The Atjehsche viervorsten-systeem — the Atjehnese “four-princes system” — was, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s survey of the Outer Possessions, the institutional preference of the Atjehsche sultanate for grouping the chiefdoms of its highland and peripheral dependencies into groups of four, each group headed by a radja berempat (literally “four-princes”) who served as the principal intermediary with the Sultan of Atjeh. The system was imposed, the Bureau records, on the Gajo and Alas highlands during the Atjehnese supremacy in the Gajo- and Alaslanden, and was imitated — “al dan niet daartoe genoopt door Atjeh” — “whether or not compelled to it by Atjeh” — by the Karo chiefs on the eastern side of the highlands, producing the radja berempat institution of the Karo-Batak sibajaks.
The institutional form
The Atjehsche viervorsten-systeem, as the Encyclopaedisch Bureau describes it, was an institutional arrangement by which four chiefdoms — in the Gajo and Alas highlands, the four principal stamhoofden (tribal heads); in the Karo lands, four of the sibajaks (the Karo oeroeng-chiefs) — were appointed as a group charged with the maintenance of good relations with the Atjehnese sultanate. The four were distinguished from the other chiefdoms of their respective lands by the title radja berempat — “four-princes” — and they served, in effect, as the political interface between the Sultan of Atjeh and the broader community of chiefs.
The Bureau records the institutional preference of the Atjehnese sultanate for “dit getal” — “this number [four]” — as a typical feature of Atjehnese imperial administration: “Dit wederom blijkt hier de typische voorkeur van het Atjehsche gezag voor dit getal” — “Here again appears the typical preference of the Atjehnese authority for this number.”
The Atjehsche oppermacht in the Gajo- en Alaslanden
The system was imposed, in the first instance, on the Gajo and Alas highlands. The Bureau records that the Atjehsche oppermacht in de Gajo- en Alaslanden had been established as a resident Atjehnese power, and that the Gajo’sche stamhoofden — the tribal heads of the Gayo — had been the first to apply the four-princes measure. The Atjehnese arrangement transformed the loose community of Gajo and Alas tribal heads into a grouped hierarchy, with four of their number singled out for direct relations with the Sultan of Atjeh.
The imitation in the Karo-Batak lands
The system was imitated, the Bureau records, by the Karo-Batak chiefs on the eastern side of the highlands. The Bureau records that “in dien tijd door de Karo’sche hoofden al dan niet daartoe genoopt door Atjeh — denzelfden maatregel werd genomen, die ook de Gajo’sche stamhoofden hadden toegepast: uit de rij van sibajaks wezen zij een viertal aan, dat in het bijzonder belast was met de handhaving dier goede betrekkingen” — “in that time the Karo chiefs — whether or not compelled to it by Atjeh — took the same measure that the Gajo tribal heads had applied: from the row of sibajaks they appointed a fourfold, that was especially charged with the maintenance of those good relations.” The four Karo sibajaks chosen were, the Bureau records, those of Lingga, Sarinembah, Baroes Djahé and Soeka, who received the title of radja berempat.
The Dutch revival: the five-Sibajak landschappen
The Atjehsche viervorsten-systeem was, the Bureau records, revived and amplified by the Dutch colonial state after the annexation of the Karo hoogvlakte in 1904–1906. The Bureau records that “Met het verdwijnen van Atjeh’s suprematie over deze streken nam ook de belang- rijkheid der positie van deze viervorsten in het Karoland sterk af, zoodat zij, ten tijde van onze machtsvestiging, zich alleen nog door den titel van de overige oeroenghoofden onderscheidden, doch in macht verder geheel met deze gelijk stonden” — “With the disappearance of Atjeh’s supremacy over these regions, the importance of the position of these four-princes in the Karoland also strongly declined, so that, at the time of our establishment of power, they distinguished themselves only by the title from the other oeroeng-chiefs, but in power were otherwise entirely equal to them.” The Dutch, however, “de vergeten positie dier radja-berempat opgerakeld” — “resurrected the forgotten position of those radja-berempat” — and “hen in het Karoland zelf een macht toegekend, welke zij daar nimmer bezeten zullen hebben” — “granted them, in the Karoland itself, a power which they will never have possessed there.” To the four sibajaks of Lingga, Sarinembah, Baroes Djahé and Soeka the Dutch added a fifth — the Sibajak of Koeta Boeloeh — producing the five-sibajak arrangement of Karo landschapshoofden that would, throughout the colonial period, govern the Karo hoogvlakte.
Significance
The Atjehsche viervorsten-systeem is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s survey, the principal institutional imprint of the Atjehnese sultanate on the highland chiefdoms of central Sumatra. It is the institutional hinge between the Atjehnese supremacy in the Gajo- and Alaslanden and the Karo-Batak lands on the eastern side of the highlands; and it is the institutional ancestor of the five-sibajak landschapshoofden of the colonial Karo landschappen. The system is thus the institutional complement of the Atjehnese overlordship of the East Coast: where the latter extended Atjehnese power along the Strait of Malakka, the former extended it across the central Sumatran highlands.
See Also
- Acheh
- radja berempat
- sibajak
- Gajoland
- Alasland
- Batak-Karo
- Lingga
- Sarinembah
- Baroes Djahé
- Soeka
- Koeta Boeloeh
- atjehsche-oppermacht-in-de-gajo-en-alaslanden
- atjehsche-overheersing-der-noordelijke-kuststaatjes
- Dutch subjugation of the Karo-Batak lands (1904-1906)
- Gouvernement Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden
- 1607
- 1636
- 1904
- 1906
Source
De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Afl. 3: Oostkust van Sumatra. Eerste Stuk, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1918), pp. 117, 174. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shelfmark LS.08781.