Tengkoe di Paja Bakong — alias Tgk. di Mata Ië, the “Heer der bronnen” (Lord of the Springs) of the Pasé, Keureutoë, and Djambo Ajé rivers — was the younger brother of Tgk. Seupot Mata and, in Zentgraff’s judgement, of fame perhaps greater even than his brother’s. He had returned to war out of bitterness over the fusillading of T. Tjhi Toenong on 5 March 1905, and the Kompeuni hunted him from that year onward. For twelve years he escaped the sharpest pursuit in the mountains and forests of Pasé, Keureutoë, and the Gajoeland.
Twelve years pursued
Almost all the good patrol-leaders of those years once found his spoor: Van der Vlerk and Behrens sat him sometimes close on the heels, but he always escaped — and this made the fame of his mystical powers still greater. Men spoke of him in the kampongs as of one who stood above this world. When the jagers made it too hot for him he withdrew for a time into the then still barely known country of Samarkilang and the Eastern Gajoeland. T. Radja Sabi himself, in his wandering years, attached himself for a time to this famous oelama — but the man was so hunted by the military that with him there was neither rest nor peace.
The wound of 1913
In 1913 Behrens fell upon him at the Aloeë Garöt so swiftly that his turban and rosary caught in the bushes like the hair of Absalom; in this encounter Behrens was wounded in the leg. So an end had come, apparently, to the oelama’s invulnerability — yet he held out another four years.
The killing, 16 July 1917
Was it really anything but chance that a patrol under the Inlandse sergeant Toegimin, marching through Samarkilang on 16 July 1917, found in the forest an untended ladang on which two huts stood? Two unknown Atjehers were shot. From the body of one of them the leg was strongly swollen — apparently the result of an old wound. Though Tgk. di Mata Ië had been wounded in the leg in 1913, there was still doubt, when a couple of Atjehers of Samarkilang, seeing the corpse, threw themselves to the earth in deep awe, afraid of the curse of the dead man, and cried out: “Teungkoe, wees niet kwaad, het was niet onze schuld” — “Teungkoe, be not angry, it was not our fault.” The wife of the Tengkoe finally recognised him by his voetringen (foot-rings).
Significance
His spirit worked long after his death. From his last followers was formed the famous Samarkilang bende, whose head was only taken prisoner in 1937 — twenty years later. The long hunt for Tgk. di Mata Ië is the most methodical in the Atjehsche history, and one of the great examples of the tenacity both of the pursued and of the pursuer.
The long pursuit
Tgk. di Mata Ië worked on the upper Djambo Ajé with Pang Nanggròë, Tgk. Sjeh di Paja Bakong and Tgk. di Barat in the years after 1905. He survived every attack on his associates.
In 1911 the growing co-operation of the population with the Kompeuni first turned against him: “the first to suffer the evil consequences of this was the equally irreconcilable and unfindable Tgk. di Mata Ië, whose dry fields were raided. And that cost him his brother-in-law and best band-leader, besides several other relatives and all his supplies.” In May 1911 a patrol succeeded in surprising a band of his foragers, in which a woman was accidentally severely wounded; she died the next day as a result of her own wilfulness in wrenching off the bandage. In September he again lost a few followers.
The monthly report for October 1911 recorded a scene from the aftermath of the raid on his ladangs: “a patrol from the bivouac Babah Kroeëng Bidin found, in the neighbourhood of the raided dry fields of Tgk. di Mata Ië, a woman with two children who had been wandering there since the raid without having seen any of her own people again and without being able to find the fields. In a wretched condition, living on forest fruits, she had spent about a month and a half there. She was sent to Lho’ Seumawè for care.”
In February 1912 Tgk. di Barat came down from the Meergebied to the plain of Lho’ Soekon and Lho’ Seumawè in order to reorganise the resistance together with Tgk. di Mata Ië; the marechaussée awaited them, and their blows struck Tgk. di Mata Ië first, “who was to prove unfindable or unhittable for years to come,” before Behrens killed Tgk. di Barat on 22 February.
In January 1913 the foragers of Tgk. di Mata Ië were vigorously driven off by the population at Lho’ Soekon. In 1913 Behrens fell upon him so suddenly by the Aloeë Garöt that his turban and rosary remained caught in the bushes, “als het haar van Absalom”; he was wounded in the leg in that encounter. His invulnerability had apparently come to an end, yet he maintained himself four years more.
By 1913 the survey of the last unsubmitted resistance leaders listed for Lho’ Soekon only “Tgk. di Mata Ië, the survivor of the three great resistance leaders, of whom Tgk. Sjeh di Paja Bakong and Tgk. di Barat had already fallen,” together with T. Radja Sabi. By 1914 only he and T. Radja Tampo’ remained of the great resistance men.
Death, 10 July 1917
It was, as du Croo observed, almost chance that a patrol under the native sergeant Toegimin passed through Samarkilang on 10 July 1917 and found in the forest an insignificant ladang with two little houses on it. Two unknown Acehnese were shot down; the leg of one corpse was much swollen, presumably the result of an earlier wound. Although Tgk. di Mata Ië had been wounded in the leg in 1913, there was still doubt — until a few Acehnese from Samarkilang, seeing the body, threw themselves to the ground in deep reverence, afraid of the curse of the dead man, and cried out: “Teungkoe, be not angry — it was not our fault.” The Teungkoe’s wife finally recognised him by his ankle rings.
Afterlife: the Samarkilang band
“His spirit long went on working”: from his last followers was formed the well-known Samarkilang band, whose leader was not captured until 1937 — twenty years later.
Significance (du Croo, 1943)
Tgk. di Mata Ië was, with T. Radja Tampo’, one of only two great resistance figures still at large after 1914, and his career illustrates the phase of the pacification that du Croo called “the search for needles in a haystack” — the methodical, obstinate search for individual irreconcilables in a country otherwise reported month after month as “politieke toestand gunstig.” The veneration his corpse still commanded at Samarkilang measured the hold such figures retained over the population long after organised resistance had ended.
See Also
- Tengkoe Sjech di Paja Bakong
- Tengkoe di Barat
- T. Tjhi Toenong
- T. Radja Sabi
- Execution of T. Tjhi Toenong (1905)
- Behrens
- Van der Vlerk
- Toegimin
- Paja Bakong
- Pasé
- Keureutoe
- Samarkilang
- Gajoeland
- Aloeë Garöt
- Sjahid
- Prang sabil
- 1905
- 1913
- 1917
- Aceh War
- Tgk. Sjeh di Paja Bakong
- Tgk. di Barat
- Pang Nanggròë
- T. Radja Tampo’
- H. Behrens
- Samarkilang-bende
- Lho’ Soekon
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 XI, pp. 104–105; Chapter XII, pp. 117–119.