T. Tjhi Bentara — Teukoe Tjhi Bentara — was the half-brother of T. Tjhi Toenong and the Dutch-appointed oeléëbalang of Keureutoe in the years after the great raids of Van Heutsz. According to ancient tradition the authority over Keureutoe belonged in the line of Potjoet Asia di Keureutoe; by that reckoning T. Tjoet Moehamat, who submitted in 1899, should have become oeléëbalang. But the bestuur, in those days of hasty pacification after the great raids through the statelets of the North and East Coast, handled the division of the oeléëbalangschappen strangely. When the place in Keureutoe had to be filled again, the bestuur did not appoint T. Tjoet Moehamat but his half-brother T. Tjhi Bentara.
Weak and unpopular
This man was much less popular with the bevolking than his half-brother, and besides not very reliable, because he was a weakling who could not sufficiently make himself respected. Perhaps this was even a recommendation in the days when a hasty pacification seemed to need meegaande (compliant) chiefs. As indifferent and unpopular as T. Tjhi Bentara was, so sympathetic and liked was his brother. T. Tjoet Moehamat was the type of the Atjehsche chiefs of that time, and his influence hung always as a shadow over the authority of his brother.
The latter had married Tjoet Meuthia — meuthia meaning pearl, and she was indeed a pearl among women. But such a woman did not fit with the limp T. Tjhi Bentara or with his dependence on the Kompeuni. Therefore he repudiated her — a gesture by an unwanted man trying to save his face. Very shortly afterwards she married his half-brother T. Tjhi Toenong.
Removed 1905, restored November 1907
After the fusillading of T. Tjhi Toenong on 5 March 1905 the position of T. Tjhi Bentara became impossible: the greater part of the submitted bevolking turned against the half-brother of whom it was said that he had brought about T. Tjhi Toenong’s death. He had to step down temporarily, until the tempers had cooled. In November 1907 he was restored to his old position; but this, Zentgraff notes, only fanned the old hatred against him, and the sympathies of all turned to the son of the fusilladed man — the boy T. Radja Sabi, the adelaarsjong — who now wandered in the mountains with the military behind him.
The suspension of his son, 1936-1937
His son succeeded him as oeléëbalang of Keureutoe; but this young man, in the judgement of the bestuur, failed because he acted Western instead of properly Eastern. In the last part of 1936 he was suspended, and in 1937 T. Radja Sabi — the rightful heir, who had submitted on 13 March 1919 after fourteen years in the forests — received the place that was his by right: he became waarnemend oeléëbalang of Keureutoe.
Significance
T. Tjhi Bentara, Zentgraff writes, was the kind of compliant chief the Dutch bestuur preferred in the days of hasty pacification: weak, dependent, and therefore easily managed, but thereby also the trigger of much of the later resistance. The story of his nephew Radjā Sabi is in great part the story of the unpopularity of his appointment and of his half-brother’s death.
The marriage and the succession
T. Tjhi’ Béntara was married to Tjoet Meutia, “the beautiful, fierce Acehnese woman,” daughter of an irreconcilable resistance leader. The marriage was repugnant to her: “the weak half-brother was no man for such a woman,” so that she provoked the formula of repudiation and married Tjoet Moehamat, the future T. Tjhi’ Toenòng.
What the half-brother arranged as oelèëbalang below, “the upland man disarranged again.”
Suspicion and temporary removal
After the execution of T. Tjhi’ Toenòng under Van Daalen, his pregnant widow and his infant son T. Radja Sabi were the actual claimants to the oelèëbalangschap, which the population also accepted. “They turned against T. Tjhi’ Béntara (she suspected, or was of course party to, the intrigue), who had temporarily to step down in view of popular indignation.”
He was restored to his function in November 1907 — whereupon Pang Nanggròë for his part proclaimed the six-year-old T. Radja Sabi oelèëbalang of Keureutòë, which drew new members to the band and raised his influence among the population.
Later
In 1916 T. Tjhi’ Béntara personally accompanied Schouten and the oelèëbalang of Seuleuma to the meeting held “somewhere in the rimba* (“jungle”)” in an attempt to bring in his wandering nephew.
On 13 March 1919 T. Radja Sabi, then eighteen and recognised at Lho’ Seumawè by a former kawan, was brought to his uncle T. Tjhi’ Béntara: “the wandering must now be at an end; he must report and submit.”
In 1936 the son of T. Tjhi’ Béntara, who had proved a failure as oelèëbalang, was suspended; in 1937 T. Radja Sabi at last became oelèëbalang of Keureutòë.
See Also
- T. Tjhi Toenong
- Tjoet Meuthia
- T. Radja Sabi
- Pang Nanggroë
- Execution of T. Tjhi Toenong (1905)
- Uleebalang
- Keureutoe
- Van Heutsz
- 1905
- 1907
- 1936
- 1937
- Aceh War
- Tjoet Meutia
- M. Schouten
- Oelèëbalang
Source
Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia. OCR-filename: 20260709_002148_DLP-81-Atjeh_OCR.txt.
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter X, pp. 94–95, 102; Chapter XI, p. 104.