The koeta djaq (in Kreemer’s spelling; modern Atjehnese kuta jak) was the Atjehnese “wandelende fort” (walking fort) — a mobile siege-shelter made of folded sheets of buffalo-hide, behind which besiegers advanced in small groups and which served as a large shield for several persons at once during the inter-tribal wars of the Atjeh cultural sphere. The koeta djaq is recorded in Kreemer’s *De Karbouw* ([[1956)]] (p. 146) — citing his *Atjeh* (vol. I, p. 307) — and is already mentioned in the mid-eighteenth-century Atjehnese epic *Potjoet Moehammat*, which attests its use as a military technology of the Atjehnese state at least from the mid-eighteenth century.
The device
The koeta djaq passage in De Karbouw (p. 146) reads:
“Een in de Archipel veel toegepast belegeringsmiddel in de onderlinge oorlogen was het z.g. ‘wandelende fort’, in Atjeh koeta djaq genoemd. De belegeraars traden daar in troepjes vooruit, verscholen achter omgebogen lappen buffelhuid, die dus als grote schilden voor enige personen tegelijk dienst deden. Van zulke wandelende fortjes is reeds sprake in het bekende, omstreeks het midden der 18e eeuw opgestelde, Atjehse epos Potjoet Moehammat.” The structural elements are:
- Material: folded sheets of buffalo-hide (omgebogen lappen buffelhuid), large enough to serve as shields for several persons at once.
- Tactic: besiegers advanced in small groups (in troepjes), hidden behind the buffalo-hide sheets.
- Function: the sheets served as mobile shields — large enough to protect several persons simultaneously, hence the metaphor of a “walking fort.”
- Attestation: the device is already mentioned in the mid-eighteenth-century Atjehnese epic *Potjoet Moehammat*, so its use as a military technology is attested from at least the mid-eighteenth century.
The buffalo-hide complex
The koeta djaq is one of the principal documented uses of buffalo-hide in the Atjehnese military-technological complex — a complex that also included, as De Karbouw documents in its chapter on buffalo-hide products (pp. 141-149), the use of buffalo-hide for parchment shields, war-helmets (the strijdmutsen of the Gajos, illustrated in Volz, *Nord-Sumatra* I, p. 63, fig. 19, and cited in Kreemer, *Atjeh* I, p. 315), and armour. The choice of buffalo-hide for the koeta djaq reflects the material’s toughness and size — a single buffalo-hide, folded and shaped, could shelter several men, and the hide’s resistance to the missile weapons of Atjehnese inter-tribal warfare made it an effective siege-shelter.
The Potjoet Moehammat attestation
The fact that the koeta djaq is already mentioned in the Atjehnese epic *Potjoet Moehammat* — composed, in Kreemer’s dating, “omstreeks het midden der 18e eeuw” (around the middle of the eighteenth century) — fixes the device’s use as a military technology from at least that period. The Potjoet Moehammat is one of the principal Atjehnese historical epics, and its mention of the koeta djaq is significant as a literary attestation of the device’s place in the Atjehnese military-technological imaginary of the mid-eighteenth century — that is, in the period of Atjehnese history between the Atjeh bloeitijdperk ([[1607-1636)|bloeitijdperk of Iskandar Muda]] and the Dutch conquest of the late nineteenth century.
Significance
The koeta djaq is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history as the principal documented instance of the use of buffalo-hide in Atjehnese military technology — a mobile siege-shelter that allowed besiegers to advance under cover against the missile weapons of inter-tribal warfare. Its mention in the mid-eighteenth-century Atjehnese epic attests its use from at least that period, and its documentation in Kreemer’s *Atjeh* and re-citation in *De Karbouw* fixes it in the comparative ethnographic literature as one of the principal buffalo-derived military technologies of the Indonesian archipelago. The koeta djaq also exemplifies the wider pattern, visible elsewhere in De Karbouw, in which the buffalo is integrated not only into the productive economy and the ritual calendar of Atjehnese village life but also into its military-technological complex.
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. 146.
Atjèh, by J. Kreemer, vol. I (1922), p. 307.