Teungkoe habib Moehamat bin Sajet Oesoeih was the oeléebalang of the tiny landschap of Peudawa Rajeu on the eastern coast of Atjeh. His weidsche naam — wide-sounding name — announces his Arabic descent: the title habib replaces the older Teungkoe in the Atjehnese style of those who claim sajet (sayyid) ancestry, and sajets, as Snouck Hurgronje notes, ‘hadden godsdienstigen adel en grooten invloed’ — possessed religious nobility and great influence. He wears the gold star of trouw en verdienste (loyalty and merit).
Childhood and the Dutch Recognition
When the Netherlands government established itself in the eastern coast in the years around 1873–1875 and prevented the war of Idi and Peureula over Peudawa, Moehamat was already chief, ‘een knaap van misschien 12 jaar’ — a boy of perhaps twelve years — while his mother had remarried with a chief of Baja. His upbringing may have suffered under those circumstances, but his loyalty to the government was not harmed. In 1875 he received from the government a large schenkblad — a presentation tray — of chased silver; later came the coffee-pot, the milk-jug, the whole service, and the old man of Broersma’s visit gladly shows what remains of what he received as a child. Such gifts the government gave in those days to friendly chiefs: J. A. Kruyt records that the vorst van Edi received a silver coffee-service, another chief a golden watch, a third a silver rice-dish.
Honours
In 1895 Teungkoe habib received the small star of trouw en verdienste; in 1913 he received the great star. He has preserved the charters. In 1899 he signed the Korte Verklaring in three articles, which the government had then drawn up to replace the Groote Verklaring in eighteen articles. Every year, on 31 August, he sends a congratulation to the Queen, the Governor-General and the Governor of Atjeh, with much ceremony and Arabic phrases; some time afterwards there comes a letter from the controleur of Idi thanking him. The order for that reply is given by the Queen’s Cabinet through the Ministry of Colonies. Broersma finds in that costly wish something touching, ‘tenzij…’ — unless… (the implication being that the ceremony has become an empty formality).
Means and Family
His fixed income — the landschap of Peudawa has only four hundred souls — is small: f 155 per month. His house is neither large nor beautiful; he is poor, in debt, and lives on advances. But he was rich in something else: ‘bij 14 wettige vrouwen verwekte hij 17 kinderen’ — with fourteen lawful wives he begot seventeen children. Such an Oriental patriarchy is, Broersma notes, no unicum among the chiefs of Atjeh.
Significance
Teungkoe habib is the type of the small oeléebalang whose loyalty to the Dutch was earned young and never faltered — a loyalty that became, in his old age, a matter of ceremony and keepsake rather than of political substance. His schenkblad and his silver service are the material survivals of the early Dutch policy of recognition-gifts to friendly chiefs, a policy documented in the literature of the Atjeh-oorlog blockade-period.
See Also
- Peudawa Rajeu
- Oeléebalang
- Habib
- Sajet (title)
- Korte Verklaring (1899)
- Groote Verklaring
- Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
- J. A. Kruyt
- Dr. Snouck Hurgronje
- 1875
- 1895
- 1899
- 1913
- 31 August
Source
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), chapter VI, ‘Oeléebalang’s volkshoofden’, pp. 42–44. Also Atjeh en de Atjehers, by J. A. Kruyt (Leiden 1877), for the gift-practice, and Het Achehnese, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, Vol. I (Leyden 1906), for the sajet/habib nomenclature.