Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk

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tagsdocument, source, colonial, dutch
aliasesWat Indie Ontving en Schonk, Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946), Wormser 1946, Wormser's Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk

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Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — Dutch for “What the Indies Received and Gave” — is a collected volume on the cultural, religious, educational, agricultural, mining and economic history of the Dutch East Indies, published in 1946 under the auspices of the Indisch Instituut (Indies Institute) by Wereldbibliotheek N.V. in Amsterdam. The volume was compiled and edited under the leadership of Dr. Wormser with the collaboration of fourteen specialist contributors, and appeared with ninety-one illustrations (met 91 afbeeldingen). For the Atjeh-focused reader the volume is significant chiefly for its chapters on the oudste cultuurstroomen (oldest cultural streams), the invloed van den Islam (influence of Islam), the bestuursvormen (forms of government), and Indië in de wereldhuishouding (the Indies in the world economy), each of which digests Atjeh-related material from the standard colonial scholarship of the first half of the twentieth century, above all the work of Snouck Hurgronje, Kreemer and Van Heutsz.

Contents and structure

The table of contents (Inhoud) groups the contributions into ten thematic sections, each by a different author. The chapters most directly relevant to Atjeh are:

  • De oudste cultuurstreamen by Dr. Van Naerssen (pp. 7–55) — prehistoric cultural streams, including the Sumatra-bijl (Sumatra axe) finds in northern Sumatra and the Atjeh provenance of one of the Bacson-Hoabinh culture centres.
  • De invloed van den Islam by Prof. Dr. Kernkamp (pp. 56–108) — the influence of Islam, with substantial Atjeh material on the Meunasah, Teungkoe, Rangkang, the Meuseugit Raja mosque of Koeta Radja, the idja pinggang sartorial marker, the Soerat te’h divination book, the *pen* concept in ear-piercing and gravestone ceremonies, the ratib of mid-Ramadan, the kadar-night preference for the 27th, the pitrah and djakat collections, the *boeròng* poentianak-spirit, the *Toean di boh* fertility saint, and the Atjeh proverb on *adat* and *hokm*.
  • De bestuursvormen by Mr. Dr. Caron (pp. 186–203) — the *korte verklaring* policy of Van Heutsz and Snouck Hurgronje first applied in Atjeh, the Proeve-Oppenheim draft staatsregeling, and the Carpentier Alting commission of 1918.
  • De landbouw by Dr. Van Hall (pp. 204–230) — pepper (Piper nigrum) cultivation in Atjeh, identified as already important in the sixteenth century and still so in 1946.
  • Mijnbouw by Ir. Van der Ploeg (pp. 231–262) — the petroleum industry of Sumatra’s East Coast (Langkat, Deli etc.), whose development altered the strategic significance of the Atjeh hinterland.
  • Indië in de wereldhuishouding by Ir. Utermark (pp. 263–) — names Sabang as the northernmost point of Sumatra and a key port in the archipelago’s sea-lanes.

Treatment of Atjeh

The volume is not a monograph on Atjeh; rather, Atjeh appears repeatedly as one of the regions through which the wider story of the Indies is told. This makes the book a useful conspectus of how Atjeh was situated in Dutch colonial scholarship immediately after the Japanese occupation and on the eve of Indonesian independence. The chapter on Islam, in particular, draws so heavily on Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjéhers and Kreemer’s Atjèh that it functions as a mid-twentieth-century digest of those works, surfacing numerous Atjeh-specific items — the Meuseugit Raja in Kutaradja built by the Dutch to replace the mosque burned in 1873, Snouck Hurgronje’s verdict on it as “een ledig monument onzer dwaasheid” (an empty monument of our folly), the Teungku Anjong kanduri on the 18th of Rejab, the Atjeh preference for the 27th night of Ramadhan as Lailat al-Qadar (against Java’s preference for the 21st), and the proverb “de adat is als het binden van het dier, de hukum als het snijden” (adat is like binding the beast, hukum like slaughtering it).

Significance

As a document, Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk is itself a primary source for the state of Dutch colonial knowledge about the Indies at the end of the colonial period. Its heavy reliance on Snouck Hurgronje and Kreemer for Atjeh material shows that, even in 1946, the standard scholarly frame for Atjeh was still the one established in the 1890s–1920s. Its treatment of Atjeh is also revealing of what the editor and contributors considered worth retaining: ritual life, adat sayings, mosque politics, and the Van Heutsz–Snouck Hurgronje administrative reforms — rather than the long Atjeh War itself, which is barely mentioned.

Dutch terms used in this article

  • Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
  • Indisch Instituut — Indies Institute
  • Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
  • Nederlandsch-Indië — Netherlands Indies
  • Proeve-Oppenheim — Oppenheim Draft
  • korte verklaring — Short Declaration
  • oudste cultuurstroomen — oldest cultural streams
  • invloed van den Islam — influence of Islam
  • bestuursvormen — forms of government
  • wereldhuishouding — world economy
  • landbouw — agriculture
  • met 91 afbeeldingen — with 91 illustrations
  • onder de auspiciën van het Indisch Instituut — under the auspices of the Indies Institute
  • Inhoud — Table of Contents
  • samengesteld en verzorgd onder leiding van — compiled and edited under the direction of
  • met medewerking van — with the collaboration of
  • adat — customary law
  • hokm — Islamic religious law
  • hukum — Islamic religious law
  • Teungku — religious teacher (Atjeh form)
  • Teungkoe — religious teacher (Atjeh form)
  • Meuseugit Raja — great mosque of Koeta Radja
  • Meuseugit Raya — great mosque of Koeta Radja
  • Meunasah — village prayer-house
  • ratib — sequence of pious formulas praising Allah
  • kanduri — religious feast-meal
  • pitrah — fast-breaking alms
  • djakat — wealth-alms
  • Lailat al-Qadar — Night of Power
  • Rejab — Rajab
  • idja pinggang — hip-cloth (Atjeh sartorial marker of Islam)
  • idja — cloth
  • pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
  • boeròng — childbed-death spirit (Atjeh form)
  • poentianak — childbed-death spirit (Malay form)
  • Toean di boh — Lord of the garden (Atjeh fertility saint)
  • Atjeh — Aceh
  • Acheh — Aceh
  • Koeta Radja — Kutaradja
  • Kutaradja — Kutaradja
  • Sabang — Sabang
  • Langkat — Langkat
  • Deli — Deli
  • Java — Java
  • Sumatra — Sumatra
  • Bacson-Hoabinh — Bacson-Hoabinh (mesolithic culture)
  • Sumatra-bijl — Sumatra axe (mesolithic tool type)
  • ledig monument onzer dwaasheid — empty monument of our folly
  • Pater — Father (Catholic)
  • Mr. Dr. — Master of Laws and Doctor (Dutch academic titles)
  • Prof. Dr. — Professor Doctor
  • Dr. — Doctor
  • Ir. — Engineer (Dutch Ingenieur)
  • De Atjéhers — The Acehnese (Snouck Hurgronje, 1893-94)
  • Atjèh — Aceh (Kreemer, 1922-23)

See Also

Source

Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, samengesteld en verzorgd onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser, met medewerking van Dr. K. J. Brouwer, J. A. M. Bruineman, Dr. L. J. J. Caron, Dr. G. J. van Hall, J. de Jong, Prof. Dr. W. J. A. Kernkamp, Dr. F. H. van Naerssen, Ir. F. P. C. S. van der Ploeg, Pater L. van Rijckevorsel, Ir. W. J. Utermark, F. A. Wagner. Met 91 afbeeldingen. Uitgegeven in 1946 onder de auspiciën van het Indisch Instituut door de Wereldbibliotheek N.V. te Amsterdam.

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