De legende van de heilige zeven slapers in het Atjehsch (Damsté, 1939)

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tagsdocument, article, edition, religious, literature, atjeh, atjehsch, damste, 1939, bki, seven-sleepers, hikajat
aliasesDamsté 1939, De legende van de heilige zeven slapers, Seven Sleepers legend Atjehsch, Damsté Seven Sleepers, Hikajat Eitia Toedjoh Damsté, Zeven slapers Atjehsch, Legend of the Seven Sleepers in Atjehnese

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De legende van de heilige zeven slapers in het Atjehsch — “The legend of the holy Seven Sleepers in Atjehnese” — is an edition and study by H. T. Damsté, published in 1939 in Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië (B.K.I.), deel 98, p. 407 e.v., and issued also as a separate offprint — both of the whole and of the Atjehsch text alone — by M. Nijhoff of ‘s-Gravenhage in 1939. The Atjehsch text itself was published, as Tekst A of Damsté’s edition, under the title Hikajat Eitia Toedjoh. The article is recorded as No. 560 in Van Meurs’s Literatuur-Overzicht over het jaar 1939 (The Hague, 1940), in the Sumatra chapter; the text is recorded separately as No. 570, and No. 561 is a cross-reference (“zie bij Hikajat Eitia Toedjoh”).

Subject

The article’s subject, as recorded by Van Meurs, is the legend of the Seven Sleepers — the Christian and Islamic legend of the youths who, fleeing persecution, took refuge in a cave and slept there for centuries, miraculously preserved. The legend, known in Islam from the eighteenth sūrah of the Qurʾān (Sūrat al-Kahf, “The Cave”), spread throughout the Muslim world and was naturalised in many vernacular literatures. Damsté’s edition presents the Atjehnese version of the legend — in het Atjehsch — both in the Atjehsch original and in Dutch translation, and is accompanied by the separate publication of the Atjehsch text as Hikajat Eitia Toedjoh (Text A).

The Atjehnese form Eitia Toedjoh — literally “Seven” (Eitia, from Acehnese tujōh) — gives the legend its local title. The publication of the text separately from the study reflects the standard practice of the B.K.I. and of M. Nijhoff in issuing Atjehsch and other vernacular texts as offprints for the use of scholars working on the languages of the archipelago.

Author and venue

Damsté — already known in the AcehWiki corpus as one of the principal authorities on Atjeh, cited by Piekaar in the Bibliography of Atjèh and the War with Japan alongside Snouck Hurgronje, Kreemer, Jongejans, and Zentgraaff — published the edition in the B.K.I., the quarterly journal of the Koninklijk Instituut, which was the principal metropolitan venue for the philology and ethnology of the Netherlands Indies. The B.K.I. had by 1939 reached deel 98, and Damsté’s edition took its place in a long series of Atjehsch text editions published in the journal over the preceding half-century. The separate offprint — both of the whole and of the Atjehsch text alone — was issued by M. Nijhoff of ‘s-Gravenhage, the Institute’s publisher, in 1939.

Place in the 1939 Literatuur-Overzicht

The article is No. 560 in the Sumatra chapter (Hoofdstuk III, Nos. 548–658) of Van Meurs’s survey. No. 561 is a cross-reference to the separate text: “zie bij Hikajat Eitia Toedjoh.” No. 570 is the separate text itself, recorded as: Hikajat Eitia Toedjoh. Tekst A van “De legende van de heilige zeven slapers in het Atjehsch” door H. T. DAMSTÉ. (Overdr. uit dl. 98 der B.K.I.). ‘s-Gravenhage 1939. The triple entry — article, cross-reference, and separate text — reflects the bibliographic care with which Van Meurs recorded the separate offprint publication of the Atjehsch text.

Significance

For AcehWiki, the edition is significant as the 1939 publication of an Atjehnese vernacular text — the Hikajat Eitia Toedjoh — by one of the principal Dutch authorities on Atjeh, in the principal metropolitan philological journal. The legend of the Seven Sleepers is of comparative interest as a Christian-Islamic legend naturalised in the Atjehnese vernacular, and Damsté’s edition is the standard published source for the Atjehnese version. The edition furnishes an independent source for the study of Atjehnese literature and of the Islamic legend-cycle in the archipelago, and it complements the corpus’s existing entries on Atjehnese vernacular texts — including the Hikajat Radja-Radja Pasei and the Hikajat Prang Kompeuni — and on Damsté himself, both as H. T. Damsté and as the duplicate entry.

See Also

Source

Literatuur-Overzicht over het jaar 1939 van de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde en Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch-Indië, door H. van Meurs (‘s-Gravenhage: M. Nijhoff, 1940), Hoofdstuk III (Sumatra en naburig gebied), Nos. 560, 561, 570. Citing: H. T. Damsté, “De legende van de heilige zeven slapers in het Atjehsch,” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, deel 98 (1939), p. 407 e.v.; ook als overdr. zoowel van het geheel als van den Atjehschen tekst afzonderlijk (‘s-Gravenhage, 1939). And: Hikajat Eitia Toedjoh. Tekst A van “De legende van de heilige zeven slapers in het Atjehsch” door H. T. Damsté (Overdr. uit dl. 98 der B.K.I.; ‘s-Gravenhage, 1939).

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