Pen — Atjehnese pen, “open, wide, broad” — is the Atjehnese concept invoked in the timing of two specific rites: the piercing of girls’ ears and the placing of gravestones. 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 the Islamic calendar’s interaction with indigenous Atjeh conceptions of time. Kernkamp’s wording: “when in Atjeh it is said that for the making of holes in girls’ ears and for the placing of gravestones the field must be ‘pen’ (holes and grave must become ‘wide’), then clearly only the [indigenous] conception of time decides.”
The pen concept
The pen concept belongs to the Atjehnese conception of time as a field of forces, in which certain periods are pen (open, wide, expanding) and others are beungèh (closed, narrow, contracting). For the piercing of girls’ ears — a rite of passage that marks the girl’s transition into the adult female community — and for the placing of gravestones — the rite that fixes the deceased’s place in the lineage of the dead — the field must be pen, so that the hole (in the ear) and the grave (in the earth) may become “wide” and accommodate what they are to receive. The concept is, in Kernkamp’s reading, an explicitly indigenous one — not derived from Islamic ritual law but from the older Atjehnese magico-religious substratum.
The same chapter notes that the pen concept is found alongside, and interacts with, the Islamic calendar’s taboo on the 11th month for marriages (the month is “beklemd” — pinched — between the two great Muslim feast days). The two systems — the Islamic calendar and the indigenous pen concept — coexist in Atjehnese ritual life, each governing a different set of rites.
Significance
For the Atjeh-focused reader, the pen concept is significant as one of the clearest examples in Kernkamp’s chapter of the survival of pre-Islamic Atjehnese conceptions within the formally Islamic religious life of Atjeh. The concept is documented in the Soerat te’h (Atjeh divination book) alongside other calendrical and horoscopic calculations; it governs two rites — ear-piercing and gravestone-placing — that are themselves at the boundary of Islamic and pre-Islamic practice. The pen concept thus illustrates Kernkamp’s wider argument that, in Atjeh, “the old under the new stubbornly persists; the new is in fact still the old.”
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
- pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
- beklemd — pinched (Dutch)
- Toean di boh — Lord of the garden (Atjeh fertility saint)
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Acheh — Aceh
- Prof. Dr. — Professor Doctor
- Dr. — Doctor
See Also
- Soerat te’h
- Atjeh calendar constellations
- Boeròng
- Toean di boh
- Idja pinggang
- Friday prohibitions
- Acheh
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- J. Kreemer
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- W. J. A. Kernkamp
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), p. 88 (chapter De invloed van den Islam door Prof. Dr. W. J. A. Kernkamp).