Lubo’ is a locality in Acheh mentioned in The Achehnese only in the poetic context of the Achehnese wedding — specifically in the pantun-like exchanges of verse recited by the elders of the bride’s and bridegroom’s parties during the marriage procession. Like Lam Baro, Padang, Tama’ and Pante Teungoh, it figures as a topographical allusion in the conventional repertory of nuptial verse, chosen less for its political importance than for its rhyming and rhythmic convenience.
The Wedding Pantun
During the marriage ceremonies described by Snouck Hurgronje, the elder of the bride’s party (designated “A”) and the elder of the bridegroom’s gampong (“B”) respond to one another in a series of antiphonal stanzas, each opening with an evocative image drawn from the Achehnese landscape. One of the most characteristic runs:
A. A scare to frighten squirrels in the garden of Lubo’, Men tap the areuën-palm and take the sap. You have come hither from (name of the guests’ gampong) It is now but a small distance from where you are to the sitting-mat.
The image is that of a rural garden — a keubun — with its scarecrow for squirrels and its areuën-palms tapped for sap. The verse forms part of the courteous formulae by which the bride’s party invites the bridegroom’s party to advance from the courtyard into the house.
Place-Names in Achehnese Verse
The recurrence of place-names like Lubo’ in the wedding pantuns reflects the strong localism of Achehnese poetry, in which the names of fields, gardens and villages supplied both the local colour and the metrical filler that the structure of the verse required. While the exact location of Lubo’ cannot be fixed with certainty from Snouck Hurgronje’s account, the agricultural imagery of the verse — squirrels, areuën-palms, gardens — suggests a rural locality in the cultivated lowlands of Great Acheh. The pairing of the areuën-palm with the keubun — the Achehnese peasant’s working garden — places Lubo’ firmly within the ordinary agrarian landscape of the country.
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.