Boeròng — Atjehnese burong, in the chapter rendered boeròng — is the Atjehnese variant of the poentianak (Malay pontianak), the vengeful female spirit of a woman who has died in childbed. The term is named in Prof. Dr. Kernkamp’s chapter De invloed van den Islam in Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946) in the course of his discussion of Islamic influence on family life: “Special protection of mother and child is necessary against the exceptionally malignant spirit of a woman who died in childbed, who is extremely feared in all of the Indies (Malay poentianak, Javanese Koentianak, Atjehnese boeròng). This woman, who would have a horrible appearance, must be warded off with fishing-nets, sirih spit, etc.”
The boeròng in context
Kernkamp’s account places the boeròng within a wider Indonesian complex of childbirth-death spirits: the Malay poentianak, the Javanese Koentianak, and the Atjeh boeròng are regional names for the same feared figure — the spirit of a woman who died in childbed, who returns to menace living mothers and newborn children. The means of warding her off — fishing-nets, sirih (betel) spit, and similar apotropaic devices — are likewise shared across the Indonesian archipelago.
The same passage of Kernkamp’s chapter notes that, in the Atjeh treatment of the dead in childbed, the corpse “must be buried before the sun reaches its highest point” — that is, before noon — and that “one watches with a broom at her grave and gives the corpse a tangled ball of yarn and a needle without an eye to take with her, to keep the spirit endlessly busy and to prevent her from doing harm.” These specifically Atjehnese practices are the local variant of the wider Indonesian complex of which the boeròng is a part.
Significance
For the Atjeh-focused reader, the boeròng is significant as the Atjeh variant of one of the most widely distributed Indonesian folk-beliefs. Kernkamp’s brief mention of the boeròng — alongside the Malay and Javanese cognates — places Atjeh within a wider Indonesian religious-cultural continuum, even as the specifically Atjehnese burial practices (the noon burial, the broom-watch, the tangled yarn and eyeless needle) mark the local particularity of the Atjeh case. The boeròng is one of the clearest examples in Kernkamp’s chapter of the survival of pre-Islamic folk belief within the formally Islamic religious life of Atjeh.
Dutch terms used in this article
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
- Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
- invloed van den Islam — influence of Islam
- boeròng — childbed-death spirit (Atjeh form)
- poentianak — childbed-death spirit (Malay form)
- Koentianak — childbed-death spirit (Javanese form)
- Toean di boh — Lord of the garden (Atjeh fertility saint)
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Acheh — Aceh
- Java — Java
- Prof. Dr. — Professor Doctor
- Dr. — Doctor
Sources
Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Tweede Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1923.
Identifier: Delpher MMKB02B:000001798; PPN 395084288. Koninklijke Bibliotheek.
See Also
- Toean di boh
- Pen (Atjeh)
- Soerat te’h
- Atjeh calendar constellations
- Acheh
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- J. Kreemer
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- W. J. A. Kernkamp
- Bidan
- Peutrön boeröng
- Pötjoet Siti
- Srabi Tandjong
- Aweuëh peuët plöh peuët
- Kaphan
- Seumangat
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), p. 99 (chapter De invloed van den Islam door Prof. Dr. W. J. A. Kernkamp).