Dr. P. van Romburgh was a Dutch botanist whose identification of the Achehnese cooling-plant naleu’eng sambo’ — used in the Achehnese *peusijuek* or “cooling” ceremony — as Eleusine Indica is cited by Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese. His identification places him among the small group of Dutch colonial scientists whose specialist knowledge Snouck Hurgronje drew upon in elucidating the material culture and ritual practice of the Achehnese.
The “cooling” ceremony and its plant requisites
The Achehnese “cooling” (peusijuek or peusijuk) is, in Snouck Hurgronje’s account, the universal method by which persons or things thought to be exposed to “hot” or dangerous influences are restored to a state of ritual safety. The most effective method of cooling consists in besprinkling the person or thing to be cooled with teupong taweue — water mixed with a little rice-flour — and in strewing over the object a little husked and unhusked rice mingled together. The besprinkling is performed with the help of certain small plants, of which the principal are the sisijue (a name which in itself implies cooling) and the mane’-manoe; on certain occasions betel-nut stalks or naleu’eng sambo’ are added. The cooling is performed, for example, before the young padi is planted out; on the 44th day after a birth, marriage, or death; on a boy who has completed the recitation of the Quran; on one who has just returned from a long journey, or been saved from shipwreck, or fallen into the water and narrowly escaped drowning; and so on.
Identification of naleu’eng sambo’
In a footnote to his description of the requisites for the andam (the ceremonial shaving of the bride’s hair), Snouck Hurgronje identifies the naleu’eng sambo’ — “a kind of grass the flowers of which look [like]” (the text is here somewhat garbled) — by reference to van Romburgh. “This is, according to Dr. P. van Romburgh, the Eleusine Indica. It is known in Java as jampang and used as cattle-fodder”. The same plant, as the translator’s note records, is known at Batavia as chakar (elsewhere chochor or sosor-bekek, the Sundanese bungbi iris), and is used in Java as in Acheh for certain mysterious purposes.
Significance for the comparative study of Achehnese ritual
Van Romburgh’s identification of naleu’eng sambo’ is a small but typical instance of the way in which Dutch colonial botanists supplied the technical apparatus by means of which the ritual plants of Achehnese custom could be brought into relation with the botany of the wider Archipelago. The same perspective governs Snouck Hurgronje’s citation of Skeat’s Malay Magic for the parallel Malay use of the “neutralizing rice-flour” (tepung tawar) with a sprinkling-brush formed of leaves and twigs of certain plants. Without van Romburgh’s botanical identification, the precise relation of the Achehnese naleu’eng sambo’ to the Javanese jampang — and thus of the Achehnese cooling ceremony to the corresponding Javanese and Malay usages — could not be made out.
See Also
Source
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.
Dr. P. van Romburgh was a Dutch botanist whose identification of the Achehnese cooling-plant naleu’eng sambo’ — used in the Achehnese *peusijuek* or “cooling” ceremony — as Eleusine Indica is cited by Snouck Hurgronje in The Achehnese. His identification places him among the small group of Dutch colonial scientists whose specialist knowledge Snouck Hurgronje drew upon in elucidating the material culture and ritual practice of the Achehnese.
The “cooling” ceremony and its plant requisites
The Achehnese “cooling” (peusijuek or peusijuk) is, in Snouck Hurgronje’s account, the universal method by which persons or things thought to be exposed to “hot” or dangerous influences are restored to a state of ritual safety. The most effective method of cooling consists in besprinkling the person or thing to be cooled with teupong taweue — water mixed with a little rice-flour — and in strewing over the object a little husked and unhusked rice mingled together. The besprinkling is performed with the help of certain small plants, of which the principal are the sisijue (a name which in itself implies cooling) and the mane’-manoe; on certain occasions betel-nut stalks or naleu’eng sambo’ are added. The cooling is performed, for example, before the young padi is planted out; on the 44th day after a birth, marriage, or death; on a boy who has completed the recitation of the Quran; on one who has just returned from a long journey, or been saved from shipwreck, or fallen into the water and narrowly escaped drowning; and so on.
Identification of naleu’eng sambo’
In a footnote to his description of the requisites for the andam (the ceremonial shaving of the bride’s hair), Snouck Hurgronje identifies the naleu’eng sambo’ — “a kind of grass the flowers of which look [like]” (the text is here somewhat garbled) — by reference to van Romburgh. “This is, according to Dr. P. van Romburgh, the Eleusine Indica. It is known in Java as jampang and used as cattle-fodder”. The same plant, as the translator’s note records, is known at Batavia as chakar (elsewhere chochor or sosor-bekek, the Sundanese bungbi iris), and is used in Java as in Acheh for certain mysterious purposes.
Significance for the comparative study of Achehnese ritual
Van Romburgh’s identification of naleu’eng sambo’ is a small but typical instance of the way in which Dutch colonial botanists supplied the technical apparatus by means of which the ritual plants of Achehnese custom could be brought into relation with the botany of the wider Archipelago. The same perspective governs Snouck Hurgronje’s citation of Skeat’s Malay Magic for the parallel Malay use of the “neutralizing rice-flour” (tepung tawar) with a sprinkling-brush formed of leaves and twigs of certain plants. Without van Romburgh’s botanical identification, the precise relation of the Achehnese naleu’eng sambo’ to the Javanese jampang — and thus of the Achehnese cooling ceremony to the corresponding Javanese and Malay usages — could not be made out.
See Also
Source
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.