Tengkoe Sjech di Paja Bakong — nicknamed Seupot Mata, “the darkened eye”, because he was almost blind — was the elder of the two famous Paja Bakong oelama’s and one of the most venerated of all the strijdbare geestelijke hoofden of the Atjeh-oorlog. His brother was Tgk. di Mata Ië, the “Heer der bronnen” of the Pasé, Keureutoe, and Djambo Ajé rivers. He lived as an ascetic, striving, far above matter, on the spiritual field. His abawar — a straight kris with golden handle — had been consecrated in the spirit of the mystical Sjech Abdoel Kadeuë, the heilige van het ijzer (saint of the iron), by the elemee keubaj, the ilmoe or doctrine of invulnerability known only to a few wise men. If, in case of need, he raised this abawar, he became invisible, and his assailants were struck with paralysis.
”Jean Marteau”
Although he could no longer see the things of this earth, his spirit winged far ahead, and there were times in which the threads of the leadership of the resistance came together at him. At meetings with the Dutch patrols he always escaped, sometimes only by the narrowest margin — and so he earned among the Dutch commanders the nickname Jean Marteau (John the Hammer), in grim allusion to his hammering power of escape and survival. About the head of this legendary old man with the darkened eye the legends wove themselves like ivy on an old pillar, and he was kramat.
The last journey with the bende of T. Radja Sabi
In October 1910 the bende of the young T. Radja Sabi — with his mother Tjoet Meuthia and a following of Tiro-bandieten — wandered through the mountains, seeking the schuilplaats of Tgk. di Mata Ië and arriving at last at that of his brother Seupot Mata. The blind old oelama was carried on the back of one of his servants, a giant in body and a child in mind. They marched by the bedding of the Kroeëng Peutoë. On 25 October 1910 Mosselman’s brigade — pursuing the bende — came upon them.
T. Radja Sabi, then a boy of about ten, was standing unarmed in the beek fishing when the warning cry “Kaphé datang” sounded; one of his kawans seized him in his arms and bore him into the wood. “Saja tida lihat lagi lboe” — “I have not seen my mother again.” His mother Tjoet Meuthia fell in this overval, charging the brigade with loosened hair and the klewang. So too did the old Seupot Mata, who became sjahid in October 1910, and it was Mosselman who made him a martyr of the faith.
The captured seal
In the official report of the overval, beside the seven dead (among whom was the bendehoofd and a woman who took part in the fight) and the booty of a Beaumontcarabine, munition, blanke wapens, the seal and side-arms of Tgk. Sjech di Paja Bakong, alias Tgk. Seupot Mata are listed. In another seal was the name of Teukoe Blang-Pié. Mosselman noted that he had here laid hands on the generalen staf der verzetspartij — the general staff of the resistance party — and that gave great satisfaction.
Significance
So strong was the eleumeë of this old man. Even when he could no longer see the things of this earth, his spirit winged far ahead, and there were times in which the threads of the leadership of the resistance came together at him. His brother Mata Ië would survive him by seven years, to fall finally in July 1917 near Samarkilang.
Resistance career
Tgk. Sjeh di Paja Bakong worked on the upper Djambo Ajé with Pang Nanggròë after the latter married Tjoet Meutia in 1905 and formed a band around her and around the child T. Radja Sabi. Together with Tgk. di Mata Ië and Tgk. di Barat he made Keureutòë the most persistently disturbed district of the north coast.
In 1908 the increasing co-operation of the population with the Kompeuni began to tell against him: Tgk. di Barat lost two of his best subordinate commanders while Tgk. di Paja Bakong lost his best pang (subordinate leader). In consequence both principal resistance leaders no longer felt safe in Keureutòë and withdrew into the Gajòlanden, where they hid.
Death, 25 October 1910
The end came a month after the death of Pang Nanggròë. From Lho’ Soekon brigade commander W. J. Mosselman of the 5th Division, 1st brigade, had marched out on 22 October 1910 to trace a band signalled at Lho’ Reuhat. That trail crossed the path of Tjoet Meutia, who was travelling with her son towards the Gajòland to seek Tgk. di Mata Ië; on the third day Mosselman was on fresh tracks in a side-stream of the Kroeëng Peutòë.
The pursuit was long and exhausting. The djahats first lured Mosselman in a false direction and then repeatedly gave new “spoorzoekers-maatjes”; he had largely young soldiers with him and only one genuine tracker, Wokas. Thanks to Wokas the true trail was found: a band that had fanned out, each part hiding its traces, to reunite at an appointed point. From the tracks Mosselman concluded he had “groot wild” (“big game”) before him.
Provisions ran out; men fell out; Mosselman was reduced to ten and finally to seven, against a band certainly sixty strong. Towards four in the afternoon of 25 October, after a stiff climb, he saw smoke above the trees. Some 150 metres up a side-creek they found a marching bivouac under construction, hurriedly abandoned. Storming on, they came upon the band about to cross the stream some thirty metres ahead. Mamahit, then in front, pointed out an old man being helped along by three others, trying to escape into the forest, and fired; the old man fell wounded.
Immediately the fire broke out on all sides. Mosselman with Tarmin and Mamahit jumped into a pool of the bend, standing to the waist in water with the steep rock wall at their backs. Their four remaining men opened a heavy fire in the rear of the enemy’s marksmen; the shouting “Madjoe, hantam marsausee!” made the enemy suppose himself surrounded; the incitement La illaha illalah faded, and Mosselman charged into the forest at the thickest knot.
Before them lay the old man, just carried by the others and hit by the Dutch fire. From behind boulders two vigorous young men sprang up, covering the fallen man with their bodies, klewang and rentjong in their fists; they had to be cut down. Leaping over the old man, Mosselman saw that he was already dead, lying still and not reacting to the hand-to-hand fight above him; he glimpsed the golden weapon, the famous “bawar”, and it flashed through him that this was “een Hooge.” “The self-sacrificing manner too in which he was defended by those two young men, who truly died a hero’s death, told me as much.”
So fell, in H. C. Zentgraaff’s words as quoted by du Croo, “the great blind resistance leader, venerated as a saint, Teungkoe Sjeh di Paja Bakong (Seupot Mata), his son Tgk. Mat Saleh, and Tjoet Meutia as well.” T. Radja Sabi escaped once more.
Significance (du Croo, 1943)
The death of Tgk. Sjeh di Paja Bakong, following that of Pang Nanggròë a month earlier, brought the decisive turn in Keureutòë: in 1910 seventy-one resistance men were killed there, fifty-one taken prisoner and eighty submitted, and 1911 brought “the great improvement,” the monthly reports opening habitually with the phrase “the political situation remained favourable.” (“the political situation remained favourable”) His son-in-law T. Ali van Pira’, a former band-leader, defected with eight followers in June 1911 but reported himself again after six nights.
Mosselman, who as brigade commander of the 5th Division of the marechaussée “den beruchten Teungkoe di Paja Bakong neerlegde,” was made Knight 3rd Class of the Militaire Willemsorde; he later transferred to the air service and was pensioned as onderluitenant with the rank of second lieutenant.
See Also
- Tengkoe di Paja Bakong
- Tjoet Meuthia
- T. Radja Sabi
- Mosselman
- Paja Bakong
- Kroeëng Peutoeë
- Abawar
- Sjech Abdoel Kadeuë
- Kramat
- Sjahid
- Prang sabil
- 1910
- Aceh War
- Tjoet Meutia
- Pang Nanggròë
- Tgk. di Barat
- Tgk. di Mata Ië
- Tgk. Mat Saleh
- W. J. Mosselman
- Wokas
- Keureutòë
- Kroeëng Peutòë
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. 98–101; Chapter XI, pp. 103–104.