The Mahraja of Lho’ Seumawe (also written Mbahraja or Maharaja) was the hereditary chief of the district of Lho’ Seumawe on the north coast of Acheh. He is mentioned by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese in the course of the discussion of the honorific titles borne by certain Achehnese uleebalangs in virtue of their traditional kinship with the Sultan.
The title of Mahraja, Snouck Hurgronje explains, is one of a small class of official kinship-titles that linked the great uleebalangs of Acheh to the person of the raja. The most celebrated of these is that of the Panglima of the XXII Mukims, who is officially styled “elder brother” of the Sultan. In the same category stand two uleebalangs who bore the official title of ne’ (“grandfather”) of the Sultan: the chief of the Mukim Meura’sa (and earlier of the VI Mukims), and the chief of the IX Mukims of the XXV Mukims — namely Teuku Ne’ Raja Muda Seutia and Teuku Ne’ Peureuba Wangsa. The title of the chief of Lho’ Seumawe, Mahraja or Mbahraja, is similarly explained by the Achehnese as expressing a relationship of “father of the king.”
Snouck Hurgronje finds in this tradition a structural rather than a biological meaning. The legend which traced the origin of the Panglima Polem to a son of Meukuta Alam by a black slave — a story of which “there are also other versions less insulting to the honour of the Polem” — does not, in his judgment, “contain a single grain of historic truth.” The title of “elder brother” probably typified “the original relation between the powerful sagi-chief and the sultan”; and the same may be said of the Mahraja title. The fact that such a chief should obtain the title of Maharaja while his liege lord was simply called Raja of Acheh would otherwise be “very strange.”
The case of the Mahraja of Lho’ Seumawe thus illustrates a characteristic feature of the Achehnese political order: that the great uleebalangs were not, in any effective sense, the creatures of the Sultan, but stood in a relation of quasi-kinship which acknowledged their independent power while expressing a traditional deference to the raja. Together with the Panglima Polem, the Ne’s of Meura’sa and the IX Mukims, and other titled chiefs, the Mahraja of Lho’ Seumawe belonged to that small circle of hereditary territorial magnates whose support or opposition determined the fate of every sultan and every succession in Acheh.
See Also
- Lho’ Seumawe
- Panglima Polem
- Teuku Ne’ Raja Muda Seutia
- Teuku Ne’ Peureuba Wangsa
- Sultan Meukuta Alam
- Meura’sa
- IX Mukims
- VI Mukims
- XXV Mukims
- Acheh
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.
The Mahraja of Lho’ Seumawe (also written Mbahraja or Maharaja) was the hereditary chief of the district of Lho’ Seumawe on the north coast of Acheh. He is mentioned by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese in the course of the discussion of the honorific titles borne by certain Achehnese uleebalangs in virtue of their traditional kinship with the Sultan.
The title of Mahraja, Snouck Hurgronje explains, is one of a small class of official kinship-titles that linked the great uleebalangs of Acheh to the person of the raja. The most celebrated of these is that of the Panglima of the XXII Mukims, who is officially styled “elder brother” of the Sultan. In the same category stand two uleebalangs who bore the official title of ne’ (“grandfather”) of the Sultan: the chief of the Mukim Meura’sa (and earlier of the VI Mukims), and the chief of the IX Mukims of the XXV Mukims — namely Teuku Ne’ Raja Muda Seutia and Teuku Ne’ Peureuba Wangsa. The title of the chief of Lho’ Seumawe, Mahraja or Mbahraja, is similarly explained by the Achehnese as expressing a relationship of “father of the king.”
Snouck Hurgronje finds in this tradition a structural rather than a biological meaning. The legend which traced the origin of the Panglima Polem to a son of Meukuta Alam by a black slave — a story of which “there are also other versions less insulting to the honour of the Polem” — does not, in his judgment, “contain a single grain of historic truth.” The title of “elder brother” probably typified “the original relation between the powerful sagi-chief and the sultan”; and the same may be said of the Mahraja title. The fact that such a chief should obtain the title of Maharaja while his liege lord was simply called Raja of Acheh would otherwise be “very strange.”
The case of the Mahraja of Lho’ Seumawe thus illustrates a characteristic feature of the Achehnese political order: that the great uleebalangs were not, in any effective sense, the creatures of the Sultan, but stood in a relation of quasi-kinship which acknowledged their independent power while expressing a traditional deference to the raja. Together with the Panglima Polem, the Ne’s of Meura’sa and the IX Mukims, and other titled chiefs, the Mahraja of Lho’ Seumawe belonged to that small circle of hereditary territorial magnates whose support or opposition determined the fate of every sultan and every succession in Acheh.
See Also
- Lho’ Seumawe
- Panglima Polem
- Teuku Ne’ Raja Muda Seutia
- Teuku Ne’ Peureuba Wangsa
- Sultan Meukuta Alam
- Meura’sa
- IX Mukims
- VI Mukims
- XXV Mukims
- Acheh
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.