‘A famous burong woman’ named Burong Tanjong or Srabi, whose grave is regarded as sacred and venerated in Acheh, lived here. Referenced in the index.
Expanded account from The Achehnese, Vol. I — Tanjong
Tanjong is a gampong (village) near the capital of Acheh, in the mukim of Pagaraye, and the site of the tomb of the dreaded Burong Srabi, also known as the Burong Tanjong. In The Achehnese Vol. I the gampong is principally known through this tomb and through the grim legend that attaches to it, which Snouck Hurgronje recounts in the chapter on the spirits hostile to women in childbed.
Most dreaded of all such spirits, at the time of Snouck Hurgronje’s writing, was the burong Srabi or Seurabi, whose tomb is situated in gampong Tanjong (mukim of Pagaraye) close to the capital of Acheh. She is also known as the burong Tanjong. The proper name of the woman who after death was changed into this monster appears to have been Rabiah, abbreviated in Srabi or Si Rabiah. The story goes that she was treacherously drowned by her lover while on a pleasure trip to which he had invited her, she being at the time with child. Her body was found near the gampong Kaje’e Jat’oe — just about where the hospital at Kuta Raja now stands — and was pulled out of the water by the people of that gampong. When they found it was the body of a woman belonging to Tanjong, they brought her thither and she was buried there. Meantime the unhappy woman had been transformed into a burong, which rested not until she had overtaken and slain her murderer.
The burong of Tanjong is one of the class of spirits that attack pregnant women and women in childbed. As long as the woman lies over the fire (madeueng), that is to say for the space of 44 days after childbirth, some anxiety is felt in regard to the burong, but most of all during the first 10 days, and especially during the first three or four. The dread is greatest when the burong expresses a desire for murong-leaves (the leaves of the plant known as kelor, used as a vegetable), for dried buffalo’s flesh (pasi) and salted ducks’ eggs (boh ite jru’e); it is then regarded as certain that it is the dreaded Burong Tanjong that has to be contended with. The same objects recur in the formula of exorcism: “the head aches; the gums ache; where shall we look, where shall we seek? Head of eel, shoots of murong, si’e of egg, the yolk of egg, the white of egg” — these last-named objects being those desired by Srabi Tanjong.
The location of the tomb in a gampong of the immediate neighbourhood of the capital is itself significant. The most dreaded spirit hostile to Achehnese women in childbed was thus a local saint whose tomb stood within easy reach of the population of Banda Acheh, and whose cult was an intimate part of the religious life of the capital district. The name Tanjong (Malay tanjung, “a cape” or “promontory”) is a common place-name in the Malay world, but in this context it is the gampong of Pagaraye that is meant, the burial-place of Rabiah the drowned, the burong Tanjong.
See Also
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.