F. H. van Naerssen — published as Dr. F. H. van Naerssen — was a Dutch historian and prehistorian of the Dutch East Indies who, in 1946, contributed two chapters to the volume Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk edited by Dr. Wormser: De oudste cultuurstroomen (“The Oldest Cultural Streams”, pp. 7–55) and Omtrekken van de Indonesische litteratuur (“Outlines of Indonesian Literature”, pp. 175–185). His work in the volume places Atjeh and northern Sumatra firmly within the long prehistoric and early-historic cultural streams of the archipelago — from the Bacson-Hoabinh mesolithic culture to the Sanskritic Hindu inflow and the early Malay literary tradition.
Cultural-streams chapter and Atjeh
In De oudste cultuurstroomen, Van Naerssen gives the Atjeh region a specific prehistoric place. He notes that the Bacson-Hoabinh mesolithic culture — named for the two Tongkin localities in Achter-Indië (Mainland Southeast Asia) where it was first identified — reached the archipelago via the Malay peninsula and Sumatra, and that “in Atjeh, where the age of this civilization is estimated at 3000 years” the culture is represented alongside the finds in the surroundings of Deli’s Medan (estimated at the same date) and the older finds in Besoeki, East Java (estimated at 5000 years). He describes the kjökkenmöddinger (kitchen-middens) of Sumatra’s East Coast with their elephant tusks, deer antlers, rhinoceros and bear bones, and intentionally smashed human long bones — evidence, in his reading, of anthropophagy. He also places the Gajos of Sumatra among the populations in which Weddoid racial traces can still be detected “in vaguer form” alongside the Bataks and even the Javanese.
Van Naerssen further notes that the Atjeh language preserves the Austronesian (in his usage, “Indonesian”) word langa for plough, derived from Sanskrit langgala via an Austric substrate — placing the Atjehers in the same linguistic group as the Bataks (tŏnggala), Balinese (tŏnggala) and Madurese (nangghālā), and against the Javanese (wluku and brujul) and Sundanese (wuluku), whose plough-words are of different origin.
Literature chapter and Atjeh
In Omtrekken van de Indonesische litteratuur, Van Naerssen returns to Atjeh in his account of the Malay literature produced “wherever the Mohammedan culture penetrated” — “the strongest in the Malay regions, as we saw above, for instance in Atjeh, whose rich literary treasure we can only mention the several versions of the *hikayat prang sabi*, books on the holy war, one of which ends with the words: ‘How many traditions of the Prophet say it: fighting along God’s way stands high reward, great reward and high honour, for God grants on the day of battle the Paradise.’” He also notes the role of the Atjehers in forcing the court of Malacca’s successor (the sultanate of Djohor) to retreat further inland after the fall of Malacca to the Portuguese in 1511.
Van Naerssen further notes the role of Samudra (at the Pase-rivier), which by 1297 had a Muslim founder buried in a tombstone imported ready-made from Cambay in Goedjarat; and the 1415 Chinese reports confirming Islam across the whole north coast of Sumatra, including the small sultanate of Aru on the east coast. He traces the conversion of the Minangkabau — “who around 1500 were still heathens” — to the rise of Atjeh: “About 1550 they took up Islam in rapid tempo and in their entirety and have remained fervent Muslims since.”
Significance
Van Naerssen’s two chapters supply much of the deep-historical frame against which the more recent Atjeh material in the rest of Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk is to be read. By giving Atjeh a place in the Bacson-Hoabinh mesolithic, by noting the Atjeh reflex of the Austric langgala plough-word, by highlighting the Samudra–Goedjarat–Cambay axis in the early Islamisation of the north Sumatran coast, and by quoting the closing line of an Atjeh hikayat prang sabi, he extends the Atjeh story back from the colonial present of 1946 into the prehistoric and early-medieval past.
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
- oudste cultuurstroomen — oldest cultural streams
- litteratuur — literature
- Omtrekken van de Indonesische litteratuur — Outlines of Indonesian literature
- pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
- hikayat — Malay prose romance
- Hikayat prang sabi — Book of the holy war
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Atjehers — Acehnese
- Acheh — Aceh
- Deli — Deli
- Java — Java
- Sumatra — Sumatra
- Bali — Bali
- Batak — Batak
- Medan — Medan
- Besoeki — Banyuwangi
- Gajoland — Gayo country
- Gajo — Gayo
- Gajos — Gayo people
- Alaslanden — Alas lands
- Alasland — Alas land
- Alas — Alas
- Goedjarat — Gujarat
- Cambay — Khambhat
- Samudra — Samudra
- Pasei — Pasai
- Pase — Pasai
- Aru — Aru
- Djohor — Johor
- Minangkabau — Minangkabau
- Tongkin — Tonkin
- Achter-Indië — Mainland Southeast Asia
- Bacson-Hoabinh — Bacson-Hoabinh (mesolithic culture)
- kjökkenmödding — kitchen-midden (Danish)
- langgala — plough (Sanskrit)
- langa — plough (Atjeh form)
- wluku — plough (Javanese)
- brujul — plough (Javanese)
- wuluku — plough (Sundanese)
- luku — plough (Malay)
- nangghālā — plough (Madurese)
- tŏnggala — plough (Batak/Balinese)
- Dr. — Doctor
See Also
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- C. W. Wormser
- W. J. A. Kernkamp
- Hikayat prang sabi
- Samudra
- Pasei
- Goedjarat
- Cambay
- Aru
- Minangkabau
- Gajoland
- Alaslanden
- Conversion of Minangkabau via Atjeh (c. 1550)
- Marco Polo
- 1297
- 1415
- 1550
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), pp. 7–55 (chapter De oudste cultuurstroomen door Dr. F. H. van Naerssen) and pp. 175–185 (chapter Omtrekken van de Indonesische litteratuur door Dr. F. H. van Naerssen).