Seunagan

Seunagan is a region on the west coast of Atjeh, situated in what is today the Nagan Raya Regency of Aceh province, Sumatra. It is known both as a centre of unorthodox mysticism and as a source of fine woven craft production. The area lies to the south of Meulaboh and formed part of the West Coast dependency (Westkust) of the sultanate, a region distinguished by its pepper-planting colonies, its monsoon-bound communications, and its history of foreign admixture.

Habib Seunagan and the mystic tradition

The area takes its name from Habib Seunagan, who carried out his teaching of unorthodox mysticism there and derived his name from the scene of his labours on the West Coast. Before attaining celebrity he was known as Teungku Peunado after the gampong in Pidie where he was born. His teaching included disseminating the ideas of Hamzah Pansuri. “In Seunagan one Teungku di Krueng (ob. 1902) may be considered as the spiritual successor of Habib Seunagan.”

The West Coast context

The West Coast of Acheh is one of the two great coast-dependencies of the sultanate, the other being the East Coast. It is separated from the rest of Acheh by the wild rantos districts — inhospitable tracts in which the larger settlements lie embedded — and was historically the principal field of labour of the Achehnese pepper-planters, who established colonies there and remained sometimes for years at a time in a society where there were no women.

The rantos and the planters

The rantos are described by Snouck Hurgronje as “the wild and inhospitable districts on the West Coast which separate the larger settlements from one another and are the field of the pepper-planters’ labours.” In these rantos nothing could be obtained during the south-west monsoon; only the interval between monsoons — the so-called keunong 5–17 — made it safe to sail from the capital to the West Coast, and during the rest of the year the sea was closed to Achehnese vessels. The West Coast was thus, in respect of communication, almost a separate country from Great Acheh; its trade and its population were shaped by the alternation of the monsoons.

The pepper-planters who colonized the West Coast came, as a rule, from the interior of Acheh. Their kanduri-cycle — the kanduri bungong lada, the annual feast held when the pepper blossoms — was celebrated separately in the house of each pepper-planter, since the pepper-plants do not all blossom at the same time; the period of these kanduris lasted as long as three months. The feast consisted of glutinous rice and its accessories, and was consecrated with a prayer by a teungku. Wednesday was pantang, or forbidden by the adat, for pepper-planting as well as for rice-cultivation on the West Coast. The sixth day was especially lucky for agricultural labour, unless it happened to fall on a Friday.

The viciousness of the colonies

The Achehnese colonists on the East and West Coasts who lived there sometimes for years at a time in a society where there were no women developed, in Snouck’s account, every vice of the nation to its highest pitch. The true highlanders are reputed — not indeed more virtuous, for with them theft and robbery are the order of the day — to be less weak and effeminate than the lowlanders; but among the coast colonists opium, drink and unnatural crime exercised an influence far greater than in the upper country. On the West Coast especially, the practice of smoking opium in company still prevailed in Snouck’s day, marked by some characteristic customs: the votaries of the habit sat together in a prescribed position, the pipe passed round, and each in his turn had to take two pulls so strong that he could not refrain from a deep groan.

Foreign admixture

The West Coast has received, more than any other part of Acheh, the impress of foreign admixture. The contemptuous appellation aneu’ Jamee (“descendants of strangers or guests”) and aneu’ Rawa (“people from the province of Rawa”), to which the epithet “tailed” (meukeutèë) is also added, is applied to the people of mixed descent on the West Coast. The term Mante — the name of an aboriginal people imagined by the Achehnese — is also used in the lowlands as a nickname for the less-civilized highlanders, and is applied in the same sense to the people of mixed descent on the West Coast.

Place-names and political chiefs

The word tandil — a Tamil word originally meaning a collector of moneys, but among the Malays denoting the headman of a gang of coolies or of the crew of a boat — survives as an hereditary title of certain chiefs in the highland districts of the West Coast. The coastal towns of the West Coast — among which Daya, Trumon, Susoh, Meulaboh, Tapa Tuan and others are named in The Achehnese — were the seats of uleebalangs whose authority was, in the eyes of the chiefs of Acheh proper, only that of keuchis or mantris magnified by royal favour or by their own arrogance. The West Coast was, however, the theatre of important events in the Achehnese War: the Hasan-Husain feast, for instance, is still celebrated to this day in Trumon in the manner customary in the Deccan.

Woven craft: the Seunagan sitting mat

The Batavian Society’s 1928 treasure-room guide records a finely woven sitting mat from Seunagan, catalogued in Cabinet 3 (Atjeh), item 2, described as “Zitmatje uit Seunagan, gevlochten van pandanbladrepen” — “a small sitting mat from Seunagan, woven from pandan-leaf strips.” Although the treasure room primarily housed objects of gold and silver, this mat was included in the Atjeh section, presumably as a representative example of Acehnese craft production to contextualise the metalwork. Pandan-leaf weaving is a widespread craft across Southeast Asia, but the inclusion of this particular mat in the Batavian Society’s collection — alongside objects of gold, silver, and precious stones — suggests that the Seunagan example was considered of exceptional quality or artistic merit. Seunagan and the neighbouring west-coast regions of Atjeh have long been known for their weaving traditions, which extend beyond mats to include the plaited work used in house construction, basketry, and ceremonial objects. During the Aceh War, the west-coast regions saw extensive military activity, as Dutch forces sought to establish control over the coastal districts before pushing into the interior.

Account from Atjeh by H.C. Zentgraff (1938)

Zentgraff’s Atjeh gives the fullest account of Seunagan as het traditioneele land van de klewangaanvallen. Vooral die van Seunagan waren voor onze soldaten gevaarlijke tegenstanders. De Atjeher hier viel altijd aan met vollen inzet van zijn persoon, en vocht voor alles wat hij waard was. The heilige Habib Seunagan, whose grave is still in high honour on the Westkust, gave the country its spiritual prestige.

Above all stands the attaque op de colonne-Campioni in April 1904 in the neighbourhood of Djeuram — de grootste klewangaanval uit de historie van Atjeh: hundreds of enemies stortten zich als de hel over de colonne. Luitenant Van der Vlerk survived only because at that moment he had stepped aside to have his puttee fastened. The body of luitenant Van der Zee was brought to Meulaboh.

In 1906 Schmidt served as luitenant at Djeuram in het toen uiterst roerige Seunagan. The great antagonist was Tengkoe Poetih, grandson of the holy Habib Seunagan, who had vele en fanatieke aanhangers, en zeker evenveel spionnen in de omgeving van Schmidt als deze in het gebied van den Tengkoe had. Around the bivak Poeloe Ië the beruchte Tengkoe Moeda Mat Said roamed; one night a tiger carried off one of his djahat followers — men zeide dat het dier in dienst van Schmidt was, zoodat de bende snel naar veiliger gebied verhuisde. The widow Tjoet Patimah of Teukoe Keumangan, telling Zentgraff about the 1906–1907 period, said Schmidt was one of those rare men who carried a rantej boei (the magic bead of invulnerability), waardoor hij niet alleen onkwetsbaar was doch ook een helder oog had in het donkerste geheim.

Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia.

Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)

In March 1909 Waki Him committed “an old-fashioned klewang charge” in Seunagan which cost the Dutch eleven wounded but brought Waki Him and three of his men their end as sjahid; in April the submission of all the pangs and band members of T. Moeda Mat Sa’it followed in Seunagan, Tadoe and Tripa. In October 1910 lieutenant S. van Eendenburg was killed near Keudé Blang Bajoe in Seunagan by the band-head Pang Timoe. On 29 December 1917 young Acehnese of Seunagan attacked lieutenant Gosenson at Djeuram. In 1926 the great Teukoe Keumangan of Seunagan told du Croo that an oelèëbalang who betrayed T. Radja Tampo’ “could not remain a territorial chief in Seunagan”.

Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)

Seunagan was a landscape south of Meulaboh on the West Coast of Atjeh, reputed from native reports to possess extensive coal-fields, investigated by the assistant-resident of Meulaboh at the end of 1882 and by mining engineers in 1883 — with disappointing results, the coal being mixed with clay and shale and of too young formation.

The exploration of 1882–1883

At the end of 1882 the assistant-resident of Meulaboh made a journey to the landscapes lying south of Meulaboh to hold a preliminary investigation into the coal present in the landscape Seunagan; the inquiry, for the very inadequate means at his disposal, was very superficial and gave few results. At a few hours’ distance from the coast stone coal of young formation was found; according to the reports of natives furnished to the assistant-resident, the coal-fields had to be very extensive and join those found in the landscapes Trang and Tadoe — subject to Seunagan — and in the highlands of Meulaboh; also in one of the more southerly landscapes, Tapa Toean, coal seams were said to be present. In the following year these “ontdekkingstochten” (“voyages of discovery”) were continued by some mining engineers who made an extensive investigation; it led to few satisfying results, since the coal that was indeed present appeared to be blended with too much clay and shale and of too young formation to offer favourable prospects for exploitation.

Later surveys

Under Governor Van Heutsz the government again investigated the presence of stone coal on the West Coast in 1902–1903, and under Governor Swart government surveys of a mining character took place in several parts of the province (among them for petroleum in Peusangan), though without issuing in exploitation.

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

River/place in Meulaboh onderafdeeling; bounds 1901 coal investigation area.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 51.

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.

Gids voor den bezoeker van de schatkamer, Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, Batavia, 1928. Druk: Ruygrok & Co., Batavia. Cabinet 3 (Atjeh), item 2.

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 XI, XII.

Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 49–50, 85.

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. 51.

tags	place, north-east-coast, coast, region, dependency, material-culture, landschap, aceh, westkust, resistance, landscape, west-coast, mining
aliases	West Coast, south of Meulaboh, West Coast of Acheh, the Western Coast, Atjeh Westkust, the West Coast of Acheh, Seunagan (landscape), Landschap Seunagan

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