The geluksbuffel in Atjeh (the luck-bringing buffalo in Atjeh) is the documented Atjehnese belief that certain individual buffaloes — independent of any external mark — were bringers of good fortune (geluk), specifically in two respects: (1) if a luck-bringing buffalo was the first to step onto a sawah (wet-rice field), or deposited its dung there, mice would not come to destroy the planting; and (2) if such a buffalo was bound under one’s house, it kept the lice out. The belief is recorded in Kreemer’s *De Karbouw* ([[1956)]] (p. 215) — citing his *Atjeh* (vol. I, p. 508) — and is the Atjehnese instance of the wider archipelagic pattern of the geluksbuffel (in Minangkabau called soembarag-karbouw).
The belief
The geluksbuffel passage in De Karbouw (p. 215) reads:
“Heeft bijv. in Atjeh bij de sawahbewerking een geluksbuffel het eerst het veld betreden, of daar zijn uitwerpselen gedeponeerd, dan zullen daar, naar men meent, zeker geen muizen komen, om de aanplant te vernielen, en bindt men zulk een dier onder zijn woning, dan houdt het de luizen uit huis.” The two believed effects of the geluksbuffel are:
- Agricultural protection: if a luck-bringing buffalo is the first to step onto a sawah field, or deposits its dung there, mice will not come to destroy the planting (den aanplant vernielen).
- Domestic protection: if such a buffalo is bound under one’s house, it keeps the lice out of the house (het houdt de luizen uit huis).
The wider archipelagic context
The Atjehnese geluksbuffel is the Atjeh instance of a wider archipelagic pattern. The Minangkabauers had the cognate concept of the soembarag-karbouw, and the wider phenomenon of “luck-bringing” buffaloes — individual animals whose presence was believed to confer specific benefits on the household or field to which they were attached — is attested across the archipelago. What distinguishes the Atjehnese instance is the specificity of the two believed effects: agricultural protection (against mice, the principal pest of the sawah) and domestic protection (against lice, the principal parasitic nuisance of the Atjehnese house). The choice of these two specific pests — one agricultural, one domestic — reflects the dual economic-ecological setting of the buffalo in Atjehnese village life: the buffalo was at once a sawah-animal (working in the wet-rice fields) and a house-adjacent animal (stabled under or near the house).
Significance
The geluksbuffel in Atjeh is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history as the documented Atjehnese instance of the wider archipelagic pattern of “luck-bringing” buffaloes — individual animals whose presence was believed to confer specific agricultural and domestic benefits on the household and field to which they were attached. The belief is documented in Kreemer’s *Atjeh* (vol. I, p. 508) and re-cited in *De Karbouw* (p. 215), and is one of the documents of the wider Atjehnese pattern in which the buffalo was treated not merely as an economic asset but as a ritually and magically charged animal whose individual presence could confer specific benefits on its owner.
Sources
De Karbouw — Zijn betekenis voor de volken van de Indonesische Archipel, by J. Kreemer (‘s-Gravenhage / Bandung: N.V. Uitgeverij W. van Hoeve, 1956), p. 215.
Atjèh, by J. Kreemer, vol. I (1922), p. 508.