A Dutch orientalist whose notes on dwarf-tales and the mouse-deer fable series are cited by Hurgronje, who credits Brandes with drawing his attention to parallels between Acehnese hikayat features and popular tales of Hindustan.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Dr. Brandes
Dr. Brandes was a Dutch Indologist and Javanist whose writings on the cultural and calendrical survivals of pre-Islamic Indonesia are cited by Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese. He is mentioned in particular for a “very interesting article” in the Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, vol. XLI, in which he elucidated the original meaning of the name of the Mohammedan month Dul-qa’dah — Achehnese Meuapet — which has “no connection with the Mohammedan calendar” as such.
The meaning of “Dul-qa’dah”
In the Achehnese calendar, the eleventh month of the Mohammedan year — Dū al-Qaʿdah — is called Meuapet, “pinched” or “shut in”. The same idea is expressed in the Javanese name for the month, Apit (Sundanese Hapit), meaning “pinched”, and Sila, “interval”. Snouck Hurgronje refers the reader to Brandes for the original meaning of this name, which is “no connection with the Mohammedan calendar”, but reflects, rather, the place of the month within an older, pre-Islamic Javanese system of time-reckoning. Brandes’s article thus forms part of the larger scholarly effort, in which Dr. A. B. Cohen Stuart and G. K. Niemann also took part, to reconstruct the indigenous Indonesian elements that survive, thinly disguised, in the ostensibly Mohammedan calendar of the Archipelago.
Place in The Achehnese
Brandes is cited at a single point in The Achehnese, but the citation is significant for the light it throws on Snouck Hurgronje’s method. By drawing attention to the survival of pre-Islamic nomenclature in the Mohammedan month-names, Brandes’s article enables Snouck Hurgronje to bring out the mixed character of Achehnese religious observance — at once Mohammedan in its formal framework and Indonesian in much of its content. The same perspective governs Snouck Hurgronje’s treatment of the Achehnese keunong system, which he elucidated with the help of Dr. J. P. van der Stok and Dr. S. Figee, and of the Achehnese names for the months themselves, which are mostly derived not from the Arabic but from the characteristic kanduris (religious feasts) held in each.
See Also
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Dr. A. B. Cohen Stuart
- Dr. J. P. van der Stok
- Dr. S. Figee
- Eight-year cycle (Achehnese calendar)
- G. K. Niemann
- Meuapet
- Plando’ Kanchi
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
A Dutch orientalist whose notes on dwarf-tales and the mouse-deer fable series are cited by Hurgronje, who credits Brandes with drawing his attention to parallels between Acehnese hikayat features and popular tales of Hindustan.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Dr. Brandes
Dr. Brandes was a Dutch Indologist and Javanist whose writings on the cultural and calendrical survivals of pre-Islamic Indonesia are cited by Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese. He is mentioned in particular for a “very interesting article” in the Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, vol. XLI, in which he elucidated the original meaning of the name of the Mohammedan month Dul-qa’dah — Achehnese Meuapet — which has “no connection with the Mohammedan calendar” as such.
The meaning of “Dul-qa’dah”
In the Achehnese calendar, the eleventh month of the Mohammedan year — Dū al-Qaʿdah — is called Meuapet, “pinched” or “shut in”. The same idea is expressed in the Javanese name for the month, Apit (Sundanese Hapit), meaning “pinched”, and Sila, “interval”. Snouck Hurgronje refers the reader to Brandes for the original meaning of this name, which is “no connection with the Mohammedan calendar”, but reflects, rather, the place of the month within an older, pre-Islamic Javanese system of time-reckoning. Brandes’s article thus forms part of the larger scholarly effort, in which Dr. A. B. Cohen Stuart and G. K. Niemann also took part, to reconstruct the indigenous Indonesian elements that survive, thinly disguised, in the ostensibly Mohammedan calendar of the Archipelago.
Place in The Achehnese
Brandes is cited at a single point in The Achehnese, but the citation is significant for the light it throws on Snouck Hurgronje’s method. By drawing attention to the survival of pre-Islamic nomenclature in the Mohammedan month-names, Brandes’s article enables Snouck Hurgronje to bring out the mixed character of Achehnese religious observance — at once Mohammedan in its formal framework and Indonesian in much of its content. The same perspective governs Snouck Hurgronje’s treatment of the Achehnese keunong system, which he elucidated with the help of Dr. J. P. van der Stok and Dr. S. Figee, and of the Achehnese names for the months themselves, which are mostly derived not from the Arabic but from the characteristic kanduris (religious feasts) held in each.
See Also
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Dr. A. B. Cohen Stuart
- Dr. J. P. van der Stok
- Dr. S. Figee
- Eight-year cycle (Achehnese calendar)
- G. K. Niemann
- Meuapet
- Plando’ Kanchi
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.