Gampong Jawa

A village (gampong) within or near the capital of Acheh. It was inhabited chiefly by Javanese and Malay settlers and traders, as well as foreigners who had settled in Acheh. Javanese and Malay traders in Gampong Jawa had grown accustomed to using tea and coffee during their sojourn in Arabia or from Achehnese neighbours. During the civil war between Jeumaloy and Pochut Muhamat, Jeumaloy fortified Gampong Jawa (along with Peunayong and Meura’sa) as a stronghold; its fall to Pochut Muhamat was decisive. The tomb of Poteu Jeumaloy (the Arab claimant to the Achehnese throne) is located in the ancient Gampong Kandang, not far from The Dalam. The sadati kisah also mentions: ‘In Gampong Jawa the heavens are greatly overcast; storms of rain and thunder and lightning come up. Cocoanut trees are cleft in twain.’ Habib Abdurrahman (the Habib par excellence) was absent from Acheh on a voyage to Constantinople at the outbreak of the Dutch war; upon his return he entered Achehnese soil and assumed a considerable share in the conduct of the war; he also worked on the Meuseugit Raya after his arrival. The sadati texts also say: ‘In Gampong Jawa there are lamps in a row; let us make processions round the tomb of the Prophet.’ The Sayyid of the family of Aidarus who lived in Gampong Jawa was revered as a saint even during his lifetime.

Gampong Jawa (lit. “Javanese Village”) was one of the most important and prosperous gampongs in the vicinity of Banda Acheh and the seat of Acehnese court culture. It was listed by C. Snouck Hurgronje among the most important gampongs near the capital, alongside Pande, Pennayong, Lam Bhu’, Lueng Bata, Lam Seupeuëng, Ateuëng, Batoh, and Meura’sa.

Location of Teungku Anjong

Gampong Jawa was especially significant as the location of the tomb of Teungku Anjong — identified as Sayyid Abu Bakar bin Husain Bil-Faqih — which Snouck Hurgronje described as the most highly honoured kramat (sacred shrine) in all of Acheh at the time of his writing, having completely outshone the formerly most revered tomb of Abdurra’uf of Singkel (Teungku di Kuala).

Population Character

The inhabitants of Gampong Jawa and the neighbouring villages near the capital were distinguished by the epithet banda (“town-bred” or civilized), as opposed to the dusön (country people) of more remote districts. Their language and customs set the tone for all of Great Acheh.

Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Gampong Java

Gampong Java (Achehnese gampông Java, “the Javanese village”) is a locality near the capital of Acheh in which, according to Snouck Hurgronje, the holy saint Sayyid Teungku Anjong is buried. The shrine of this saint was, in the late nineteenth century, one of the great destinations of parental vows on behalf of sick children, and Gampong Java accordingly takes its place among the minor sacred geographies of Great Acheh. Gampong Java (Achehnese gampông Jawà, “the Javanese village”) is a settlement in or near the capital of Acheh celebrated as the burial-place of the great saint Teungku Anjong, and consequently one of the most venerated places of pilgrimage in the whole country. Snouck Hurgronje describes it, in his chapter on the saints of Acheh, as the site of the tomb that has “completely outshone the more ancient tomb of Teungku di Kuala Abdora’oh (Abdurra’uf of Singkel) which enjoyed the highest reputation in former times.”

The Saint of Gampong Java

The holy Sayyid Teungku Anjong — a sayyid by descent and so a descendant of the Prophet — was reverenced as one of the great saints (wali or keulia) of Acheh. His shrine at Gampong Java attracted, in Snouck’s account, the same class of devotions as were paid at the tomb of the renowned Teungku di Kuala Abdora’oh of Singkel, the saint whose memory was so powerful that sufferers from every part of the Achehnese territories resorted to it. Both saints were reckoned among the small number whose intercession could be sought on behalf of a child that had not yet been “brought down” — that is, had not yet been ceremonially introduced to the earth by contact with the soil of a holy place.

The Vow of the First Contact with Earth

Among the popular observances described by Snouck is the parental vow whereby the parents of a sick child promise that, in the event of its recovery, they will not merely bring it to the nearest holy tomb for the peusijuk (the inaugural contact with the earth) but will take it on a pilgrimage to the resting-place of one of the great saints of Acheh. The two such saints named are the Teungku di Kuala Abdora’oh of Singkel and the holy Sayyid Teungku Anjong buried in Gampong Java. Where the vow includes the expression of an intention to head the procession with geundrang — the two-headed drum of royal and ceremonial music — and the flute, the child is escorted to the sacred spot by a great procession of men and women, cattle are slaughtered, and a feast is given at the tomb.

The Place of the Gampong in the Sacred Geography

Gampong Java, lying near the capital, was thus one of the principal sacred sites of the immediate hinterland of Banda-Acheh. Its name — the Javanese village — probably records a settlement of Javanese immigrants or of descendants of captives and settlers brought to Acheh from Java during the period of Achehnese commercial and military expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Such Javanese settlements were common in the suburbs of the Achehnese capital, and the attachment of a sayyid’s shrine to one of them is a typical instance of the way in which the sacred geography of Acheh grew up around the tombs of holy men, without reference to the political or commercial origins of the settlements in which they happened to die.

Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Gampong Jawa

Gampong Jawa is a gampong (village) of Acheh in the neighbourhood of the capital, Banda Acheh, and the site of the most highly honoured tomb in the country, that of the great saint Teungku Anjong (Sayyid Abu Bakar bin Husain Bil-Faqih). It figures in The Achehnese Vol. I both as a religious centre of the first rank and as a political example of the compromising tendency that came over certain communities of the lowlands after the establishment of Dutch authority.

The tomb of Teungku Anjong in Gampong Jawa has completely outshone the more ancient tomb of Teungku di Kuala (Abdora’oh, i.e. Abdurra’uf of Singkel), which had previously enjoyed the highest reputation in Acheh. The annual religious feasts of the Achehnese calendar are intimately connected with this shrine. A specially great kanduri Mo’lot is held on the actual Mo’lot day at the tomb, when one or more buffaloes are slaughtered and pieces of meat are sent by the guardian of the tomb to sundry ulamas. On the 18th of the month Rajab a second of the three principal annual kanduris is held in the deah (prayer-house) of the tomb, in honour of the saint’s consort, commonly known as Aja Eseutiri (“my lady the consort”), a daughter of a Sayyid of the famous Aidid clan, who appears to have died on the 18th of Rajab 1235 (May 1820). The third of the annual kanduris takes place on the night before the 14th of the month, dedicated to the saint himself, who according to the Achehnese died on the 14th of the same month.

Snouck Hurgronje’s account of Gampong Jawa also bears on the trustworthiness of Achehnese written tradition. The so-called laws of Sultan Meukuta Alam mention the tomb of Teungku Anjong, although Teungku Anjong (who died in 1782) was not even born in the reign of Meukuta Alam (who died in 1636); the anachronism shows how little reliance can be placed on Achehnese data in respect to the origin of written laws. The general tendency, he notes, is to refer all that has become customary law to the Sultans of the past.

In the political life of the late sultanate and the early Dutch period, Gampong Jawa is cited as a byword for submission. Even the people of Meura’sa and Gampong Jawa, who had wholly compromised themselves by complete submission, continued to call all Dutch authorities kafir and to speak, without the slightest intention to give offence, of the regulations of the kaphe — thus in their common talk denying to the Dutch Government the very authority to which they had submitted. Their attitude is contrasted with the more stubborn view of the up-country Achehnese, who held that the estimate of infidels that prevailed in Acheh in ancient times was more reliable than the view taken by the people of Meura’sa, Gampong Jawa and the like, according to which the wisest course would be to submit to the first kafir power that came by. Gampong Jawa (sometimes written Gampong Java) was one of the most important gampongs or villages of Banda Acheh, the capital of Acheh. It is named in The Achehnese among the chief gampongs which clustered around the Dalam — the Sultan’s residence — together with Pande, Peunayong, Lam Bhu, Lueng Bata, Lam Seupeu’eng, Ateung, Batoh and Meura’sa. Together with their neighbours, the inhabitants of these villages were distinguished by the epithet banda — “town-bred” or “civilized” — and gave the tone to the whole country in matters of custom and dress.

Sources

Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 26, 30, 87, 92, 113, 124, 132, 153, 167, 260. Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159–239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.

Source

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.

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. Chapter I, §§ 2, 9, pp. 24, 156.

tags	place, aceh-proper, gampong, capital-area, ziarah, sacred-site, religious-site, capital, village, acehnese, kampong, chinese-traders, left-bank, aceh-war
aliases	Kampong Jawa, Gampông Jawa, Java Village, Gampông Java, Gampong Djawa, Kampung Jawa, Gampong Java, Gampong Jawè, The Javanese village of Acheh, Kampong Djawa, Kampong Java

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