Padang Tiji (also written Padang Teuji, Padang Tidji, or simply Tiji) is a locality in the VII Mukims of the Sagi of the XXII Mukims of Great Acheh, in the Acheh region. The place is associated in *The Achehnese* Vol. I with the Achehnese royal house — cited as the place of death of the prince Tuanku Asem — and in the Hikayat Pochut Muhamat as a station of Pochut Muhamat in his regulation of the affairs of the VII Mukims. It is also recorded in the sixteenth-century Malay Burda manuscript (DLP-54) as the hometown of the Achehnese scholar-translator Teungku Tjēh Kob of Panté Tjeureumèn, who produced an Achehnese version of the Burda poem and a mawlid-bewerking (mawlid adaptation). Under the spelling Padang Tidji, the place also served as an intermediate station on the 1899 western branch of the second Atjeh tramway.
The Death of Tuanku Asem
Snouck Hurgronje records that Tuanku Asem — “according to all who know him, an exception to the majority of the men of royal blood in Acheh” — “died January 1897 at Padang Tiji in the Mukims VII.” Tuanku Asem spoke Malay and a little Arabic, understood something of English, and could discuss the religious questions of the day from a more liberal standpoint than that of the pandits. The place of his death thus connects Padang Tiji with a current of reformist and cosmopolitan thought in late nineteenth-century Acheh, and with the small circle of Achehnese princes who, by their education and disposition, stood apart from the great mass of the royal house.
The Village and the Royal House
Padang Tiji belongs to that upland portion of the XXII Mukims in which the members of the Achehnese royal house dispersed themselves among the uleebalangships (territorial chiefdoms) of the country, drawing their maintenance from the lands of the chiefs and forming, in each district, a small aristocracy of blood distinct from the local uleebalang. The presence of a tuanku (prince of royal blood) at Padang Tiji is thus a typical instance of the wider pattern by which the Achehnese royal house — the tuankus — were settled throughout the country, and especially throughout the XXII and XXVI sagis, where they enjoyed precedence in respect of birth and of the jinamee (dowry) paid at their marriage.
Padang Tidji and the Hikayat Pochut Muhamat
The place is also mentioned in the Hikayat Pochut Muhamat, where ‘Padang Teuji (Tiji)’ is the locality at which Pochut Muhamat remains as long as necessary for regulating the affairs of the VII Mukims and winning over the people to his cause.
The Hometown of the Burda Translator
The sixteenth-century Malay translation of the Burda of al-Busiri preserved in manuscript DLP-54 identifies Padang Tidji as the hometown of the Achehnese scholar-translator Teungku Tjēh Kob of Panté Tjeureumèn (“Teungkn Tjēh Kob al. T. Panté Tjeureumèn uit Padang Tidji”), who produced an Achehnese version of the Burda poem and a mawlid-bewerking (mawlid adaptation). The manuscript thus locates Padang Tidji within the devotional-literary geography of sixteenth-century Acheh, as the home of one of the principal known transmitters of Arabic devotional poetry into Achehnese.
Padang Tidji and the Tramway
Padang Tidji also served as an intermediate station on the 1899 western branch of the second Atjeh tramway — the lijntje (little line) built from Sigli westward over Padang Tidji to Keude Breue. The Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account mentions the place in passing: “already in 1899 from Sigli a lijntje was built westward over Padang Tidji to Keude Breue.” The lijntje through Padang Tidji was, the Bureau notes, “a piece of tramway in the Government of Acheh and Dependencies, somewhat hanging in the air” (wel wat in de lucht hangende, stuk trambaan in de Onderhoorigheden) until the 1904–1908 completion of the berglijntje (mountain-line) from Keude Breue over the hills to Seulimeum connected it to the Great Atjeh network.
Padang Tidji as Panglima Polém’s refuge (1897–1898)
H. T. Damsté’s Drie Atjeh-Mannen records that Panglima Polém, the sagihoofd of the XXII Moekims, withdrew to Padang Tidji — described there as lying in the rich Moekim VII of Pidie — after being driven across the watershed from Greater Atjeh following the loss of his stelling at Glé Jeuëng in May 1897. At Padang Tidji, Polém maintained easy contact with the sultan at Keumala and other enemies of Dutch rule, both from Pidie and from Atjeh. The moekim was accordingly the planned target of the Pidië expedition of 1898, which aimed to converge on Polém’s position from two directions — Sigli and Seulimeum.
Account from Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
Padang Tidji — pronounced Padang Tidji, modern Padang Tiji — is the chief place (hoofdplaats) of the onderafdeeling of the same name in the afdeeling Pidië, situated in the great valley of Pidië. The place is known for its cattle-market (veepasar), held once a week on a specially enclosed terrain, to the maintenance of which the sellers pay a small sum for each animal they bring. In 1922 an average of 100 head came on each market-day; the buyers are usually Bengalis from Medan. The roads around Padang Tidji are particularly well maintained, because the oeléebalang of Reubéë, Teukoe radja Hoesin, understands what people’s interests are involved in order and neatness. The great road runs from Padang Tidji some kilometres westward and then stops; the only large north-south road has a great gap, so that on that stretch in the direction of Seulimeum the Atjeh-tram is the only large traffic-road and over-land connection.
Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)
Schmidt “had little liking for that pacified life,” went to Koeta Radja and argued that H. N. A. Swart could get more out of him in an unpacified sub-division and above all at Tangsé, where he was then on the trail of Keudjroeën Oebit. Swart’s reply was the wager of three months. As captain of the 7th Battalion in 1898–1899, Swart had himself often marched out with his Sundanese company “especially in the Padang Tidji country and to several places where troops had never been before.”
See Also
- 1897
- 1899
- 1904
- 1908
- 1922
- Atjeh-tram
- Atjéhse bewerking van de Burda
- Berglijntje Keude Breue–Seulimeum
- Burda (poem)
- Glé Jeuëng
- Gouvernement Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden
- Great Acheh
- Groot-Atjeh
- Hikayat Pochut Muhamat
- Keude Breue
- Keumala
- Mawlid-bewerking
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Panglima Polém
- Pidië-expedition (1898)
- Pochut Muhamat
- Seulimeum
- Sigli
- Teungkn Tjēh Kob al. T. Panté Tjeureumèn
- Three Sagis (XXVI, XXV, XXII Mukims)
- Toekoe Moehamat Dawot
- Tuanku Asem
- Mukims VII
- Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
- XXII Mukims
- H. N. A. Swart
- General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943)
- Atjeh
Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu
Onderafdeeling in Groot-Atjeh. Last onderafdeeling in Groot-Atjeh to receive civiel bestuur, in 1910, completing the civiel bestuur of Groot-Atjeh. Watershed between Seulimeum and Padang-Tidji required a bergspoorweg.
Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 127, 291, 327.
Source
H. T. Damsté, “Drie Atjeh-Mannen,” Kolonial Tijdschrift, No. 4, 26e Jaargang (1937), p. 364.
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.
De Buitenbezittingen 1904 tot 1914, Deel I, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen, Aflevering X (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), p. 69 (section “De Atjeh-tram”).
Een 16de eeuwse Maleise vertaling van de Burda van al-Būṣīrī (manuscript DLP-54), p. 21.
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), passim.
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter IV, XV.
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. 127, 291, 327.