Tengkoe Koetakarang — Tgk. Koetakarang — was an Acehnese writer, an oelama of the Atjeh-oorlog, whose vlugschriften (polemical pamphlets) were edited by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje in 1892 and published as the Tadkirat arrakidin — “Admonition of the Sitting-Still”, that is, a call to those still sitting still to rise and join the war against the unbeliever. The pamphlet is one of the central documents of Atjehsche war-literature, and Zentgraff cites it in his Inleiding as the Atjehsche voice that judged the colonial government’s conduct of the war.
The “Tadkirat arrakidin”
In the Tadkirat arrakidin — edited by Snouck Hurgronje (see his report of 1892) — Tengkoe Koetakarang describes the treatment which general Van der Heyden received at the hands of the Dutch government as an example of Dutch unreliability that does not spare even the Netherlands’ own meritorious men. Zentgraff cites the passage:
“Zij (de Hollanders) sluiten ook fraaie tractaten die zij naleven zoolang zij nog nieuw zijn, doch is de bevolking eenmaal door hen gevangen als een vogel in een kool, dan schenden zij die beloften schaamteloos. Nu en dan zenden zij vergiftigde geschenken, en door het gebied dat zij beheerschen laten zij geneesheeren rondgaan, die echter inderdaad als spionnen der Kompeuni dienstdoen. Later verbannen zij, wie niet in alle opzichten hunnen wensch volgt; zelfs den eenoogigen generaal, iemand van hun eigen soort, hebben zij verbannen.”
That is: “They (the Hollanders) also conclude fine treaties, which they observe so long as they are still new, but once the population is caught by them like a bird in a cage, then they shamelessly break those promises. Now and then they send poisoned gifts, and through the territory they rule they send doctors round, who in fact serve as spies of the Kompeuni. Later they banish whoever does not in all respects follow their wish; even the one-eyed general, a man of their own kind, they have banished.”
The “one-eyed general” is Van der Heyden, whose afdanking and wegzening (dismissal and banishment) by the Dutch government is, in Tengkoe Koetakarang’s view, the proof of Dutch unreliability even towards their own servants — a proof, the Atjehsche reader was meant to conclude, that no treaty with the kaphé can be trusted.
Significance
Zentgraff introduces Tengkoe Koetakarang’s Tadkirat arrakidin to make his point that it is good for the Dutch reader to step outside his own self-complacency and listen for once to judgement from the enemy’s camp. The Tadkirat arrakidin is, with the hikajat prang of Tengkoe Sjech Saman di Tiro and the heldendicht Prang Kompeuni of Dokarim, one of the three great Atjehsche prose-poetical witnesses to the war.
See Also
- Snouck Hurgronje
- Van der Heyden
- Tadkirat arrakidin
- Dokarim
- Tengkoe Sjech Saman di Tiro
- Hikajat prang
- Aceh War
- 1892
- 19th-century
- Aceh
Source
Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia. OCR-filename: 20260709_002148_DLP-81-Atjeh_OCR.txt.