The Sundanese country — Sunda, or West Java, the home of the Sundanese people — is, in The Achehnese, the chief comparative field against which the customs and superstitions of Acheh are matched. Snouck Hurgronje draws on the Sundanese parallels repeatedly in Vol. I, both for linguistic usage (the Achehnese word dōseu “countrified” is “like dōseu in Sundanese”) and for popular religion, marriage law, divorce, and folk-medicine.
The most elaborate Sundanese comparison in Vol. I concerns the burong, the female spirit of Achehnese superstition that preys upon pregnant women and women in child bed. “The burong of Achehnese superstition has much in common with the kunti or kuntianak of the Sundanese and the sundel bolong which is an object of dread in certain parts of Java. Like the latter, the burong is conceived of as having the form of a woman with a great hole in her back, showing the vital organs.” Many burongs are believed to be the spirits of women who have led an unchaste life and come to an unhappy end; the number of this malignant race is added to by the ghosts of women slain by a burong in childbed, who then become burongs themselves. The means of protection are also “to a great extent the same as those employed to drive away the kunti”: “The incantations used to exorcise the burong are essentially identical with the jape or japa customary in Java.” Like the Sundanese kunti, the burong sometimes announces her presence by a shrill scream, a sustained nasal iiii, but is most to be feared when she creeps upon her victim without any such warning.
In the comparative account of marriage and divorce, the Sundanese are cited for their characteristic formula on amicable separation: “Among the Sundanese, when a man puts away his wife and yet remains on excellent terms with her and her people, the situation is described as Pondok duriat panjang baraya = ‘a short marriage, but a long friendship’.” This is contrasted with the Achehnese custom, where divorce “almost always entails an irreconcilable breach of the peace between the pair.” The Sundanese (and Javanese) technical term lapa’ for the declaration by a woman that a ta’liq condition has been fulfilled and that she wishes the marriage dissolved is also noticed; the term is Arabic in origin, but its technical use in this sense is peculiar to Java and Sunda.
In the comparative account of domestic customs, the singing of lullabies “in Java Icla-Ula, among the Sundanese lu-ng-sicngkung” is called in Achehnese meudodi, from the sound dodi (Malay di-duy) which constantly occurs in the cradle-songs. The wooden toddling-stick used to teach a child to walk “is also in general use in Java: Sundanese kurilingan, Javanese leredan or gritan.” Such comparative notices serve throughout Vol. I to show that the Achehnese, in spite of their distinct political and religious history, share in a common Malay-Indonesian inheritance of customs and superstitions, of which the Sundanese country supplies some of the best-documented parallels.
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.