F. A. Wagner was a Dutch art historian who, in 1946, contributed the chapter Kunst (“Art”) to the volume Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk edited by Dr. Wormser (pp. 156–174). His chapter treats the visual and decorative arts of the Dutch East Indies within the frame of the religio-magische gemeenschap (religio-magical community), arguing that the arts of the archipelago can be understood only against the background of the closed, ritually ordered, agrarian societies in which they were produced.
Treatment of Atjeh and adjacent regions
Wagner’s chapter does not give Atjeh a central place, but it places the Islamisation of the archipelago — including the Islamisation of the coastal Sumatran peoples — within a wider cultural-economic argument. He writes: “On Sumatra, Celebes and later also Borneo, it was the coastal peoples — Atjehers, Boeginezen, Makassaren, Mandarezen and a few others — who converted to the new doctrine. They were the ones who kept the tribes that inhabited the interior cut off from the coast and prevented Islam from also penetrating into those regions. For if the adoption of Islam by the conquered peoples were to follow, the dominant position of the coastal peoples would be lost; the required social equality would certainly have had a great influence. Only the Menangkabauers went over to Islam, but this people reached as far as the West Coast of Sumatra. The Bataks, Dajaks, Toradja’s, as well as the peoples of the eastern islands, lived on, untouched by the mighty cultural stream of Mohammedanism.”
The passage is significant for the Atjeh-focused reader in two respects. First, it names the Atjehers as the principal Sumatran case of a coastal people that converted to Islam while keeping the interior peoples (Bataks, etc.) cut off from the coast — a formulation that places Atjeh at the head of a wider coastal-interior dynamic in northern Sumatra. Second, it makes the adoption of Islam by the coastal peoples a deliberate strategy of social closure, with the “required social equality” of the Umma functioning as a threat to the coastal peoples’ dominance if it were extended to the interior. This is a more politically charged reading of the coastal-interior dynamic than is found in the other chapters of the volume.
Significance
For the Atjeh-focused reader, Wagner’s chief significance is the explicit framing of the Atjehers’ Islam as part of a wider coastal-interior strategy: the Atjehers’ conversion to Islam is presented not (or not only) as a religious event but as a political-economic one, in which the coastal Muslims’ social equality within the Umma gave them a strategic advantage over the still-animist interior. This reading complements, but does not duplicate, the more strictly religious and administrative framings of Atjeh Islam given by Prof. Dr. Kernkamp and Mr. Dr. Caron elsewhere in the volume.
Dutch terms used in this article
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
- Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
- Nederlandsch-Indië — Netherlands Indies
- pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Atjehers — Acehnese
- Acheh — Aceh
- Borneo — Borneo
- Celebes — Celebes
- Sumatra — Sumatra
- Karo — Karo
- Batak — Batak
- Toba — Toba
- Minangkabau — Minangkabau
- Menangkabau — Minangkabau
- Boeginezen — Bugis
- Makassaren — Makassarese
- Mandarezen — Mandarese
- Dajaks — Dayaks
- Toradja’s — Torajas
- zen — Zen
- cut — title of honour (Atjeh)
- Mr. Dr. — Master of Laws and Doctor (Dutch academic titles)
- Prof. Dr. — Professor Doctor
- Dr. — Doctor
See Also
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- C. W. Wormser
- W. J. A. Kernkamp
- L. J. J. Caron
- Acheh
- Minangkabau
- Batak-Karo
- Toba Bataklanden
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), pp. 156–174 (chapter Kunst door F. A. Wagner), with the Atjehers reference on p. 163.