Ed. van Muien (also cited as E. v. d. Muien, and appearing in OCR-corrupted form as “Kdw. Van Muien”) was the editor or publisher of an 1890 printed work on Menangkabau adat, entitled — in the partly-garbled form in which it survives in the text of The Achehnese — “Adat mannangkabau … uitdiko larpakai dalam nan salaias Kapnu”. The work is cited by Snouck Hurgronje in his discussion of Achehnese formal oratory, where it supplies specimens of the formal orations to which the adat of Menangkabau gives rise.
Citation in The Achehnese
Van Muien is cited in a footnote appended to Snouck Hurgronje’s account of the Achehnese formal oration. The footnote concerns the constant repetition, by the speaker, of the question “Where are ye all, my brethren?” — a question put although the persons addressed are present. “This [repetition]”, Snouck Hurgronje observes, “appears also in the formal orations to which the adat of Menangkabau gives rise. Specimens of these are to be found in the work printed by Kdw. Van Muien in 1890, [Adat mannangkabau … uitdiko larpakai dalam nan salaias Kapnu]. This is far from being the sole point of resemblance between the eloquence of the Menangkabau people and that of the Achehnese.”
Significance for Achehnese comparative oratory
The comparison with Menangkabau is one of several points at which Snouck Hurgronje brings out the wider Malayan affinities of Achehnese formal speech. The Achehnese orations he is concerned with are those exchanged in such ceremonies as the formal asking of a girl’s hand in marriage — a highly stylised dialogue in which the speaker and the spokesman of the opposing party address one another by elaborate periphrases, repeat set forms of apology, and intersperse their prose with verse. The whole performance is unintelligible except against the background of the cognate Menangkabau tradition preserved in the work edited by van Muien. The latter is thus, despite the obscurity of its title in the surviving text, one of the principal comparative sources for the study of Achehnese ceremonial eloquence.
Place in The Achehnese
The citation of van Muien is typical of Snouck Hurgronje’s comparative method: the customs of Acheh are at every turn set beside those of the cognate Malayan peoples — the Menangkabau, the Javanese, the Malays of the Peninsula — and shown to be local forms of a wider Malayan pattern. Van Muien’s edition of the Adat Menangkabau is thus one of the small set of printed comparative sources — alongside the works of Van den Berg, Van Langen, and Skeat — on which Snouck Hurgronje drew in establishing this wider comparative context.
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.
Ed. van Muien (also cited as E. v. d. Muien, and appearing in OCR-corrupted form as “Kdw. Van Muien”) was the editor or publisher of an 1890 printed work on Menangkabau adat, entitled — in the partly-garbled form in which it survives in the text of The Achehnese — “Adat mannangkabau … uitdiko larpakai dalam nan salaias Kapnu”. The work is cited by Snouck Hurgronje in his discussion of Achehnese formal oratory, where it supplies specimens of the formal orations to which the adat of Menangkabau gives rise.
Citation in The Achehnese
Van Muien is cited in a footnote appended to Snouck Hurgronje’s account of the Achehnese formal oration. The footnote concerns the constant repetition, by the speaker, of the question “Where are ye all, my brethren?” — a question put although the persons addressed are present. “This [repetition]”, Snouck Hurgronje observes, “appears also in the formal orations to which the adat of Menangkabau gives rise. Specimens of these are to be found in the work printed by Kdw. Van Muien in 1890, [Adat mannangkabau … uitdiko larpakai dalam nan salaias Kapnu]. This is far from being the sole point of resemblance between the eloquence of the Menangkabau people and that of the Achehnese.”
Significance for Achehnese comparative oratory
The comparison with Menangkabau is one of several points at which Snouck Hurgronje brings out the wider Malayan affinities of Achehnese formal speech. The Achehnese orations he is concerned with are those exchanged in such ceremonies as the formal asking of a girl’s hand in marriage — a highly stylised dialogue in which the speaker and the spokesman of the opposing party address one another by elaborate periphrases, repeat set forms of apology, and intersperse their prose with verse. The whole performance is unintelligible except against the background of the cognate Menangkabau tradition preserved in the work edited by van Muien. The latter is thus, despite the obscurity of its title in the surviving text, one of the principal comparative sources for the study of Achehnese ceremonial eloquence.
Place in The Achehnese
The citation of van Muien is typical of Snouck Hurgronje’s comparative method: the customs of Acheh are at every turn set beside those of the cognate Malayan peoples — the Menangkabau, the Javanese, the Malays of the Peninsula — and shown to be local forms of a wider Malayan pattern. Van Muien’s edition of the Adat Menangkabau is thus one of the small set of printed comparative sources — alongside the works of Van den Berg, Van Langen, and Skeat — on which Snouck Hurgronje drew in establishing this wider comparative context.
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.