Boeboen — also Bubon, in Anderson’s 1825 record Kwala Bubon or Sungey Langkat — is the kampong at the river-mouth of Tandjoengpoera in the bay of Aroe that Anderson’s Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra (1825) records as the temporary refuge of “a large colony of Malays, however, from Lancavy, who fled when the Siamese attacked that place”, and which De Roo de la Faille identifies with the padoeka Boeboennja of the Sadjarah Malajoe — the king whose hoeloebalang Awi Ditjoe captured the radja of Samudra.
Anderson’s 1825 record
In his Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra (1825), Anderson records (p. 239): “From Timian to Kwala Bubon, the land forms a deep bay, not easily perceived from a distance, in consequence of two islands that front it, and which are not easily distinguished from the mainland, unless when close in shore. The names of the islands are Pulo Tampasalee and Pulo Sampa-tuah (Pulo Tampilis and Pulo Kampei). Between these islands, the Malays informed us there was a safe channel that leads into a river Kayu Lapan”. This is, De Roo de la Faille notes, “a clear description of the bay of Aroe with the teroesan between Tampilis and Kampei, and the kampong Boeboen at the river-mouth of Tandjoengpoera”.
Identification with Sjahroe’n Noewi’s padoeka Boeboennja
The Sadjarah Malajoe’s Awi Ditjoe episode records that the king of Sjahroe’n Noewi who sent Awi Ditjoe to capture the radja of Samudra was “padoeka Boeboennja” — “his foot-soled of Boeboen”. De Roo de la Faille identifies this Boeboen with Anderson’s kampong Boeboen at the river-mouth of Tandjoengpoera — i.e. with the east-coast polity whose identification with Sjahroe’n Noewi ties the Sadjarah Malajoe’s chronicle geography to the Aroe-Atjeh sphere.
The Lancavy colony and Siamese pressure
Anderson’s record that the kampong Boeboen was a colony of Malays from Lancavy who had fled the Siamese attack on that place fixes Boeboen as a recipient of Malay refugees from the Siamese pressure of the early nineteenth century — the same Siamese pressure that, in the fourteenth century, had made the padoeka Boeboennja of the chronicle tributary to Siam. The continuity of Siamese pressure on the east-coast polities — from the Sadjarah Malajoe’s record to Anderson’s 1825 mission — is the political frame of the Atjehnese conquest of Aroe of 1539.
Significance
For AcehWiki, Boeboen is the principal east-coast topographical anchor of De Roo de la Faille’s identification of Sjahroe’n Noewi with Tandjoengpoera-Aroe — the kampong Boeboen of Anderson’s 1825 record that ties the Sadjarah Malajoe’s padoeka Boeboennja to the river-mouth of Tandjoengpoera. Its record as a recipient of Langkawi refugees also fixes it as a place of Malay refuge from Siamese pressure in both the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries.
See Also
- Tandjoengpoera
- Sjahroe’n Noewi
- Aroe-baai
- Anderson’s Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra (1825)
- Langkawi
- Siam
- Awi Ditjoe
- Sadjarah Malajoe
- Atjeh-Aroe War (1539)
- Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java
Source
Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java, by P. de Roo de la Faille (Den Haag: Maart 1954), chapter “Over Sjahroe’n Noewi”, pp. 25-26, citing Anderson, Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra (1825), p. 239.