Tengkoe Poetih was the grandson of the holy Habib Seunagan, whose grave is still in high honour among all the people of the Westkust of Atjeh. He was one of the most famous and dangerous resistance leaders of the Westkust, with many fanatic followers and a spion-network that, in Zentgraff’s phrase, had certainly as many eyes in the surroundings of Schmidt as the Kompeuni had among the bevolking. He figures as the great antagonist of the Dutch in the Seunagan-country in the years 1906–1907 and again in 1917.
The 1906-1907 resistance
In 1906 and 1907 Tengkoe Poetih agitated against the Dutch in Seunagan, where the people were already notorious with the Dutch troops for their klewangaanvallen. Among his followers was Pang Sihim (properly Si Brahim), at the head of a strong bende, who in 1906 and 1907 fought against the Dutch. (Pang Sihim, when captured and held in the prison at Meulaboh, was denied the opium to which he was addicted, and went mad in his cell from cold-turkey agony — begging, weeping, crawling before his guards for sedikit sadja, just a little opium. But that is another story.) When the great work in Seunagan was over, Tengkoe Poetih still lived, and with him the network of spies.
The spy network
In those years one fought especially against Tengkoe Poetih, who had many and fanatical adherents, and certainly as many spies in the surroundings of Schmidt as Schmidt had among the bevolking of Seunagan, for which the people of Seunagan were notorious with the Dutch troops. One was never sure of the morrow. Tengkoe Poetih had among his spies a trader who kept himself informed in the keudé of all that passed, and who knew how to pass on what he learned. Schmidt once made a blocnote of his observations and made a few notes; the spy of Tengkoe Poetih stood by with bulging eyes, and when Schmidt the next day had an Atjeher arrested, that spy informed Tengkoe Poetih; the danger of betrayal was constant.
The 1917 moordaanslag on Gosenson
In 1917 Tengkoe Poetih was, Zentgraff records, the auctor intellectualis — the intellectual author — of the moordaanslag (attempted murder) on Gosenson. The affair was one of the late great crises of the Atjehsche guerrilla, and tied Tengkoe Poetih’s name to that of the famous captain whose face bore the great scar that ran across it “als een pad waarover de Dood is gegaan” — like a path over which Death has walked.
Significance
Zentgraff introduces Tengkoe Poetih in the same breath as T. Bin Blang Pidië (who had submitted to Veltman in 1908) and as the great surviving figure of the older generation on the Westkust. His grandfather’s grave still in high honour, his spy-network as good as the Dutch bestuur’s own, his hand behind the attempt on Gosenson’s life — he is the patriarch of the late Westkust resistance, the man whose existence tied the war of 1906–1907 to that of 1917 and so to the great flare-up of 1925–1927 under Tjoet Ali.
See Also
- Habib Seunagan
- Gosenson
- Schmidt
- Tjoet Ali
- Veltman
- Seunagan
- Westkust
- Meulaboh
- Sjahid
- Prang sabil
- 1906
- 1907
- 1917
- Aceh War
Source
Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia. OCR-filename: 20260709_002148_DLP-81-Atjeh_OCR.txt.