Kreemer's De Karbouw (1956)

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tagsachehnese, book, colonial, document, dutch, ethnography
aliasesDe Karbouw, De Karbouw — Zijn betekenis voor de volken van de Indonesische Archipel, Kreemer 1956, Kreemer's De Karbouw

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Kreemer’s De Karbouw (1956) — full title De Karbouw: Zijn betekenis voor de volken van de Indonesische Archipel (“The Water-Buffalo: Its significance for the peoples of the Indonesian Archipelago”) — is the late synthesis of J. Kreemer, published in 1956 by N.V. Uitgeverij W. van Hoeve in ‘s-Gravenhage and Bandung, in which the author, at the end of a half-century career as a Dutch colonial official and ethnographer of northern Sumatra, gathered the comparative ethnographic material on the water-buffalo across the Indonesian archipelago into a single comprehensive survey. The book is, after Kreemer’s *Atjeh* (1922-23) and Snouck Hurgronje’s Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers ([[1893-94)|De Atjehers]] (1893-94), the principal Dutch scholarly source on the Atjehnese buffalo-complex, and is the immediate source on which a large proportion of the Atjeh-specific entries in this wiki rest.

Composition and scope

As Kreemer explains in the Voorbericht of De Karbouw (dated ‘s-Gravenhage, October 1955), he undertook the book to fill a gap in the ethnographic literature: the buffalo, “the pre-eminently useful domestic animal for the life of the peoples of the Archipelago,” had never received a monographic treatment, although Kruyt, Kleiweg de Zwaan and others had written on related animals (the dog, the cat) and Merkens’s veterinary dissertation on the buffalo (Merkens, Bijdrage tot de kennis van den karbouw en de karbouwenteelt in Ned. O.-Indië, 1927) had not addressed its place in popular life and belief. Kreemer accordingly returned, after half a century, to the same subject with which he had begun his scholarly career — the Kreemer’s De Maleier en zijn karbouw ([[1907)|De Maleier en zijn karbouw of 1907]] — but now on the scale of the entire Indonesian archipelago rather than of a single under-district on Sumatra’s Westkust.

The book is thus both a culmination and a compendium. Its 35 numbered sections (§§ 1-35) are organised under seven chapters (HOOFDSTUK I-VII): Inleidende Beschrijving (ch. I); Wijze van Karbouwenverzorging (ch. II); Het Opvangen en Temmen van Karbouwen (ch. III); Karbouwengevechten en Karbouwenwedlopen (ch. IV); Ekonomische Beteekenis van de Karbouw (ch. V); Van de Karbouw Afkomstige Produkten (ch. VI); De Karbouw in het Volksgeloof (ch. VII). The closing back-matter comprises a Lijst van geschriften (bibliography, pp. 255-269), a Bladwijzer (index, pp. 270-278), and the Inhoud (table of contents, pp. 279-282).

The Atjeh material

The Atjeh-specific material in De Karbouw is dispersed throughout the 35 sections, but is concentrated in the chapters on buffalo-husbandry (ch. II), economic-betekenis (ch. V), and buffalo-in-het-volksgeloof (ch. VII). The principal Atjeh-specific topics covered are:

The Voorbericht and Kreemer’s self-positioning

The Voorbericht (pp. 5-6) is a significant self-positioning document. Kreemer notes that he returns, after fifty years, to the same subject with which he had begun his scholarly career — the Kreemer’s De Maleier en zijn karbouw ([[1907)|De Maleier en zijn karbouw of 1907]] — composed when he was a young Kontroleur B.B. on Sumatra’s Westkust. He notes that the cited publications date largely from before the last war and so deal with “the old Indies” (het oude Indië); that much has changed since; but that much has also remained the same. He closes with the justification that, in the rapidly progressing process of transformation and disappearance of the cultural life of more-or-less primitive peoples, every attempt at documentation of the old cultural forms is justified.

Significance

Kreemer’s De Karbouw (1956) is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history as the principal Dutch scholarly source on the Atjehnese buffalo-complex, and as the immediate source on which a large proportion of the Atjeh-specific entries in this wiki rest. The book is, after Kreemer’s *Atjeh* and Snouck Hurgronje’s Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers ([[1893-94)|De Atjehers]], the third of the great Dutch scholarly syntheses that document the Atjehnese buffalo-complex, and is the only one of the three to treat the buffalo as its central subject. The book’s Voorbericht is also a significant self-positioning document, in which Kreemer frames his late synthesis as both a culmination (a return, after half a century, to the subject of his first scholarly work) and a compendium (a gathering of the comparative ethnographic material on the buffalo across the archipelago).

Sources

De Karbouw — Zijn betekenis voor de volken van de Indonesische Archipel, by J. Kreemer (‘s-Gravenhage / Bandung: N.V. Uitgeverij W. van Hoeve, 1956), Voorbericht (pp. 5-6) and passim.

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