Musket

Properties2
tagsperson, officer, dutch, knil, aceh
aliasesColonel Musket, Titular Colonel Musket, old Aceh fighter Musket

11 min read

Musket — titular colonel and non-combatant — is the old Aceh fighter of Oost-Indisch Journael by Merac (1947), the principal narrator of the book’s Aceh content and the figure through whom the inter-war colonial memory of the Aceh War is voiced. Musket is the figure who, on hearing the word “sloebers” — the old brawlers’ name for the Acehnese enemy — “shot up like an old jumping-horse that hears the bell,” and began to tell of “the good old days.”

The old Aceh fighter

“Musket, old Aceh fighter, now titular colonel and non-combatant, shot up like an old jumping-horse that hears the bell.” Musket is a titular colonel — an honorary rank — and a non-combatant: he is no longer on active service. He is the old Aceh fighter — who fought in the Aceh War and now, in the inter-war period, sits at the table with the hole of the officers’ club and tells stories of “the good old days.” His rank — titular, non-combatant — is the book’s marker of the inter-war colonial memory: the Aceh fighter is now a retired officer, and the Aceh War is now a memory.

The “sloebers” and the Aceh murders

“Sloebers!, yes, that is what the old brawlers called the Acehnese enemy, but those who knew him well pronounced this term of abuse with the requisite respect.” Musket’s first Aceh story — triggered by the word “sloebers” — is the story of the Aceh murders and the prang sabil (holy war). He tells of the proposal to mutilate the perpetrator of an Aceh murder — “by hacking off his arms and legs, or else beheading him” — and of the prang sabil, the holy war, against which the colonial army tried to defend by “burying fallen opponents together with a pig.” He tells of the djahat (resistance fighter) — the malefactor, the resistance man — who “was hunted and chased like a wild beast through the ‘blubber’ of the coastal regions and the inhospitable wildernesses of Aceh’s hinterland, never faltered and persevered in the struggle to the very end.”

The Verzet in Lhong

Musket’s set-piece Aceh story is the Verzet in Lhong — the resistance at Lhong. He tells of the encircling of a house in which eight exiles had entrenched themselves, the djahats breaking out “with the bare blade in their fists,” seven of the eight escaping in the “half-confusion of the klewang fight,” and the entrenching of the gang in one of the caves of the Glé Groetèë “to wage her last battle there.” He tells of the decision to destroy and its execution, and of the eight holy graves with the little white flags that would soon arise. Musket’s point — the book’s argument — is that the resistance at Lhong had been settled “in the old and, in my opinion, completely outdated manner,” and that the colonial army had failed to use modern aids — tear-gas bombs and gas-masks — that would have captured the opponent alive — and would have prevented “the attainment of the goal that underlies every resistance on any scale: the paradise-death.”

The Soldier-Dominee and the Marechausseelied

Musket is also the figure who, “speaking about the position and significance of the soul-shepherd in the Dutch East Indies,” immediately names “the great soldier-priest Father Verbraak, who resided in Aceh for well over thirty years and acquired the honorary title of ‘first flanquer of the East Indian army.’” When the dominee (the visiting guest) names Thenu as the figure who “may and yet shall not forget the Indies either,” the commissioner of the field police rises and sings the Marechausseelied — “O! marsausee, marsausee! ‘t Terlaloe marsausee!” — and Musket endorses with military promptness the description of Thenu as “grown together with this land and its history of the last decades, grown together also with the Acehnese soldier.”

The list of Marechaussee commanders

Musket is also the figure who lists the Marechaussee commanders of the Aceh War: “Graafland, Van Daalen, Campioni, Christoffel, Van der Maaten, Scheepens, Watrin, Webb, Colijn, Geertsema Beckering, Darlang and the sergeants Nussy, Salowono, Pongoh … a colourful row. J’en passe et des meilleurs!” The list is Musket’s — and the book’s — catalogue of the fellows of the old time, the famous cut-and-thrusters and Marechaussee commanders whose names “rang through the Indies like carillon music.”

The Acehnese as the most effective ally against the Geumpenie

Musket’s other Aceh story is the remark that “The history of Aceh, for example, repeatedly showed how the most effective ally of the Acehnese against the Geumpenie was the Geumpenie itself, which constantly struck a new direction” — the history of Aceh showed, repeatedly, that the most effective ally of the Acehnese against the Geumpenie was the Geumpenie itself, which constantly struck a new direction. The remark is the book’s — and Musket’s — judgement on the colonial army’s failure of continuity in Aceh: the transfer malady that the book’s chapter on civil administrators describes was, in Musket’s argument, the structural failure of the colonial state in Aceh.

Significance

Musket is significant in Oost-Indisch Journael as the principal narrator of the book’s Aceh content and the figure through whom the inter-war colonial memory of the Aceh War is voiced. The book’s argument — that the colonial army had failed to use modern methods (tear-gas bombs) against the djahat (resistance fighter), that the Geumpenie was its own worst enemy in Aceh, that the transfer malady of the civil administrators was the structural failure of the colonial state — is voiced through Musket. He is therefore the book’s old Aceh fighter in both senses: the old Aceh fighter, and the old Aceh fighter whose memory the book records.

See Also

Source

Oost-Indisch Journael: Palaver om de tafel met het gat, by Merac, Toekan-Serie no. 2, ed. G. L. Tichelman (Haarlem: De Gulden Pers, 1947), chapters Sloebers and the chapter on den zieleherder

Musket — titular colonel and non-combatant — is the old Aceh fighter of Oost-Indisch Journael by Merac (1947), the principal narrator of the book’s Aceh content and the figure through whom the inter-war colonial memory of the Aceh War is voiced. Musket is the figure who, on hearing the word “sloebers” — the old brawlers’ name for the Acehnese enemy — “shot up like an old jumping-horse that hears the bell,” and began to tell of “the good old days.”

The old Aceh fighter

“Musket, old Aceh fighter, now titular colonel and non-combatant, shot up like an old jumping-horse that hears the bell.” Musket is a titular colonel — an honorary rank — and a non-combatant: he is no longer on active service. He is the old Aceh fighter — who fought in the Aceh War and now, in the inter-war period, sits at the table with the hole of the officers’ club and tells stories of “the good old days.” His rank — titular, non-combatant — is the book’s marker of the inter-war colonial memory: the Aceh fighter is now a retired officer, and the Aceh War is now a memory.

The “sloebers” and the Aceh murders

“Sloebers!, yes, that is what the old brawlers called the Acehnese enemy, but those who knew him well pronounced this term of abuse with the requisite respect.” Musket’s first Aceh story — triggered by the word “sloebers” — is the story of the Aceh murders and the prang sabil (holy war). He tells of the proposal to mutilate the perpetrator of an Aceh murder — “by hacking off his arms and legs, or else beheading him” — and of the prang sabil, the holy war, against which the colonial army tried to defend by “burying fallen opponents together with a pig.” He tells of the djahat (resistance fighter) — the malefactor, the resistance man — who “was hunted and chased like a wild beast through the ‘blubber’ of the coastal regions and the inhospitable wildernesses of Aceh’s hinterland, never faltered and persevered in the struggle to the very end.”

The Verzet in Lhong

Musket’s set-piece Aceh story is the Verzet in Lhong — the resistance at Lhong. He tells of the encircling of a house in which eight exiles had entrenched themselves, the djahats breaking out “with the bare blade in their fists,” seven of the eight escaping in the “half-confusion of the klewang fight,” and the entrenching of the gang in one of the caves of the Glé Groetèë “to wage her last battle there.” He tells of the decision to destroy and its execution, and of the eight holy graves with the little white flags that would soon arise. Musket’s point — the book’s argument — is that the resistance at Lhong had been settled “in the old and, in my opinion, completely outdated manner,” and that the colonial army had failed to use modern aids — tear-gas bombs and gas-masks — that would have captured the opponent alive — and would have prevented “the attainment of the goal that underlies every resistance on any scale: the paradise-death.”

The Soldier-Dominee and the Marechausseelied

Musket is also the figure who, “speaking about the position and significance of the soul-shepherd in the Dutch East Indies,” immediately names “the great soldier-priest Father Verbraak, who resided in Aceh for well over thirty years and acquired the honorary title of ‘first flanquer of the East Indian army.’” When the dominee (the visiting guest) names Thenu as the figure who “may and yet shall not forget the Indies either,” the commissioner of the field police rises and sings the Marechausseelied — “O! marsausee, marsausee! ‘t Terlaloe marsausee!” — and Musket endorses with military promptness the description of Thenu as “grown together with this land and its history of the last decades, grown together also with the Acehnese soldier.”

The list of Marechaussee commanders

Musket is also the figure who lists the Marechaussee commanders of the Aceh War: “Graafland, Van Daalen, Campioni, Christoffel, Van der Maaten, Scheepens, Watrin, Webb, Colijn, Geertsema Beckering, Darlang and the sergeants Nussy, Salowono, Pongoh … a colourful row. J’en passe et des meilleurs!” The list is Musket’s — and the book’s — catalogue of the fellows of the old time, the famous cut-and-thrusters and Marechaussee commanders whose names “rang through the Indies like carillon music.”

The Acehnese as the most effective ally against the Geumpenie

Musket’s other Aceh story is the remark that “The history of Aceh, for example, repeatedly showed how the most effective ally of the Acehnese against the Geumpenie was the Geumpenie itself, which constantly struck a new direction” — the history of Aceh showed, repeatedly, that the most effective ally of the Acehnese against the Geumpenie was the Geumpenie itself, which constantly struck a new direction. The remark is the book’s — and Musket’s — judgement on the colonial army’s failure of continuity in Aceh: the transfer malady that the book’s chapter on civil administrators describes was, in Musket’s argument, the structural failure of the colonial state in Aceh.

Significance

Musket is significant in Oost-Indisch Journael as the principal narrator of the book’s Aceh content and the figure through whom the inter-war colonial memory of the Aceh War is voiced. The book’s argument — that the colonial army had failed to use modern methods (tear-gas bombs) against the djahat (resistance fighter), that the Geumpenie was its own worst enemy in Aceh, that the transfer malady of the civil administrators was the structural failure of the colonial state — is voiced through Musket. He is therefore the book’s old Aceh fighter in both senses: the old Aceh fighter, and the old Aceh fighter whose memory the book records.

See Also

Source

Oost-Indisch Journael: Palaver om de tafel met het gat, by Merac, Toekan-Serie no. 2, ed. G. L. Tichelman (Haarlem: De Gulden Pers, 1947), chapters Sloebers and the chapter on den zieleherder.

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