The Marechausseelied — the Marechaussee song — was the soldiers’ song of the Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Onderhorigen, composed in its first couplets by Dominee Thenu in the years before 1896 when the mood of the troops in Aceh was “somber en slecht,” and grown over the decades into a song with “ontelbaar vele” (countless) couplets sung at posts and on the march. Its refrein — “Manisee-Manisee! ‘t Is terlaloe Manisee!” — gave the corps its Manisee name, and its third regel — varied between “Hari-hari naik goenoeng” (every day climbing the mountain), “Hari-hari masoek paja” (every day plunging into the moeras) and “Satoe mati ganti sepoeloeh” (one dead, ten in his place) — was the soldiers’ own identification of their work.
Thenu’s composition
“Dominee Thenu had de eerste gemaakt. Hij kwam in Atjeh in de tijd vóór 1896 en de stemming was er somber en slecht. Hij voelde aan dat de troep afleiding nodig had en bracht de mensen het soldatenlied.” Thenu composed many of the couplets himself, but “nooit heeft men later met zekerheid kunnen zeggen, welke woorden van hem waren” — no one could later say with certainty which words were his. The song was therefore a collective composition, with Thenu as the originator and the soldiers as the continuators.
The refrein
The refrein of the Marechausseelied — “Manisee-Manisee! ‘t Is terlaloe Manisee! / Hari-hari naik goenoeng, ‘t Is terlaloe Manisee!” — gave the corps its Manisee name. The word terlaloe — glossed in the book as verschrikkelijk (terrible/excessive) — was the soldiers’ own affectionate exaggeration: the Marechaussee was “terlaloe Manisee” — terribly/excessively Manisee. The third regel was varied: “Hari-hari naik goenoeng” (every day climbing the mountain), “Hari-hari masoek paja” (every day plunging into the moeras), “Satoe mati ganti sepoeloeh” (one dead, ten in his place). The variations registered the actual work of the corps: the mountain, the swamp, the casualty.
The korpslied and the distinction
The Marechausseelied is to be distinguished from the more formal korpslied — the corps song — which narrated the daden (deeds) of the corps vanaf de oprichting (from its founding). The korpslied had its own refrein — “Hai marsosé, hai marsosé… memboeroeh moesoeh, memboeroeh moesoeh th’ tjapé-é, / naik-toeroen goenoeng, / masoek-kaloear rimba, / memtjari bekas dani anak marsosé!” (Hunting the enemy relentlessly, mountain up and down, in and out of the bush, seeking traces of the marechaussee-son!) — and was led by a voorzanger who sang new couplets, after which all fell in on the refrein. The Marechausseelied was the soldiers’ own song; the korpslied was the corps’s own song.
The voorzanger and the feestjes
The voorzanger — the lead singer who called out the couplets for the others to fall in on — was a recognised role at feestjes. Tanamal — the Marechaussee 1e klas at Bakongan — was voorzanger at the post’s feestjes, where his ongelooflijk lelijke snuit became één en al vrolijkheid. Sometimes a 13-14 year old anak-kolong would lead the voorzanger role — a child of the tangsi who had grown up with the song.
Significance
The Marechausseelied is significant in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. as the cultural production of the Marechaussee corps. The song — composed by the Soldaten-Dominee and grown by the soldiers — is the book’s clearest example of the cultural life of the tangsi: the songs, the dances, the feestjes that made the corps a moral community, not just a military unit. The refrein “Manisee-Manisee!” is the book’s identification of the corps by its own idiom: the corps was what its soldiers sang.
Account from the Maréchaussée Jubileum-nummer (1930) — Mosselman’s text
W. J. Mosselman opened his memoir in the 1930 jubilee number of Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië with what he called “ons lijflied” — our own song — quoting a text in which the refrain differs slightly from the version recorded elsewhere:
“O, marsausee, O, marsausee… ‘t Is terlaloe, marsausee! Biar soesah satoe goenoeng, hantam sadjah, marsausee. Satoe mati, ganti sepoeloeh. ‘t Is terlaloe marsausee!”
The Malay may be rendered: “O maréchaussée… it is too much, maréchaussée! Though the hardship be a mountain high, strike on regardless, maréchaussée. One dies, ten replace him.”
Authorship and diffusion
Mosselman supposed the song “eens gerijmeld door een dichterlijk aangelegd Menadoneesch of Amboneesch wapenbroeder, die aan kronjong en pantoens deed” — once rhymed by a poetically inclined Menadonese or Ambonese comrade who went in for kronjong and pantoens, as most of these “pracht-menschen” were, besides being excellent soldiers, “niet onverdienstelijke barden.” Probably he had meant to charm the heart of his Nona-manis under the strumming of a guitar, and would little have suspected that his song would be sung on every post “tot diep in de wouden van Atjeh, ja overal, waar zich maar maréchaussees bevonden.” Wherever they bivouacked behind wire or a barrier of branches after a heavy march, a maréchaussée who had laid down his weapons reached for guitar or mandolin; whatever the mood or repertoire, “het maréchausseelied was aanwezig,” though the later couplets were composed “in eindelooze variatie naar eigen model.”
The words as corps creed
Mosselman held that “dat Biar soesah satoe goenoeng, dat satoe mati ganti sepoeloeh” had caught exactly the core of the old corps spirit — “de taaie vasthoudendheid van den terrier, de zorgelooze bereidheid tot het groote offer” — which corps tradition demanded of every man from the commander down to the least maréchaussée, on pain of unworthiness to wear the insignia of the keurkorps. He closed his memoir by quoting the same lines as the corps’s “schoone devies.”
After the jubilee
The editorial anticipated that after the presentation of the colour on 2 April 1930 the old war song Manisé would be struck up throughout Atjeh, in the remotest corners where Maréchaussée were quartered, and everywhere else where old maréchaussées were living out their last days — “ook in Nederland.”
See Also
- Dominee Thenu
- Korps Marechaussee van Atjeh en Onderhorigen
- Korpslied van de Marechaussee
- Manisee (Manisé)
- Tanamal
- Anak-kolong
- Tangsi
- Rasa sajang kené
- Ombak, ombak poetih
- Hoera, hoera tjintjin
- Het Korps Maréchaussée in Atjeh (Jubileum-nummer 1930)
- Mosselman
- Uitreiking van het vaandel aan het Korps Maréchaussée (2 April 1930)
- Korpsgeest der Maréchaussée
Source
Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapter “Van recruut tot pensioen” (where the Marechausseelied is quoted) and chapter “Dominee Thenu” (where Thenu’s composition is described).
Het Korps Maréchaussée in Atjeh: De Atjehsche Garde, 1890 - 2 April 1930 (“The Corps of Maréchaussée in Atjeh: The Atjehnese Guard”), Extra Jubileum-nummer of Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië issued for the fortieth anniversary of the corps (1930), pp. 1-16. Offprint DLP-143, Bibliotheek KITLV, accession 621 116 794.