The sembah (also sambah) was the reverential salute of the Atjeh and Malay-Indonesian court — a gesture of greeting and respect made by pressing the palms together with the fingers pointed upward and the thumbs close to the breast, often accompanied by a slight bow. In Godee Molsbergen’s account of Soury’s embassy of 1641 the sembah is the gestural vocabulary by which the Sultana and the Dutch legation acknowledged one another in the formal audience of 1 July 1641.
The gesture
The sembah is the classical Malay-Indonesian gesture of reverence: the palms pressed together, the fingers pointing upward, the hands raised to the level of the breast or face, often with a slight inclination of the head or body. It is at once a greeting, a sign of respect, and an act of obeisance — its precise meaning calibrated by the depth of the bow, the height to which the hands are raised, and the social rank of the gesturer and the recipient.
The Soury embassy, 1 July 1641
When the Commissaris Soury’s legation was conducted into the presence of the Sultana on 1 July 1641, the gestural choreography was precise. The Sultana came out of the palace to greet the embassy — “een buitengewone eer, nooit tevoren aan iemand bewezen” (an extraordinary honour, never before paid to anyone). “De Vorstin verscheen, en ieder boog of maakte de sembah” — The Queen appeared, and each bowed or made the sembah. The Dutchmen thus responded to the Sultana’s appearance with the gesture that was native to her court — a small but significant act of ceremonial adaptation, the visitors adopting the local vocabulary of respect.
At the close of the audience
When the Sultana wished to retire to her palace after the spectacle of fighting elephants, bulls, buffaloes and bucks, the assembly again made the sembah: “Toen de Vorstin zich weer in haar paleis wilde terugtrekken, stonden alle aanwezigen op en deden hun sembah” — When the Queen wished to retire to her palace, all those present rose and made their sembah. The sembah thus framed the audience — made at the Sultana’s appearance and at her departure — and was the gestural means by which the court acknowledged her sovereignty.
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, the sembah is the gestural vocabulary of the sultanate’s court ceremony — the visible means by which the relations of sovereignty and respect were made present in the audience hall. The Dutch adoption of the sembah in the 1 July 1641 audience was a small but telling act of ceremonial adaptation: the visitors from the United Provinces, sitting shoeless in Atjeh dress and chewing sirih from the Sultana’s golden beteldoos, performed the local gesture of reverence to the new ruler. The gesture is one of the many small details by which the Soury embassy record preserves the texture of Atjeh court ritual at the moment of transition to the era of female rule.
See Also
- Pieter Soury’s mission to Atjeh (1641)
- Atjehsche ambassade ceremony (1 July 1641)
- Sultana of Atjeh (1641)
- Atjehsche feestjas
- Baleh-baleh
- Eunuchs of Atjeh court
- 1 July
- 1641
- Acheh
Source
Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapter XI (“Atjehsche ambassade. Inlandsche feesten. Maagden als losprijs”), pp. 39–43 of the numbered-letter sequence.
Account from Atjeh by H.C. Zentgraff (1938)
Zentgraff’s Atjeh gives the fullest war-era account of the sembah. When the heads of Lho Seumawe and Lho Soekon came to the false T. Radja Sabi in 1913, één voor één kwamen zij bij den jongen en bogen naar Atjehsche gewoonte met de hand tegen het hoofd, met den eerbiedigen groet: Mijn Vorst. One pressed his cheek against the boy’s knee in the kniekus; another vatte den jongen bij het been en kuste den voet, terwijl de tranen hem uit de oogen druppelden. Swart confirmed: “De jongen is Teukoe Radja Sabi”, to which no one protested.
The voetkus of submission was the deepest form of sembah: the mèl ceremony at the Gouvernement office required the submitter to knielen, den kniekus en daarna den voetkus brengen, and say Tjee ampon dèësa oelon (petition for forgiveness) — waarmee nu wel heel klaar vaststond wie voortaan in dit land de baas zou zijn.
After the Mengamat attack of May 1927, a very old woman brought her only possession — a goat — and maakte eerbiedig de sembah voor Tjoet Ali en zei: Njëë peuneudjo oelon nibak drëëneu teukoe ampon: dit is mijn geschenk aan U, groote heer. The sembah to the resistance leader was as to a vorst.
Its darkest parody was committed by Keutjhi Maha: he commanded a woman to wash his feet, then to dry them with her hair — zij maakte de haarwrong los en droogde er zijn vuile moddervoeten mee af, vol deemoed — then stabbed her in the eye. Het was vooral tegen eene hulpelooze vrouw […] een gemeene en gruwelijke slachting.
Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia.