for the Secretaris Jan van Riebeeck. Riebeeck’s family coat of arms already bore three golden rings — “Zoo had Van Riebeeck, die in zijn wapen drie gouden ringen voerde, deze nu op zijn Atjehsche feestjas” — So Van Riebeeck, who carried three golden rings in his coat of arms, now had those same rings on his Atjeh ceremonial robe. The coincidence is one of those small ironies of diplomatic ceremony: a Dutch family’s heraldic device reproduced, unknowingly, on an Atjeh sultanate’s gift of honour.
The other gifts of 1 July 1641
The feestjas was not the only gift of the audience. As a sign of supreme favour the Sultana sent Soury her own golden beteldoos (betel-box) “om zich een sirihpruim klaar te maken” — to prepare a sirih-quid — while the other gentlemen could do so out of a silver box of the Sultana’s. “Lands wijs, ‘s lands eer” — country’s way, country’s honour — the Dutchmen “hebben allen zeker gedacht” (all surely thought), as they sat shoeless in Atjeh dress chewing sirih “tot eer en voordeel van de Edele Compagnie” — to the honour and profit of the Honourable Company. The feestjas was thus part of a larger ceremonial of dress and gesture by which the Dutch legation was dressed and seated in the Atjeh manner.
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, the Atjehsche feestjas is the most striking single object of the ceremonial of 1 July 1641 — the gift that the Sultana chose to make unprecedented, and the gift whose three golden rings recalled, by coincidence, the heraldry of Jan van Riebeeck. The pointed omission of Compostel from the gift is itself a small political statement about where the Sultana placed the boundary between embassy and resident. The gift of the feestjas is also the visible high-point of the Sultana’s favour to the Dutch at the moment of her accession — a favour that would not survive the long jewel-sale negotiations that followed.
See Also
- Pieter Soury’s mission to Atjeh (1641)
- Atjehsche ambassade ceremony (1 July 1641)
- Jan van Riebeeck
- Jacob Compostel
- Pieter Willemz
- Sultana of Atjeh (1641)
- Slendang
- Baleh-baleh
- Sembah
- 1 July
- 1641
- Acheh
Source
Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapter XI (“Atjehsche ambassade. Inlandsche feesten. Maagden als losprijs”), pp. 39–43 of the numbered-letter sequence.