The Hikajat Malém Dagang (Acehnese: Hikayat Malém Dagang) is the oldest and most celebrated of the Acehnese epic hikayats — a mid-seventeenth-century Atjehnese-language chronicle-epic centred on the naval expedition of Eseukanda Muda against the treacherous Malaccan prince Si Ujut, in which the poem’s hero, Malem Dagang, is nominated chief panglima (commander) of the fleet through the mediation of the wise teacher Ja Pakeh, and which culminates in the capture and execution of Si Ujut after his betrayal of Acehnese hospitality. It is the principal surviving example of the Atjehnese chronicle-epic tradition, and is the source on which the Malay-language Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem is — in the judgement of Hooykaas — “een ietwat droge proza-omwerking” (a somewhat dry prose reworking).
Plot
The epic centres on the naval expedition of Eseukanda Muda against the treacherous Malaccan prince Si Ujut. The poem’s hero, Malem Dagang, is nominated chief panglima of the fleet through the mediation of the wise teacher Ja Pakeh, and the epic culminates in the capture and execution of Si Ujut after his betrayal of Acehnese hospitality. The cast of the epic further includes Raja Raden and Putroe Phang among the principal figures of the sultanate’s court. The naval expedition is presented as the central set-piece of the chronicle-epic, and the panglima’s appointment and the kětika (auspicious-moment) consultations before battle frame the poem’s account of the campaign.
Genre and Character
The Hikajat Malém Dagang belongs to the Atjehnese chronicle-epic tradition — a tradition that, like the Malay Sadjarah Malajoe and the Hikajat Raja-Raja Pasai, presents itself as historical narrative but freely mixes legend with fact. Hooykaas places it in his chapter on Geschiedschrijving in het Maleis (Malay historiography) alongside the Malay chronicles, observing that the Atjehnese tradition, while not Malay in language, “wijkt in geest niet af van de tot dusverre behandelde zgn. historische geschriften” (does not differ in spirit from the so-called historical writings treated so far). The events narrated in the Hikajat Malém Dagang — like those of the Malay Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem — “moeten op feiten teruggaan, maar zijn schier tot onherkenbaarwordens toe aan opsmuk onderhevig geweest” (must go back to facts, but have been subjected to embellishment almost beyond recognition).
The Pakeh Madina / Fakih Madinah Episode
The Hikajat Malém Dagang is the source of the literary portrait of Pakeh Madina (= Fakih Madinah of the Malay reworking) — the Fakih Madinah or “wetgeleerde, kenner der Moslimse plichtenleer, uit Madīnat al-Nabī, stad van de Profeet” (jurisconsult, expert in the Muslim law of duties, from Madīnat al-Nabī, the city of the Prophet). Hooykaas singles out, in his commentary on the Sadjarah Malajoe, the kětika consultation episode in which Pakeh Madina, despite his Islamic office, repeatedly consults the pre-Islamic kětika (auspicious-moment) tables and forbids the battle for days until the favourable moment arrives: “Dagenlang verbiedt hij de strijd, totdat de kětika gekomen is, en de Atjehers natuurlijk winnen!” (For days he forbids the battle, until the kětika has come, and the Atjehers naturally win!).
The episode is, in Hooykaas’s reading, the literary evidence that the pre-Islamic pawang tradition — the pawang who, in his chapter on folk-belief, Hooykaas describes as “de oude volkspriester, elders doekoen geheten en pēmangkoe, zich handhavend ondanks Islam en Hindoeisme” (the old folk-priest, elsewhere called doekoen and pēmangkoe, maintaining himself despite Islam and Hinduism) — persisted in the Islamicised Atjehnese court, with the Islamic specialist taking over the ritual functions of the pre-Islamic priest.
The Atjehnese Humour
A key feature of the Hikajat Malém Dagang that distinguishes it from its Malay reworking is what Hooykaas calls its Atjehse humor — “De Atjehse humor van het oorspronkelijk is menigmaal verloren gegaan” (the Atjehnese humour of the original has often been lost [in the Malay adaptation]). The humour is part of the chronicle-epic’s character: the Hikajat Malém Dagang presents the Atjehnese self-image of the sultanate’s wars, with the admiraalschip (admiral’s ship) of the Atjehnese fleet belonging “tot de legende” (to legend), but the kětika consultations belonging “tot historische mogelijkheid en wellicht werkelijkheid” (to historical possibility and perhaps reality).
The Fantastic Expedition against Johor
Hooykaas notes that one of the Hikajat Malém Dagang’s set-pieces is the “fantastische tocht tegen die slechte kafir’s van Djohor” (fantastic campaign against those bad infidels of Djohor) — an Atjehnese campaign that is presented, in the chronicle-epic, as an apotheosis of the “gezamenlijke roemrijke expedities naar Malakka en verder z.O.-waarts” (joint glorious expeditions to Malacca and further southeastwards). This “is de Atjéhse voorstelling en herinnering aan de gebeurtenissen waartusschen in het eerste begin van de 17de eeuw te Djohor de SM werd geschreven” (is the Atjehnese representation and memory of the events amid which, in the very beginning of the 17th century at Djohor, the Sadjarah Malajoe was written). The expedition belongs to the same chronological frame as the Iskandar Muda attacks on Batoe Sawar of 1613 and 1615 that dominate the Sadjarah Malajoe’s composition history.
Significance
The Hikajat Malém Dagang is significant as the principal surviving example of the Atjehnese-language chronicle-epic tradition, and as the source on which the Malay Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem is a (somewhat diminished) reworking. Its preservation of the Pakeh Madina/Fakih Madinah episode is the principal textual evidence for the survival of pre-Islamic pawang practice in the Islamicised Atjehnese court, and its Atjehse humor is the principal literary evidence for the Atjehnese self-image of the sultanate’s wars against Djohor and Malacca in the early seventeenth century. Its plot — the naval expedition of Eseukanda Muda against Si Ujut, with Malem Dagang as the chief panglima of the fleet appointed through the mediation of Ja Pakeh — is the oldest and most celebrated of the Acehnese epic hikayats.
Account from Atjèh by J. Kreemer (Deel II)
Kreemer provides the following account of the Hikajat Malém Dagang.
The Hikajat Malém Dagang was one of the two oldest Atjèhnese hikajat’s — narrative poems in sandja-meter — singing of an episode from Sultan Iskandar Moeda’s (1607–1636) struggle against Malaka. Though without historical value as strict history, its style is thoroughly Atjèhnese.
The hikajat describes Sultan Iskandar Moeda’s famous attack on Malaka in 1629, in which his La seumana (admiral) was captured. The grave of this La seumana is pointed out in the kampoeng Pandé near Koeta Radja.
Each hikajat verse has 4 parts: the 2 middle parts rhyme with each other, and the end-word rhymes with the end-word of other verses. The hikajat’s are sung (beuét) on specific melodies. A hikajat may be humoresque (hikajat roehé), history, romance, fable, religious legend, or moral lesson.
The Hikajat Malém Dagang is one of the two oldest Atjèhnese hikajat’s, alongside the Hikajat Pötjoet Moehamat. While the Hikajat Malém Dagang “has no historical value but the style is thoroughly Atjèhnese,” the Potjoet Moehamat is “on firmer historical ground” and was called “a jewel of Atjèhnese, indeed Inlandsche, literature” by Snouck Hurgronje.
See Also
- Hikajat Sultan Atjeh Marhoem
- Fakih Madinah
- Pakeh Madina
- Sadjarah Malajoe
- Hikajat Raja-Raja Pasai
- Batoe Sawar
- Djohor
- Sultan Iskandar Muda
- Malem Dagang
- Si Ujut
- Ja Pakeh
- Raja Raden
- Putroe Phang
- Over Maleise Literatuur (1947)
- Aceh
- 1613
- 1615
Sources
Over Maleise Literatuur, by Dr. C. Hooykaas, Hoogleraarte Batavia; Tweede Druk (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1947), chapter 11 (“Geschiedschrijving in het Maleis”), pp. 95-96; chapter 3 (“Enige notities over volksgeloof”), pp. 21-22; Toelichting tot de Sadjarah Malajoe, aantekening bij 24/2, p. 237.
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
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.