Dr. J. Merkens was a Dutch veterinary scientist whose 1927 dissertation Bijdrage tot de kennis van den karbouw en de karbouwenteelt in Nederlandsch O.-Indië (“Contribution to the knowledge of the buffalo and buffalo-breeding in the Dutch East Indies”) and his article “veeteelt” in the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië (vol. VI supplement) supplied the principal zoötechnical literature on the water buffalo in the late-colonial Netherlands Indies, and in the course of his fieldwork brought him to Atjeh — where he personally observed the sporadic occurrence of black-piebald (zwart-bonte) buffaloes. Merkens is cited repeatedly in Kreemer’s *De Karbouw* ([[1956)]] (pp. 28, 30, 50, etc.) as a principal authority on the zoötechnical side of the buffalo, and his Atjeh observation on piebald buffaloes is noted in the chapter on the buffalo’s external appearance.
The piebald buffalo observation in Atjeh
Merkens’s specific Atjeh observation, quoted in De Karbouw (p. 28), concerns the sporadic occurrence of black-piebald (zwart-bonte) buffaloes — a coat-pattern long thought, on the authority of the naturalists Schlegel and Müller (c. 1840) and repeated by Brehm in the 1916 edition of Tierleben, not to occur anywhere in the archipelago. Merkens personally observed, however, that piebald buffaloes did occur, if only sporadically, both on Java and in Atjeh, and his dissertation provides a clear illustration of a brown-piebald buffalo from Sumba. The observation is significant because it overturned a long-standing ethnographic-natural-historical generalisation about the uniformity of buffalo coat-colour in the archipelago, and showed that the Atjehnese buffalo population, like the Javanese, occasionally produced piebald individuals — a fact relevant to the wider comparative study of buffalo colour-types and of the albino and blaze categories that the Atjehs language so carefully distinguishes.
The veterinary dissertation and the Encyclopaedie article
Merkens’s 1927 dissertation — Bijdrage tot de kennis van den karbouw en de karbouwenteelt in Nederlandsch O.-Indië — was, as Kreemer notes in the Voorbericht of De Karbouw, the principal zoötechnical contribution to the buffalo literature, but — again in Kreemer’s words — “the dominant place that this animal occupies in popular life and popular belief does not come up for discussion” in it, “for obvious good reasons.” That is, the veterinary dissertation deliberately omitted the ethnographic and folkloristic material on the buffalo, leaving the field open for Kreemer’s own comparative ethnography. Merkens also wrote the article “veeteelt” (livestock-breeding) for the supplement to volume VI of the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië, which served as the standard reference on livestock in the Netherlands Indies and is cited in De Karbouw alongside the dissertation.
Significance
Merkens’s significance for the encyclopedia of Acheh history is as the principal zoötechnical authority on the buffalo in the late-colonial Netherlands Indies, and as the personal observer whose Atjeh fieldwork documented the sporadic occurrence of piebald buffaloes in the Atjehnese herd — a small but valuable correction to the earlier natural-historical literature. His work also defines, by its deliberate omission, the ethnographic and folkloristic gap that Kreemer’s De Karbouw was composed to fill.
Sources
Bijdrage tot de kennis van den karbouw en de karbouwenteelt in Nederlandsch O.-Indië, by Dr. J. Merkens (dissertation, 1927).
“Veeteelt,” by Dr. J. Merkens, in Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië, 2nd ed., vol. VI supplement. 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. 28, 30, 50.
See Also
- Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië
- H. Schlegel
- J. Kreemer
- Kreemer’s De Karbouw (1956)
- S. Müller
- keubeuë djagat
- [[keubeuë poetëh talaq]
Dr. J. Merkens was a Dutch veterinary scientist whose 1927 dissertation Bijdrage tot de kennis van den karbouw en de karbouwenteelt in Nederlandsch O.-Indië (“Contribution to the knowledge of the buffalo and buffalo-breeding in the Dutch East Indies”) and his article “veeteelt” in the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië (vol. VI supplement) supplied the principal zoötechnical literature on the water buffalo in the late-colonial Netherlands Indies, and in the course of his fieldwork brought him to Atjeh — where he personally observed the sporadic occurrence of black-piebald (zwart-bonte) buffaloes. Merkens is cited repeatedly in Kreemer’s *De Karbouw* ([[1956)]] (pp. 28, 30, 50, etc.) as a principal authority on the zoötechnical side of the buffalo, and his Atjeh observation on piebald buffaloes is noted in the chapter on the buffalo’s external appearance.
The piebald buffalo observation in Atjeh
Merkens’s specific Atjeh observation, quoted in De Karbouw (p. 28), concerns the sporadic occurrence of black-piebald (zwart-bonte) buffaloes — a coat-pattern long thought, on the authority of the naturalists Schlegel and Müller (c. 1840) and repeated by Brehm in the 1916 edition of Tierleben, not to occur anywhere in the archipelago. Merkens personally observed, however, that piebald buffaloes did occur, if only sporadically, both on Java and in Atjeh, and his dissertation provides a clear illustration of a brown-piebald buffalo from Sumba. The observation is significant because it overturned a long-standing ethnographic-natural-historical generalisation about the uniformity of buffalo coat-colour in the archipelago, and showed that the Atjehnese buffalo population, like the Javanese, occasionally produced piebald individuals — a fact relevant to the wider comparative study of buffalo colour-types and of the albino and blaze categories that the Atjehs language so carefully distinguishes.
The veterinary dissertation and the Encyclopaedie article
Merkens’s 1927 dissertation — Bijdrage tot de kennis van den karbouw en de karbouwenteelt in Nederlandsch O.-Indië — was, as Kreemer notes in the Voorbericht of De Karbouw, the principal zoötechnical contribution to the buffalo literature, but — again in Kreemer’s words — “the dominant place that this animal occupies in popular life and popular belief does not come up for discussion” in it, “for obvious good reasons.” That is, the veterinary dissertation deliberately omitted the ethnographic and folkloristic material on the buffalo, leaving the field open for Kreemer’s own comparative ethnography. Merkens also wrote the article “veeteelt” (livestock-breeding) for the supplement to volume VI of the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië, which served as the standard reference on livestock in the Netherlands Indies and is cited in De Karbouw alongside the dissertation.
Significance
Merkens’s significance for the encyclopedia of Acheh history is as the principal zoötechnical authority on the buffalo in the late-colonial Netherlands Indies, and as the personal observer whose Atjeh fieldwork documented the sporadic occurrence of piebald buffaloes in the Atjehnese herd — a small but valuable correction to the earlier natural-historical literature. His work also defines, by its deliberate omission, the ethnographic and folkloristic gap that Kreemer’s De Karbouw was composed to fill.
Sources
Bijdrage tot de kennis van den karbouw en de karbouwenteelt in Nederlandsch O.-Indië, by Dr. J. Merkens (dissertation, 1927).
“Veeteelt,” by Dr. J. Merkens, in Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië, 2nd ed., vol. VI supplement. 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. 28, 30, 50.