Potjoet Barin — modern Cut Barin — was, until her death in 1933, the oeléëbalang of Toengkob, a land of the Boven-Wojla in the interior of the Westkust of Atjeh that formed part of the Federation of the Kawaj XII. In our time, now that one can drive almost everywhere by car, the country is not so remote, but in the days of the great war — a good thirty years before Zentgraff wrote — it lay a good way inland, in the heart of the central mountain-land. Among the federation were also Pameuë, Geumpang, Tangsé, Anoë, and Ara — names that mark that this is the heart of the central mountain-land.
A daughter of Teukoe Tjoet Amat
She was a daughter of Teukoe Tjoet Amat, whose family had held the oeléëbalangschap of Toengkob for a very long time; when her husband, whom she had followed in the war, died, she was the rightful successor. So she made years of fighting, alternating with temporary rest in the remote regions where the Kompeuni did not yet show itself. For her this oorlogsvoeren was still a kind of pleasure: one could stop when it bored one. That good time disappeared when the maréchaussée’s began to make a clean sweep in this part of the Westkust, and now it became a troublesome existence with all those pursuits and overvallen. Still she accepted this risk, and held her own, always on her feet and bossy as the strongest man.
An amoureuse vrouw
She was a very amoureuse woman, always surrounded by a kind of bodyguard of about thirty men who were also her lovers. It was a very particular form of heerendienst, and the men had not much to say in her presence. She always walked around with the sharp peudeueng — the curved klewang, a kind of Turkish sabre, popular on the Westkust — in her hand.
The wooden leg
One day her schuilplaats in the goenoeng was overvalled by a patrol from Koeala Beh, under lieutenant Hoogers, and on that occasion she took a bullet in the lower leg. She kept her life only because, for lack of treatment, her foot rotted off — and this broke her will: she submitted. Immediately she was put under medical treatment, but the infection had progressed so far that the leg had to be amputated, and even this was a near thing. In those days her spirit changed: hatred of the Kompeuni gave way to gratitude, of which she openly testified, for she was a fine woman who did not hide her opinion under a bushel. She said to Veltman: “Had I but known you earlier, I should not have lost my leg.”
Veltman appreciated her cordial character and worked it so that she was appointed oeléëbalang of Toengkob. She was not the first woman to wield authority in Atjeh; centuries ago there had been Sultanas who governed as well as the men, and Potjoet Barin was a mannetjesputter — a tomboy, a man-woman.
Veltman had yet another surprise for her: one day a packet arrived at Meulaboh from Holland, with a wooden leg for the Potjoet. It was covered with leather, “tegen den paalworm” (against the shipworm), as the officers said, and you may imagine that she was king of the world when she first put it on. She came out with it now and then on official occasions; she felt this was owed to the Kompeuni, which indeed shot someone’s leg to pieces but gave him another in return. The whole kampong turned out when she first came into public with her wooden leg. Her numerous old lovers smiled and thought that their peculiar heerendienst was now over, but they reckoned without the tremendous vitality of this woman. She did not wear the leg often; it pinched her at the knee, and she preferred to be carried, crosswise on the neck of one of her subjects. The most useful use she made of the wooden leg was, perhaps, when she gave an impertinent kampongman a hiding with it that rang like a bell.
Pantouns and the prins gemaal
When she sat in her house, pondering the old and new things of her much-moved life, sometimes her poetry flowed faster than the water of the Wojla; her improvised pantoens are still not forgotten. She sang, for instance:
“Di Kroeëng Wojla, tjeukdë likat, / Eungköt djiloempat, dji-sangka ië toeba, / Seungab di joeb, seungab di rambat, / boh barat, boeka soewara. / Boekon sajang, ité di kapaj, / Djitimòh boelèë, ka si on sapeuë; / Boekon sajang bilé koe tinggaj, / Teumpat koe tido, sijang dan malem.”
“In the Wojla-river the water is muddy, the fish jumps up and one thinks the water has been drugged. It is quiet below, and quiet on the gallery (above): the West pours in (it grows dark), and now we can talk.” / “Is it not a pity: a duck on a ship, a duck with all kinds of feathers? Is it not a pity that I leave my chamber, my sleeping-place where I tarried day and night?”
Sometimes she sang her pantoens to the toean moeda — a poetic interruption of her busy labour. She held on for many years, with and without wooden leg, and remarried with a man of the region, an ordinary kampongman. He still lived there in Zentgraff’s day and bore the nickname prins gemaal (prince consort).
Significance
She died in 1933, and until her death she remained for the Kompeuni a faithful and capable oeléëbalang. Among the older men, Zentgraff notes, rumours probably still circulate that cannot be spoken of here; but she remains on the Westkust in memory as one of the most capable and energetic women of that land.
See Also
- Veltman
- Hoogers
- Toengkob
- Boven-Wojla
- Kawaj XII
- Westkust
- Meulaboh
- Koeala Beh
- Peudeueng
- Uleebalang
- 1933
- Aceh War
Source
Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia. OCR-filename: 20260709_002148_DLP-81-Atjeh_OCR.txt.