Toekoe Mas was the Achehnese head (hoofd) of the coastal kampong of Lampanas on the north coast of Groot-Atjeh, east of Oleh-leh, at the foot of one of the outrunners of the Goudberg — the principal local collaborator of the Dutch during the landing and supply of the Lamtoba column in July–September 1879, as recorded in W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889). He also appears in the book’s order of battle as one of the eight guides and interpreters attached to the column.
The reconnaissance of July 1879
In the last days before the expedition’s departure, when Generaal van der Heijden’s well-disposed Achehnese chiefs had been unable to give any significant information about the district destined for the operation, Toekoe Mas came aboard the government steamboat Zeemeeuw on the roadstead of Lampanas and conferred with the chief of the military recording brigade — 1e Luitenant G. B. Hooijer — and with the commander of the naval vessel lying there. Upon his information the landing point was determined, and a figurative sketch of the terrain to be traversed and of the plain of Lamtoba was composed, which later proved to give a fair image of the reality.
Headman of the landing place
On the morning of 27 July 1879 Toekoe Mas, with the other chiefs of the coastal strip, awaited the column-commander, Luitenant-Kolonel Gerlach, at the strand as he came ashore at about seven o’clock, the population of the little village remaining for the most part in its houses. When the Dutch met an old woman laden with household goods on her way to hide in the wilderness, it was Toekoe Mas who reassured her, so that she returned to her hovel with a lightened heart. In consultation with him the bivouac site was sought and found, a quarter of an hour from Lampanas, on a hill clothed with short grass, shaded here and there by tall timber and washed on two sides by a rivulet of pure drinking-water.
Throughout the stay of the troops the chief remained the intermediary of the camp: from him the attap- and pinang-trees for the buildings of the coastal camp could be bought, and through his good offices the littoral remained quiet even when, from 22 August, a great camp of quarantine with barracks for the whole column rose behind the strand. In the book’s distribution of guides and interpreters among the column he is named with Toekoe Ali, Toekoe Ladang Baroe, Si Nja Garu, Oetoes Ja, Mas Saäd, Mas Daud and Nja Assan (see Guides and interpreters of the Lamtoba column (1879)).
See Also
- Lampanas
- Lamtoba
- Zeemeeuw (gouvernements-stoomboot)
- G. B. Hooijer
- Guides and interpreters of the Lamtoba column (1879)
- 1879
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 4, 6, 9-10, 13. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.