The island of Nias off the West Coast of Sumatra is noted for its people, who were often enslaved and brought to Acheh: ‘Nias slaves, while others are the offspring of poor Achehnese in the highlands.’ The girls trained as sadati performers ‘are some of them the best-looking children of Nias slaves.’ Achehnese contempt for the Niasese is noted. Also, ‘the Achehnese derive their knowledge of the healing properties of the peundang from Nias; it is supposed to have been discovered by the leprous princess banished thither, from whom the whole population of the island is said to be derived.’ Menangkabau (Padang highlands) The Menangkabau territory of West Sumatra appears in several contexts. The character Si Pandie among the Menangkabau Malays is compared to Si Meuseukin and Pa’ Pande (Achehnese Eulenspiegels). ‘Massage with mercury appears to be also regarded as a specific to secure invulnerability among the Malays of the Padang highlands.’ The Menangkabau matriarchal system (descent traced through women) is contrasted with Mohammedan law; ‘Examples such as that of the social life of the Menangkabau Malays go to show that the creed of Islam may be dominant in a country for a long period, while yet the domestic institutions of that country are in many respects in conflict with the religious law.’ Paederasty is said to be ‘also endemic in Java, especially in the Native States, and the same may be said of Menangkabau in Sumatra.’ The Straits Settlements The British colonial territory comprising Singapore, Penang, and Malacca. Students of Islam from Acheh ‘undergo a wider course of study in the Straits Settlements or at Mekka.’ The translator of the book (A.W.S. O’Sullivan) was ‘Assistant Colonial Secretary, Straits Settlements.’ The Hok Canton was a ship ‘belonging to Chinese traders in Penang, trading to Acheh under Dutch colours.’ The index’s description of kuali in Java includes Johor in the sense: ‘juara signifies a procuress’ in Riau and Johor. Notes on Malay magic by Sir William Maxwell were published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society for December 1884 (Singapore 1885). In Malacca, the game of pitch and toss (main koba) is played.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Nias
Nias (Achehnese Nieh) is the island off the west coast of Sumatra from which most of the slaves of Acheh were drawn, and the chief external reference of the Achehnese slave-system as described in The Achehnese Vol. I. The Achehnese slave-traders were until quite recently the terror of Nias and the adjacent islands; the inhabitants were kidnapped in hundreds up to a few years before Snouck Hurgronje wrote, and were still surreptitiously purchased in smaller numbers.
Slaves are a factor of importance in the development of the Achehnese race, and most of these slaves came from Nias. The trade was carried on by slave-traders whose reputation long survived the actual traffic; the people of the island were the victims of an organized kidnapping that continued, in less open form, into the early years of Dutch occupation. The figure of the Niasese slave, male and female, became a familiar one in Achehnese households, and the descendants of such slaves formed a recognised element of the population.
The Achehnese story current as to the origin of the Niasese resembles the Javanese myth of the Kalangs, which Snouck Hurgronje traces in Veth’s Java, III, p. 580 et seq. The same story, in a modified form, is popular in Banten, where in the absence of Kalangs it is applied to the Dutch. The Achehnese version runs as follows. A princess who suffered from a horrible skin-disease was for this cause banished to Nias, with only a dog to bear her company. On that island she found many peundang plants, and gradually became acquainted with the curative properties of the peundang root. It is not clearly stated what induced her to marry her dog; but from this wedlock a son was born. When he grew up he wished to marry, but Nias was uninhabited. His mother gave him a ring to guide him in his search for a bride; the first woman he met whom the ring fitted was to be his destined wife. After many wanderings he at last met his mother again, the ring fitted her, they wedded, and from this incestuous union is descended the whole population of Nias.
In this legend, typifying the vileness of the origin of the Niasese in Achehnese eyes, there is wanting one feature which characterizes the Javanese myth of the Kalangs. Both have in common the dog and the incestuous marriage; but the Javanese version adds the figure of the wild sow that becomes the mother of a heroine in a miraculous manner, while the Achehnese version is content with the simpler machinery of mother, dog and son. The story was clearly an importation from Java, modified in transmission: the Achehnese tell it of the people of Nias, the Javanese of the people of the wilderness who became the Kalangs, and the people of Banten of the Dutch themselves. Nias (Achehnese Nii’h, also written Nieh) is the island off the west coast of Sumatra which supplied, in historic times, the great bulk of the slave population of Acheh. Throughout The Achehnese it figures as the principal recruiting-ground of Achehnese slavery and as the country of origin of a substantial element in the Achehnese race. The Achehnese slave-traders were, in Snouck Hurgronje’s phrase, “until quite recently the terror of Nias and the adjacent islands”: the Niasese “were kidnapped in hundreds up to a few years ago, and are still surreptitiously purchased in smaller numbers.” This traffic in human beings, and the constant absorption of Niasese blood into the Achehnese population through concubinage, made Nias an integral part of the social system of Acheh.
See Also
- Acheh
- Java
- Johor
- Malacca
- Menangkabau
- Meuse
- Penang
- Singapore
- Sumatra
- Train
- Banten
- Prof. Veth
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Civil war of 1854-58 (Raja Suloyman vs Raja Ibrahim)
- Raja Suloyman
- Raja Ibrahim
- Kanduri Boh Kaye’e (Feast of Fruits)
- Haj
- Peusijuek (cooling ceremony)
Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu
Source of Nias slave women, considered more attractive than Acehnese women, used as concubines and influencing the Acehnese ‘race’.
Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 56, 95.
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.
Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 56, 95.