Soerat te’h — Atjehnese surat tèh, literally “book of divination” or “book of the te’h” — is the Atjehnese equivalent of the Javanese primbon (divination book), the manuscript genre that records the calculations of auspicious and inauspicious days, horoscopes, and the magical correspondences between calendrical, astronomical and life events. 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 feast calendar and its interaction with indigenous time-reckoning.
Calendrical context
Kernkamp’s account of the soerat te’h appears in his discussion of the Islamic calendar’s interaction with indigenous Atjeh conceptions of time. He notes that “besides these — and other — ‘fixed’ lucky and unlucky days, one has of course also changing ones that are connected with horoscopic calculations (koetika’s), which one finds in primbon’s (Java) or otherwise named (Atjeh: soerat te’h) divination books.” The soerat te’h thus belongs to the same genre as the Javanese primbon: a compendium of calendrical, horoscopic and magical knowledge used to determine the auspicious timing of marriages, journeys, ear-piercings, gravestone placements and other life events.
The same chapter notes that Atjeh shares with Java the practice of “petangan’s” (calculations) — the determination of the “character” (wezen) of each day, against which particular actions (a marriage, a journey) may or may not “fit”. The calculations rest on the interaction of the Islamic seven-day week with the older five-day market week (pasar week); on Java the “geboortedag” (birth-day) returns after 35 days (selapan), when the day bears the same name in both weeks. The soerat te’h is, in Atjeh, the manuscript in which such calculations are recorded.
Significance
For the Atjeh-focused reader, the soerat te’h is significant as the documentary counterpart of the Atjeh conceptions of time that Kernkamp describes in the same chapter — the *pen* concept (the requirement that the “field be pen” — open, wide — for ear-piercings and gravestone placements), the taboo on the 11th month of the Muslim year for marriages (because the month is “beklemd” — pinched — between the two great Muslim feast days), and the use of the constellations of Scorpio and the Pleiades for the agricultural year. The soerat te’h is the manuscript in which all such calculations are preserved.
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
- soera — boarding school (middle-Sumatra form)
- soerat te’h — divination book (Atjeh form)
- primbon — divination book (Javanese form)
- koetika — horoscopic calculation
- petangan — calendar calculation
- selapan — 35-day cycle
- pasar — market
- pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
- beklemd — pinched (Dutch)
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Atjehers — Acehnese
- Acheh — Aceh
- Java — Java
- mica — pepper (Balinese)
- zen — Zen
- Prof. Dr. — Professor Doctor
- Dr. — Doctor
See Also
- Pen (Atjeh)
- Atjeh calendar constellations
- Idja
- Koepiah der Atjehers
- 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. 87 (chapter De invloed van den Islam door Prof. Dr. W. J. A. Kernkamp).