Mohamad Djohan Alamsjah — teukoe tjhi Peusangan — was the oeléebalang of the great landschap of Peusangan in the onderafdeeling Bireuen of the Afdeeling Noordkust van Atjeh, ruling a landschap of more than thirty-two thousand souls. Broersma describes him as ‘een hoofd met veel gezag en een goed inzicht in de belangen van zijn land, waarvoor hij al zijn ijver geeft’ — a chief of great authority and good insight into the interests of his country, for which he gives all his zeal. He is, with Teukoe Tjhi Mohamad Thajeb of Peureula, one of the principal examples in Verkenningen in Atjeh of the verlichte hoofden — the enlightened chiefs of the new generation.
House and Family
He lives at Matang Gloempang Doea in an attractive but un-Atjehnese house amid a well-planted garden, situated on the road and on the tram. He finds support in his brothers, who, like him, received a good education and all speak Dutch. One of them, Teukoe Boestaman, was trained at the cultuurschool at Soekaboemi in West Java and now holds the office of landbouwkundige in the landschap — an agricultural expert. Another brother, Mohamad Ali Alamsjah, is oeléebalang tjoet of Djeumpa. The presence of a Dutch-speaking landbouwkundige in the household of the oeléebalang is, in Broersma’s view, a remarkable token of the new brood of chiefs.
Agriculture and the Landschap
About a third of the soil of Peusangan is irrigable, and the landschap has its true sawahs of its own making, its tegal-fields, and on the higher ground its ladangs. Pepper and pinang take a less prominent place here than elsewhere in the income of the people; the landschap also grows djagong (maize), oebi (yam), katjang tanah (ground-nut), a little sugar-cane and tobacco. The Inlandsche agriculture of Peusangan resembles, more than elsewhere in Atjeh, that of Java. The Inlandsche agriculture here, Broersma remarks, ‘gelijkt wat meer dien van Java. Van meer dan gelijken kan men niet spreken’ — resembles that of Java somewhat. Of more than resemblance one cannot speak.
The great experiment of irrigation at Panté Lhong — where the B.O.W. dammed one arm of the Peusangan river at a cost of three tons, and the water then ran down the other arm, leaving the irrigation-canal dry — is a token of the new efforts at irrigation, even in their failure. Broersma and the chief reckoned together that a couple consumes seven picol of bras (rice) a year; the calculation was real reckoning, for such quantities are expressed in Atjeh in ‘bamboe’ — one bamboe being 2.5 katti of bras.
Credit and Salt-Making
The greatest part of the capital of the Volkscredietbank at Lho’ Seumawé finds its placement in the onderafdeeling Bireuen; the amount has sometimes reached three tons. Peusangan has about ten gampong-banks with capitals of f 300 to f 600 and reserves of f 100 to f 300, and the management is properly watched. Perhaps connected with the good working of credit is the circumstance that in Peusangan one sees grobaks (carts) in use, whereas elsewhere in Atjeh they are almost entirely absent.
The salt-making of the Peusangan coast is also of some importance. The salt-makers loosen the ground on an open terrain near the flood-forest; the seawater comes in at flood and is thrown into a pit of 3 d.M. depth. Seawater is then brought over it again, filters through, and is collected in a basin of about 80 c.M. The water is taken to the nearby houses, put into a large basin, and boiled in pots until the salt remains. The boiling lasts 10 to 12 hours and requires a great deal of firewood. The interval between raking the ground and obtaining a picol of fairly white salt is three days. The picol is sold in Peusangan for f 3.30; the firewood for that quantity of salt costs about f 1.25; so for three days’ work about two guilders remain, a normal day’s wage.
Significance
Mohamad Djohan Alamsjah’s chieftaincy is the type of the well-managed landschap in the new generation: Dutch-speaking brothers, a landbouwkundige in the household, gampong-banks, grobaks on the roads, and a flourishing tegal-agriculture. His landschap is Broersma’s exhibit A for the proposition that, under good chiefs, the post-pacification reforms can take root in Atjeh.
See Also
- Peusangan
- Bireuen
- Matang Gloempang Doea
- Teukoe Boestaman
- Mohamad Ali Alamsjah
- Djeumpa
- Panté Lhong
- Oeléebalang
- Tjhi (title)
- Volkscredietbank
- Salt-making in Atjeh
- Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
Source
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), chapter X, ‘In het land van Peusangan’, pp. 67–70.