Snouck Hurgronje’s Het Gajoland en zijne bewoners (1903) (“The Gayo Country and its Inhabitants”) is the monograph by C. Snouck Hurgronje on the Gayo highlands of central Atjeh and the Gayo people, published in 1903 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff). The work is the principal Western scholarly source on the Gayo country, and is cited repeatedly in Kreemer’s *De Karbouw* ([[1956)]] for Gayo ethnographic detail — on the white pennants before the stall (p. 171), on the Gajoland albino-buffalo prohibition (p. 217), and on the question of totemism vs. fear of ancestral wrath as the basis of food-prohibitions (p. 218). The work is listed in the Lijst van geschriften (bibliography) of De Karbouw (p. 267) alongside Snouck Hurgronje’s Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers ([[1893-94)|De Atjehers (1893-94)]] and his Verspreide Geschriften (1923-25).
The monograph
Snouck Hurgronje’s Het Gajoland en zijne bewoners (1903) was the principal Western scholarly monograph on the Gayo country — the highland region of central Atjeh inhabited by the Gayo people, lying between Greater Aceh on the north coast and the Alas valley to the south-east. The work was a companion-piece to Snouck’s earlier Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers ([[1893-94)|De Atjehers (1893-94)]] — the foundational ethnography of the Atjehnese proper — and treated the Gayo as the inland neighbours of the Atjehnese with whom a wide range of vocabulary, customs and beliefs are paired. The monograph’s coverage of Gayo ethnographic detail made it the standard Western reference on the Gayo country through the early twentieth century.
Citations in De Karbau
De Karbouw cites Het Gajoland on three principal Gayo-related points:
- The white pennants before the stall (p. 171, citing Het Gajoland p. 311): the Gayo practice of placing white vaantjes on stakes before the stall, sometimes inscribed with Arabic letters, numbers, or sayings, to protect cattle from epidemics or other general disasters — a practice paralleled in Atjeh.
- The Gajoland albino-buffalo prohibition (p. 217, citing Het Gajoland p. 328): the prohibition on albino-buffalo slaughter for the Gayo genealogical groups Gölö and Beroeksah of Kedjoeroen Boekit and the Tjéq of Petiambang — one of the six North-Sumatran groups among whom the prohibition is attested.
- The question of totemism vs. fear of ancestral wrath (p. 218, citing Het Gajoland p. 328): Snouck Hurgronje’s cautionary judgement that, although totemists may have their own explanation of such prohibitions, present-day obedience rests not on totemistic conviction but on fear of ancestral wrath — “Misschien — zo merkt Prof. C. Snouck Hurgronje voorzichtig op — dat totemisten van dit alles hunne eigene verklaring weten te geven, maar zeker berust thans de gehoorzaamheid aan de verbodsbepalingen alleen op de vrees, dat ziekte, rampen of dood hem zouden treffen, die door overtreding den toorn van zijnen voorvader gaande maakte.”
Significance
Snouck Hurgronje’s Het Gajoland en zijne bewoners (1903) is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history as the principal Western scholarly monograph on the Gayo country — the highland interior of central Atjeh, paired with Atjeh proper throughout the comparative ethnographic literature on buffalo-vocabulary, buffalo-custom and buffalo-belief. The monograph is the principal authority on the Gayo albino-buffalo prohibition, on the Gayo white-pennant stall-protection practice, and on the question of the conceptual basis of Gayo food-prohibitions, and is cited throughout the Gayo-related entries in this wiki.
Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu
Masterly work (‘meesterlijke werk’) describing the Gajo-land and its inhabitants. Contains an enumeration of dozens of ‘vrouwenwegen’ (women’s paths) - the old footpaths to Gajo-land.
Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 47.
Sources
Het Gajoland en zijne bewoners, by C. Snouck Hurgronje (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1903).
De Karbouw — Zijn betekenis voor de volken van de Indonesische Archipel, by J. Kreemer (‘s-Gravenhage / Bandung: N.V. Uitgeverij W. van Hoeve, 1956), pp. 171, 217-218, 267.
Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 47.