Kreemer’s De Maleier en zijn karbouw (1907) (“The Malay and his water-buffalo”) is the first scholarly article of J. Kreemer, published in 1907 in volume I of De Indische Gids, composed when Kreemer was a young Kontroleur B.B. on Sumatra’s Westkust and based on his personal observations in a single under-district on the Westkust. The article is the first-fruit of Kreemer’s half-century scholarly career, the predecessor of his *Atjeh* ([[1922-23)]] and of his late synthesis *De Karbouw* ([[1956)]], and is cited in De Karbouw (e.g. at pp. 124, 217) for comparative Minangkabau and Padangse Benedenlanden material adjacent to the Atjeh cultural sphere.
Composition and scope
As Kreemer explains in the Voorbericht of *De Karbouw* (1956), the 1907 article was composed when he was a young Kontroleur B.B. (a junior civil administrator of the Binnenlands Bestuur) on Sumatra’s Westkust, and was based solely on his own personal observations and investigations in a single under-district on the Westkust — at a time when, in his own words, “the field of observation was only a single under-district on Sumatra’s Westkust.” The 1956 book is, by contrast, the work of an author whose field of observation now extended across the entire Indonesian archipelago and whose material was drawn almost exclusively from the researches of others. The 1907 article is thus the narrow, first-person field-document of a young colonial official; the 1956 book is the wide, comparative synthesis of a senior ethnographer.
Citations in De Karbau
De Karbouw cites the 1907 article on several comparative Minangkabau and Padangse Benedenlanden points adjacent to the Atjeh cultural sphere, including:
- The Minangkabau sale-rite of grasping the buffalo’s nose-rope (p. 963) — paralleled by the Atjeh sale-rite.
- The Minangkabau tasapo concept (p. 963) — paralleled by the Atjehse *seumapa*.
- The Minangkabau charred-hide skin-remedy (p. 956) — paralleled by the Atjehse folk-veterinary use of burnt hide.
- The Minangkabau mandjangoeq kandang rite (pp. 962 vg.) — paralleled by the Atjehse *poephon blang* field-consecration.
- The Padangse Benedenlanden soekoe’s Malajoe and Panei, among the six North-Sumatran groups subject to the albino-buffalo prohibition (p. 960) — the sixth group in the comparative list that begins with the Atjehnese *kawōm* Dja Sandang.
- The Minangkabau speeksel-taming of buffalo (p. 954).
- The getah dadih glue (p. 956).
Significance
Kreemer’s De Maleier en zijn karbouw (1907) is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history as the first scholarly article of J. Kreemer and the predecessor of his *Atjeh* ([[1922-23)]] and *De Karbouw* ([[1956)]]. The article is the narrow, first-person field-document of a young colonial official on Sumatra’s Westkust, and is the source of record for a number of comparative Minangkabau and Padangse Benedenlanden points that parallel the Atjehnese material documented in the later works. The 1907 article thus documents the chronological and geographical point of departure of Kreemer’s half-century scholarly career, and is the reference-point against which the 1956 synthesis explicitly positions itself.
Sources
“De Maleier en zijn karbouw,” by J. Kreemer, in De Indische Gids 1907, vol. I, pp. 953-964.
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.