Ateung was one of the principal gampongs (villages) which, in the period before the Achehnese war, formed the prosperous nucleus around the Sultan’s residence in Banda Acheh. It is named by C. Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I alongside Gampong Jawa, Pande, Peunayong, Lam Bhu, Lueng Bata (or Lu’eng Bata), Lam Seupeu’eng, Batoh and Meura’sa as among “the most important of these gampongs.”
These villages clustered about the Dalam — the Sultan’s residence, also known as Kuta Raja “the king’s fort,” a name improperly extended by the Dutch to the whole capital. The centre of the cluster, with its mosque and market-place, was called Banda Acheh — “the capital or trading mart of Acheh” — and gave the tone to the whole country in matters of custom, dress, and speech.
The inhabitants of Ateung and its neighbouring gampongs, together with their language and customs, were distinguished by the epithet banda — that is, “town-bred” or “civilized.” Country people who conformed as much as possible to the manners of the capital enjoyed the same title; in contrast, all who spoke in their own local dialects and were unacquainted with town manners were called dareun (cf. Sundanese désa), that is, “countrified” or “uncivilized.”
The band of gampongs of which Ateung formed a part thus constituted the cultural hearth of Acheh. As Snouck observes, “the lowlanders have followed the people of the capital,” and the banda-dareun distinction ran through the whole of lowland Great Acheh. The subsequent destruction of these gampongs during the war of 1873 onwards, and the Dutch remodelling of the site as the government station of Kuta Raja, fundamentally altered the geography of the capital; but the pre-war list of which Ateung was a member preserves the memory of the older Achehnese town.
See Also
- Banda Acheh
- Dalam (Sultan’s Court)
- Kuta Raja
- Gampong Jawa
- Pande
- Peunayong
- Lam Bhu
- Lueng Bata
- Lam Seupeu’eng
- Batoh
- Meura’sa
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.