The adat meulangga — also called meulangga, written meudangga, and known as meidangga — is the Achehnese customary institution by which the symbolic satisfaction of honour was exacted after an injury or slight offered by one gampong to another. It was the formal — and usually bloodless — substitute for the destruction of houses and courtyards that was the earlier form of redress, and it stood as a notable example of that combination of set speeches, dramatic display, and adat (customary law) fiction which pervaded Achehnese public life. The ritual lay entirely outside the ordinary jurisdiction of the uleebalang, who had little to do with the daily life of the gampong in the narrower sense of the words; it was administered by the village authorities alone — a striking instance, as Snouck Hurgronje remarks, of the self-governing capacity of the Achehnese gampong even where matters of honour and arms were concerned.
The Occasion
Occasion for the application of the adat meulangga was generally given by an actual injury or slight. Someone in gampong A had, for example, without just cause maltreated or injured a child or relative of someone in gampong B, or had laid hands on something belonging to the latter in a manner clearly indicative of contempt for the owner. Independently of all rights of blood-vengeance or blood-money (which, according to hukom (religious law) and adat, were the natural consequences of the deed and were entirely unaffected by the adat meulangga), something had to be done at once to wipe out the insult. To this end the injured party called upon the authorities of his gampong, and the latter summoned all who were able to bear arms to help their brother. The party who had given the offence knew that he had this to expect, either from hearing the rumour of the preparations or because it was an obvious consequence that the offended one should not let the matter pass without meulangga.
The Symbolic Reparation
In due time the men of the offended gampong appeared in the vicinity of the other, and the keuchi’ of the latter went forth to meet the uninvited guests and, after greeting them respectfully (seumbah), asked what they required. “We have come,” they replied, “to uproot by force the trees and courtyard-fence of your fellow-villager X, by reason of the injury he has done to one of our people.” Thereupon the other keuchi’ said that he felt bound to acknowledge the fairness of the complaint, but that this just demand could be satisfied without having recourse to deeds of violence. The “father of the offending community” then brought to the other one or two plantain-stems from the courtyard and a glundong-tree from the fence of the guilty party, saying, “Here is what you ask for.” Sometimes, where the injury was a very serious one, he granted them permission to enter upon the courtyard of the offenders and cut down a certain number of trees. Should the atonement offered by the keuchi’ not suffice for the satisfaction of honour according to the adat controlling quarrels, long-continued hostilities between two neighbouring gampongs might supervene; but for the most part the mediation effected under the auspices of the two *keuchi’*s was found sufficient.
The Cooling of the Blood
The day after this symbolical satisfaction the parties met again to consult as to the guarantees for the establishment of peace. An idang (offering-tray) of yellow glutinous rice (bu kunyèt) and a piece of white cloth had without fail to be offered by the offender for the “cooling of the blood of others” — peusijuek darah gob — which he had shed, as the saying was. To this ceremony of “cooling” — the peusijuek — the Achehnese attached the highest importance, since without it the peace between the gampongs could not be regarded as firm. The meulangga thus enacted, in dramatic form, the three stages by which an Achehnese quarrel was supposed to be closed: threat of violence, symbolic reparation, and the formal “cooling” (peusijuek) which restored social harmony.
The More Imposing Form
In the most serious cases, where the injury had been of a kind that the plantain-stems and the glundong-tree could not satisfy, a more imposing form of the ritual was employed. The offended keuchi’ went forth at the head of a host of followers to the gampong of the offenders, where he was received with special tokens of humility and prayers for pardon. In addition to the traditional plantain-stalks and glundong-trees which represented the destruction of the plantation of the guilty party, the latter’s house must in this case be symbolically burnt: a hut (jambo) was constructed of slight materials and set on fire amid the assembled crowd. More peaceful times and calmer manners had, however, substituted for this destruction the dramatic exhibition just described — a sort of gampong-duel, usually of quite a harmless character.
Within and Across Uleebalangships
Meidangga might also take place within the gampong itself, when anyone had injured his fellow-villager; it was then the male relatives of the injured party that proceeded to make the demand, and those of the offender who satisfied it, while the gampong authorities merely took care that the settlement was properly carried out. Between communities of different uleebalangs — as when a servant (rakan) of uleebalang A had wounded a dependant of uleebalang B — the ritual was adapted to the larger political scale and might be regulated by the panglima sagi. Together with the peusah panchuri verification of a thief and the sarakata of the Sultan, the adat meulangga belonged to the set-speech institutions of Achehnese public life.
See Also
- Peusijuek
- Peusijuek (cooling ceremony)
- Peusah panchuri
- Sarakata with chab sikureu’eng
- Kanduri
- Mupakat
- Langgeh Umong
- Keuchi’
- Cheukie
- Gampong
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.