Toean di boh — Acehnese for “Master of the garden” or “Lord of the orchard” — is an Acehnese Islamic saint (auliya) invoked in Atjeh specifically for the relief of female infertility. He is named in Prof. Dr. Kernkamp’s chapter De invloed van den Islam in Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946), in the section on Islamic influence over family life: “In Atjeh there is even a particular Saint for this purpose (Toean di boh), of whom only the, magically potent, member (geslachtsdeel) would be buried in the grave.”
Cult and significance
Kernkamp’s account places the cult of Toean di boh within the wider category of Islamic saint-veneration in Atjeh, alongside the Teungku Anjong kanduri on the 18th of Rejab. The specific attribution to this saint of a magically potent phallus buried in his grave is, in Kernkamp’s reading, an example of the syncretism between Islamic sainthood and the older, magico-religious substratum of Atjehnese popular religion: the saint is invoked through the conventional Islamic channels (visit to the grave, tahlil recitation, vows), but the specific power attributed to him — relief of female infertility — and the specific physical locus of that power (the buried member) place the cult firmly in the domain of sympathetic magic. Kernkamp classifies this as one of the many cases in which “the old folk religion still peeps round the corner” of formal Islamic practice in Atjeh.
The parallel structure of the Alas lands’ treatment of infertility — where, Kernkamp notes, an infertile woman “is pricked in the breast, after which the ‘lucky blood’ is let flow down the river under muttered formulas” — places the Atjeh Toean di boh within a wider northern-Sumatran complex of magico-religious responses to infertility, in which Islamic sainthood (in Atjeh) and blood-letting magic (in Alas) function as alternative ritual technologies.
Dutch terms used in this article
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
- Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
- invloed van den Islam — influence of Islam
- Teungku — religious teacher (Atjeh form)
- tahlil — funeral recitation
- kanduri — religious feast-meal
- Rejab — Rajab
- Toean di boh — Lord of the garden (Atjeh fertility saint)
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Acheh — Aceh
- Sumatra — Sumatra
- Alaslanden — Alas lands
- Alasland — Alas land
- Alas — Alas
- Prof. Dr. — Professor Doctor
- Dr. — Doctor
See Also
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- W. J. A. Kernkamp
- Teungku Anjong
- Acheh
- Alaslanden
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- J. Kreemer
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), p. 98 (chapter De invloed van den Islam door Prof. Dr. W. J. A. Kernkamp).