III Mukims

Properties2
tagsplace, mukim, region, wakeueh, territorial-division, great-acheh, aceh, groot-atjeh, 19th-century, administrative-division, sultan-territory, tjot-putee, sagi, north-east-coast, district, xxii-mukims, tunong, uleebalang, twelve-uleebalangs
aliasesThree Mukims, Mukim Lhee, III Mukims Keureukon, Mukim Lhé, Lhee Mukim, III Mukims of Great Acheh, III Moekims, 3 Mukims, the Three Moekims, III Moekims of Groot-Atjeh, Tjot Poetoe III Moekims, Mukim Lhèe, Mukim Lhee Keureukon, Reubee, V Mukims, Five Mukims, V Mukims of the XXII

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The III Mukims — known in Achehnese as the Mukim Lhèë (“the mukims three”) and now officially styled the III Mukims Keureukon — is a small territorial division of Great Acheh that has the peculiar distinction of having belonged to none of the three sagis of the kingdom. Both the sagi of the XXVI Mukims and that of the XXII Mukims claimed that this district originally belonged to them, but both allowed that it had for a long time past been withdrawn from all connection with their Panglimas. The people of the “Mukims Three” were also well aware of this, though they acknowledged that they were ureuëng Tunong, thus admitting the correctness of the assertion of the sagi of the XXII Mukims. The III Mukims thus constituted a wakeueh district — that is to say, a territory severed from the control of the uleebalangs and placed directly under the sultan’s rule, in accordance with a political device of the early sultans intended to create, within the sphere of each powerful chief, a territory of their own on which they could rely to support their efforts at centralisation.

In the wars between the two above-named sagis, the Mukims III took part with neither side. Their territory served as a neutral ground: the people removed the corpses of the slain for both parties, and permitted no fighting to be carried on within their own borders. The only instance of the administration of these Mukims by a single ruler within living memory is that of the ulama Teungku Chot Putu, who succeeded in attaining some degree of authority there in the middle of the nineteenth century. This expounder of the law derived from his piety, learning, and severity such an overwhelming influence over the three imeums and their subjects that, though not invested with any political power, he acted in fact as ruler of the Mukim Lhee. Before his appearance and after his death these mukims were self-governing, yet held in due respect the tradition of their peculiar constitution. His son Cheh Chot Putu, though essentially a worldly man and no scholar, inherited some of the respect paid to his father, but his efforts at playing the role of uleebalang of the III Mukims were not crowned with success.

The present name III Mukims Keureukon points to the influence of the Keureukon family. A royal secretary, the Keureukon Katibulmuluk, was numbered among the principal court officials in the period of prosperity of the sultanate. The title passed from father to son more easily than the art of composing and writing Malay letters, and the importance of such correspondence dwindled with the decay of the court. Since the establishment of one of the Keureukons in the Mukim Lhee, that family has been among those whose influence was a factor to be reckoned with in the wakeueh district, although they have never come to be recognised as its chiefs.

The district is distinguished in Achehnese nomenclature by the definite article the “Mukims Three,” in contrast to other uleebalangships of three mukims, which are called “the three mukims so and so” — e.g. Lhee Mukim Lam Rabo and Lhee Mukim Kayee Adang. The III Mukims also figure in the stock pantuns of the Achehnese wedding-feast: “In Lam Baro sugarcane is planted, in the III Mukims keutila (katela) is sown by dibbling”; and again: “A baju is sewn with a fine needle; clothes are woven in the III Mukims.” These conventional verses, recited at the close of the wedding ceremonies, attest the rural and industrial reputation of the district in the popular imagination.

Additional account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — III Mukims

The III Mukims — the “Three Mukims” — is a territorial division of Great Acheh mentioned by Snouck Hurgronje chiefly in the conventional formulas of Achehnese wedding pantuns, where it appears alongside Lam Baro as a place-name of stock reference in the ritual poetry of marriage.

The III Mukims in the Wedding Pantuns

In the long account of Achehnese betrothal and marriage, Snouck quotes a series of pantons — the chanted dialogues between the envoys of the bridegroom and the elders of the bride’s house — in which the geographical references serve as the conventional openings (pantun proper) of the discursive speech. The first panton runs: “In Lam Baro sugarcane is planted, / In the III Mukims keutila (katela) is sown by dibbling. / With due respect, Teuku, / Here it befits us to remain, this sufficeth.” A later example, in the concluding series, is: “A baju is sewn with a fine needle. / Clothes are woven in the III Mukims. / For two or three days past all has been ready. / The people who are giving the wedding-feast have provided everything.”

The formulas are conventional; the III Mukims is named not because it had any especial connection with the weaving of cloth or the dibbling of keutila, but because its name fitted the metre and the rhyme of the panton. Yet the very fact that a three-mukim district could be so used as a stock geographical reference indicates that the III Mukims was, in the common Achehnese mind, a name sufficiently familiar to be invoked without explanation.

The Lhee Mukim as a Numerical Designation

In Achehnese political geography the numerical designation of a mukim-cluster — three, four, five, seven, twenty-two, twenty-five, twenty-six — was its ordinary name. The III Mukims was thus one of a class of districts identified by their number alone, and the same convention gave the IV Mukims, the V Mukims, the VII Mukims Ba’et, and the great sagis of the XXII, the XXV, and the XXVI their several designations. The numerical style reflects the historical growth of the Achehnese territory by aggregation: each sagi was composed of a number of mukims, and the smaller groupings within the sagis were themselves identified by the same numerical convention.

The Place of the III Mukims

The III Mukims here named is, on the whole, a minor territorial division of Great Acheh, distinct from the Lhee Mukim Kayee Adang and Lhee Mukim Lam Rabo — the three-mukim groupings of the dependencies — and from the III Mukims Keureukon, the wakeueh-district whose peculiar institutions Snouck describes elsewhere. Its identification with one or other of these is not made explicit in the wedding pantuns; its function in the poetry is that of a familiar place-name, like Lam Baro, invoked for the metrical and symbolic convenience of the chanters rather than for any specific topographical reference.

Sources

Atjeh-Album van Eigen Haard, uitgave van de N.V. Het Tijdschrift “Eigen Haard”, Amsterdam, 1896, pp. 13, 15 (De Inwendige Toestand; De Geestelijkheid in Atjeh — Habib Abdoe’r Rachman). 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.

See Also

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.

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