Alasland (the Alas valley; in De Karbouw also Het Alasland or het landschap Alas) is the highland valley of the Alas river in south-eastern Atjeh, inhabited by the Alas people and lying to the south-east of Gajoland along the upper course of the river that flows eventually into the Singkil country and the Indian Ocean. Alasland is mentioned in Kreemer’s *De Karbouw* ([[1956)]] as one of the inner highland regions paired with Atjeh proper in matters of buffalo-vocabulary, buffalo-custom and buffalo-belief, and specifically as the home of the five mergō patrilineages among whom the prohibition of albino-buffalo slaughter is attested. The Alas country is administered, in the colonial period, as part of Atjeh en Onderhorigheden and is, in the modern Indonesian provincial structure, the Aceh Tenggara Regency of the province of Aceh.
In De Karbouw
Alasland appears in De Karbouw in a series of comparative ethnographic connections, always paired with Gajoland and Atjeh proper:
- Buffalo-vocabulary: Alas ketoeq / keketoeq “buffalo bell” (Atj. taq-toeq; Gajo grantoeng); Alas tjerös “harrow” (Atj. tjreuëh; Gajo tjeras); Alas koengkoeng “restraining yoke (dwangjuk)” (Atj. leunggoeq; Gajo toengkölön); Alas ngerbaoe “buffelen” (buffaloes trampling the soil plant-ready) (Atj. peugidong- / peulhò keubeuè; Gajo membio koro / mengoro).
- Buffalo-grazing lands: “Men denke o.a. aan de uitgestrekte grasvelden in Gajo- en Alasland, Toba en Silindoeng, de Karo-hoogvlakte, Padang-Lawas, Korintji en Boven-Djambi” (De Karbouw, p. 57) — the extensive grasslands of the Gajo and Alas lands, together with Toba, Silindoeng, the Karo plateau, Padang-Lawas, Korintji and Boven-Djambi, are mentioned as the principal buffalo-grazing plains of the Sumatran highlands.
- The albino-buffalo prohibition: “3° Het Alasland, waar hetzelfde geldt voor de mergō’s: Tjebero, Terigan, Pinding, Bintjawan en Sinagō” (De Karbouw, p. 217, citing Kreemer, *Atjeh* II, p. 544) — the prohibition on albino-buffalo slaughter applies in Alasland to the five mergō’s Tjebero, Terigan, Pinding, Bintjawan and Sinagō.
- The Alas penisìn (cognate of Atj. seumapa): “Hieraan beantwoordt het Atjehse *seumapa* en het Alasse penisìn, dat men in gelijke zin terugvindt in het Karo-Batakse penise-nisèn = ‘plotseling onwel geworden door de invloed van een boze geest’” (De Karbouw, p. 165) — the Alas term penisìn is the cognate of the Atjehse seumapa and the Karo-Batak penise-nisèn, all denoting a person or buffalo suddenly made ill by the address or touch of an evil spirit.
- The kebangkēon magical contamination of foodstuffs in a death-house: “Bij de Alassers moeten ook de rijst en de gist (ragi), die men in huis heeft, tijdig naar een andere woning worden overgebracht, daar zij anders *kebangkēon* en dus oneetbaar zouden worden” (De Karbouw, p. 224) — among the Alassers, rice and yeast in a house where someone is dying must be moved in time to another dwelling, otherwise they become kebangkēon (magically contaminated and uneatable).
- The magic stone in the rice-store: cited in De Karbouw (p. 181, nt.) from Kreemer, *Atjeh* I, p. 475; II, p. 521, alongside Atjeh, Gajoland and Karo-Batakland, for the practice of placing a magic stone on the floor of the rice-store to keep the rice-supply together and prevent rapid depletion.
Historical-geographical context
The Alas valley, watered by the upper course of the Alas river, is the principal highland valley of south-eastern Atjeh, lying between the Gayo highlands to the north-west and the Singkil and Tapanuli lowlands to the south and east. The valley has been in close contact with the Atjeh coast since the period of the Atjeh sultanate, and was incorporated into the Dutch colonial Atjeh en Onderhorigheden after the military pacification of the interior in the early years of the twentieth century. The Alas people speak the Alas language, an Austronesian language closely related to Gayo and to the languages of the Batak and Karo highlands to the south and east; the population is predominantly Muslim, the conversion traditionally attributed to the influence of the Atjeh sultanate.
Significance
Alasland is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history as the south-eastern highland interior of Atjeh, paired with Gajoland and Atjeh proper throughout De Karbouw’s comparative ethnography of buffalo-vocabulary, buffalo-custom and buffalo-belief. The Alas mergō’s Tjebero, Terigan, Pinding, Bintjawan and Sinagō are five of the six documented North-Sumatran population-groups among whom the albino-buffalo *pantang* is attested; the Alas penisìn is the cognate of the Atjehse seumapa; and the Alas kebangkēon concept is the documented Alas expression of the wider Sumatran pattern of magical contamination of foodstuffs in a death-house.
Sources
De Karbouw — Zijn betekenis voor de volken van de Indonesische Archipel, by J. Kreemer (‘s-Gravenhage / Bandung: N.V. Uitgeverij W. van Hoeve, 1956), pp. 57, 165, 181, 217, 224.
Atjèh, by J. Kreemer, vol. I (1922), p. 475; vol. II (1923), pp. 521, 544.