Tayl (also tael, tahil, tail) was the weight-and-currency unit of Atjeh and the wider Malay-Indonesian world in the early modern period. In Godee Molsbergen’s account of Soury’s embassy of 1641 the tayl is the unit in which the disputed jewel-sale to the late Sultan Iskander Tsani was valued: the Atjeh treasury “liet een uitgave van 15.000 tayl, dus 5000 gulden, niet toe” — would not authorise an outlay of 15,000 tayl, that is, 5,000 guilders.
Etymology and value
The word tahil is from the Chinese táel (兩 / 两), a weight unit of approximately 37.5 grams of silver. In the Malay-Indonesian world the tahil became both a weight unit (for precious metals) and a currency unit (a specified weight of silver). Godee Molsbergen’s conversion of 1641 — 15,000 tayl = 5,000 guilders — implies a value of roughly 3 tayl to the guilder, or roughly 1.25 guilders’ worth of silver per tayl. This is consistent with the tahil of the period being approximately one ounce of silver.
The jewel-sale of 1641
The principal Atjeh-related occurrence of the tayl in Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie is in the account of the disputed jewel-sale that closed Soury’s 1641 embassy. The late Sultan Iskander Tsani had placed an outstanding order for jewels; the Sultana who succeeded him was not liable for the order placed by her late husband; the Atjeh treasury “liet een uitgave van 15.000 tayl, dus 5000 gulden, niet toe” — would not authorise an outlay of 15,000 tayl, that is 5,000 guilders. After long lobbying of the Orangkaja’s by Secretaris Jan van Riebeeck — many a gift delivered at their houses — a price was agreed for the greater part of the parcel, but for the future the import of jewels by the Company was forbidden in Atjeh.
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, the tayl is the unit in which the sultanate’s principal commercial transactions with the European companies were denominated. The 1641 conversion to guilders — at roughly 3 tayl to the guilder — provides a rare fixed exchange-rate between the Atjeh and Dutch monetary systems in the early seventeenth century. The figure also gives a sense of scale: the late Sultan’s jewel-order, valued at 15,000 tayl (= 5,000 guilders), was a sum that the Atjeh treasury under the new Sultana refused to authorise, but it was not a sum so large as to be unimaginable. The sultanate’s treasury could in principle have paid it; the political decision was not to.
See Also
- Pieter Soury’s mission to Atjeh (1641)
- Atjehsche mode
- Iskander Tsani
- Sultana of Atjeh (1641)
- Jan van Riebeeck
- Orangkaja
- 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 XII (“Juweelenhandel. Heeren Zeventien. Familieregeering”), pp. 43–47 of the numbered-letter sequence.