The Pangulec Side of Meulaboh — also rendered Pangulee Side — was, at the time of Snouck Hurgronje’s writing, the headman of Pulo U (vulgarly known as Simalur), a small island off the west coast of Sumatra. He is mentioned in Vol. I of The Achehnese as an example of the degeneration of offices originally instituted by the sultans of Acheh into mere chieftainships of the indigenous type.
The word pangulee — a variation, as Snouck Hurgronje elsewhere explains, of the Malay penghulu — was originally the title of an official charged with the task of making judicial enquiries. The Pangulee Side of Meulaboh “was undoubtedly at one time an official under the chief of that place, charged with the task of making judicial enquiries.” In the course of time, however, the office decayed: by Snouck Hurgronje’s day, “he who holds this title has been nothing more than an ordinary dato’” — that is, an adat chief — “as the adat chiefs are generally called on the West Coast.” More strikingly still, the then Pangulee Side was “now in fact no more than headman of Pulo U (vulg. Simalur).” The career of the office thus exhibits, in extreme form, the process by which a delegated judicial officer of the sultan’s government was successively reduced to the status of a local chief, and finally to that of a village headman on a remote island.
The Pangulec Side is cited by Snouck Hurgronje alongside the Teuku Hakim of Daya as one of two illustrative examples of the same general process. The Teuku Hakim, “borne by one of the three chiefs in the upper part of Daya, points to the fact that its bearer was originally charged with the administration of justice; but within the memory of man he who holds this title has been nothing more than an ordinary dato’.” The two examples are introduced in support of Snouck Hurgronje’s general observation that “so little control had the Sultans of Acheh over the course of events, that whatever may have been their purpose in establishing these various offices, the latter became in a short time part and parcel of the indigenous institutions of the country, or else disappeared altogether.”
The mention of the Pangulec Side is one of the few notices of Simalur and the West Coast dependencies of Acheh in Vol. I of The Achehnese. It illustrates the manner in which the authority of the sultans, even at the height of their power, was communicated only by the delegation of offices which they could not in the long run control. Once the central authority declined, such offices either vanished or were absorbed into the indigenous system of adat chieftainship.
See Also
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 Pangulec Side of Meulaboh — also rendered Pangulee Side — was, at the time of Snouck Hurgronje’s writing, the headman of Pulo U (vulgarly known as Simalur), a small island off the west coast of Sumatra. He is mentioned in Vol. I of The Achehnese as an example of the degeneration of offices originally instituted by the sultans of Acheh into mere chieftainships of the indigenous type.
The word pangulee — a variation, as Snouck Hurgronje elsewhere explains, of the Malay penghulu — was originally the title of an official charged with the task of making judicial enquiries. The Pangulee Side of Meulaboh “was undoubtedly at one time an official under the chief of that place, charged with the task of making judicial enquiries.” In the course of time, however, the office decayed: by Snouck Hurgronje’s day, “he who holds this title has been nothing more than an ordinary dato’” — that is, an adat chief — “as the adat chiefs are generally called on the West Coast.” More strikingly still, the then Pangulee Side was “now in fact no more than headman of Pulo U (vulg. Simalur).” The career of the office thus exhibits, in extreme form, the process by which a delegated judicial officer of the sultan’s government was successively reduced to the status of a local chief, and finally to that of a village headman on a remote island.
The Pangulec Side is cited by Snouck Hurgronje alongside the Teuku Hakim of Daya as one of two illustrative examples of the same general process. The Teuku Hakim, “borne by one of the three chiefs in the upper part of Daya, points to the fact that its bearer was originally charged with the administration of justice; but within the memory of man he who holds this title has been nothing more than an ordinary dato’.” The two examples are introduced in support of Snouck Hurgronje’s general observation that “so little control had the Sultans of Acheh over the course of events, that whatever may have been their purpose in establishing these various offices, the latter became in a short time part and parcel of the indigenous institutions of the country, or else disappeared altogether.”
The mention of the Pangulec Side is one of the few notices of Simalur and the West Coast dependencies of Acheh in Vol. I of The Achehnese. It illustrates the manner in which the authority of the sultans, even at the height of their power, was communicated only by the delegation of offices which they could not in the long run control. Once the central authority declined, such offices either vanished or were absorbed into the indigenous system of adat chieftainship.
See Also
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.