Eumpee Lulu (also Eumpèe Luluh, Gunong Lhee) — the “Haunted Mountain” of Acehnese popular superstition — is a mountain that rises from the sea close to the coast of Lam Pu’ue’ in the Eumpee Lulu of the lowland XXV Mukims. It is personified by the legend of Grandmother Lulu, an old woman of insatiable thirst who prayed for rain until torrents fell, drank it all as it fell, walked into the sea, and was transformed into this mountain. A noise like growling thunder is always heard there; at times the Grandmother shakes the mountain so that it trembles. Her descendants still survive, and among them there is always a woman who commands the art of making rain: in times of drought she goes to the sea, falls into a frenzy, tries to rush into the sea, is held back by force, and gives commands that produce rain (Snouck Hurgronje, The Achehnese Vol. II).
The Legend of Grandmother Lulu
The legend holds that an old woman named Grandmother Lulu, attacked by a raging thirst, caused her husband and neighbours to drain every spring and well for miles around. Still unable to slake her thirst, she prayed to God; rain fell in torrents, she drank it all, walked into the sea, and was transformed into the mountain now named after her. A noise like growling thunder is always heard at the mountain; at times the Grandmother shakes it so that it trembles. Her descendants still survive, and among them is always a woman who inherits the art of rain-making, performing a frenzied procession to the sea during droughts. The mountain is thus at once a topographical feature and a surviving local cult: the woman who commands the rain is the living heir of the Grandmother who became the mountain.
The IV Mukims of the XXV
The IV Mukims of the XXV — the “Four Mukims of the Twenty-Five” — is the territorial division of the lowland XXV Mukims of Great Acheh in which Eumpee Lulu rises from the sea. Snouck Hurgronje repeatedly names the district in connection with the cultivation of sugar-cane and the rain-making superstition of the Acehnese coast.
The IV Mukims as a Wakeueh-District
The IV Mukims of the XXV is reckoned among the wakeueh-districts of Great Acheh — that is, among the smaller territories severed by the earlier sultans from the control of the great uleebalangs and placed directly under the sultan’s own rule. The institution of wakeueh was a means adopted by the earlier sultans for strengthening their internal authority: they succeeded in getting the ruling chiefs both in Acheh proper and the various dependencies to consent to a certain portion of their territories — usually three mukims — being severed from their control. The chief or chiefs of these smaller districts were thus brought directly under the sultan’s rule and withdrawn from that of the uleebalangs. In the XXV Mukims, the IV Mukims is a slightly larger wakeueh-district of four mukims, and its chiefs enjoyed a corresponding independence of the Panglima Polem of the XXV.
Sugar-Cane, Molasses, and the Pula Method
The IV Mukims is named by Snouck as one of the three districts of Great Acheh in which the cultivation of sugar-cane for molasses was most extensively carried on: “Molasses is chiefly manufactured in the XXII Mukims, the VII Mukims Bu’ëng and the IV Mukims, since in these places the cane is of inferior quality.” The cane-gardens of these districts were manured with cow-dung, the same preventive being adopted against disease in the cane as against disease in the padi — viz. the spreading of burnt cow-dung (abee) over the field. The inferior quality of the cane in the IV Mukims, which made it unsuitable for direct consumption but adequate for boiling down into molasses, fixes the district as a lowland, well-watered, and relatively densely settled corner of the XXV.
The same IV Mukims appears in the agricultural chapter as one of the districts in which the pula (transplanting) method of padi-cultivation is practised, “with certain modifications in swampy districts such as the VII Mukims Bu’ëng.” The pula method, in which the padi is first sown in a seed-bed and then transplanted to the flooded field, was characteristic of the more careful husbandry of the lowland sagis, and its practice in the IV Mukims is consistent with the picture of a well-cultivated and densely settled lowland district.
The Mountain on the Coast
A footnote in the chapter on the kawoms names Gunong Lhee (Eumpèe Luluh) as “a mountain on the coast of the IV Mukims which plays a part in the rain-making superstition,” placing it alongside Ja Kariéng (a dreaded tree on Pulo Lam Puyang, the subject of many vows) and Eumpèe Blieng (a holy well in the IX Mukims that also helps to cause rain). The mountain is thus the principal topographical feature of the IV Mukims, and the rain-making observance attached to it is one of the survivals of the older local cults of the lowland coast. The IV Mukims is accordingly a district in which the political and agricultural importance of the wakeueh-land is combined with a marked topographical character and a surviving body of popular superstition.
Relation to Other “Four Mukims”
The generic name “IV Mukims” is also borne by the IV Mukims Ateue of the XXVI and (in a wider confederation) by the IV Mukims of the VII of the XXVI. The fact that three different districts of Great Acheh could each be called simply “the IV Mukims” reflects the Acehnese convention by which the smaller wakeueh-districts and territorial fractions were identified by their numerical designation alone — in contrast to three-mukim districts such as Lhee Mukim Lam Rabo or Lhee Mukim Kayee Adang.
See Also
- XXV Mukims
- IV Mukims Ateue
- IV Mukims of the VII of the XXVI
- VII Mukims Bueng
- XXII Mukims
- XXVI Mukims
- IX Mukims
- Gunong Lhee
- Eumpèe Blieng
- Ja Karieng
- Pulo Lam Puyang
- Panglima Polem
- Lam Pu’ue’
- Great Acheh
- Acheh Proper
- Wakeueh
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.
The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.