The religious movement at Serbödjadi of December 1917 was a brief outbreak set on foot by a certain Penghoeloe Koeala, a Gajò from Leuboe Sigeunab who likewise “stood in an odour of sanctity” — stood in an odour of sanctity — and which cost the life of the gezaghebber of Lököp before it was suppressed.
Course of events
The gezaghebber of Lököp thereupon went with the chiefs and a bevolkingspatrouille (population patrol) to the gampong Semboeang, which the Penghoeloe had worked upon, but was killed in an encounter with the unwilling, while five men of his patrol were wounded.
The Penghoeloe then organised a three-day religious feast and associated himself with the guardian of a holy grave and the guardian’s daughter. Then all the convinced withdrew; then came the patrols of the Kompeuni; then four dead fell, among them the guardian of the holy grave; then the Penghoeloe was taken prisoner — “and then it was over.”
Significance
The Serbödjadi movement ran, in du Croo’s words, “in practically the same manner” to the unrest at Linggö of 1916: a locally venerated holy figure, a small following of the convinced, a violent incident, and rapid suppression. It was one of the last such episodes before the retirement of H. N. A. Swart and the transfer of the government to purely civil hands in 1918.
The death of the gezaghebber of Lököp made it also one of the last Dutch administrative fatalities of the Atjeh-oorlog.
See Also
- Penghoeloe Koeala
- Serbödjadi
- Lököp
- Semboeang
- Onrust in Linggö (1916)
- The resistance in Atjeh 1913–1918
- Gajòs
- 1917
Source
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter XII, pp. 127–128.