1937

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tagsyear, aceh, colonial, knil, timeline, 20th-century, medicine, ophthalmology, public-health, groot-atjeh
aliasesthe year 1937, 1937 AD, 1937 (year), Year 1937

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1937 was the year of the death of Dominee Thenu — the Soldaten-Dominee of Aceh — on 11 May 1937 at Koeta-Radja, and of his indrukwekkende, grootse begrafenis with four retired M.W.O.-ridders as slippendragers and a Marechaussee brigade as vuurpeleton. It is the year that closes the moral arc of the Marechaussee in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L..

The death of Dominee Thenu (11 May 1937)

“Op 11 Mei 1937 was het einde daar.” Dominee Thenu — who had come to Aceh in 1894 and served for forty full years as the Inlands Godsdienstleraar and universally honoured Soldaten-Dominee of the K.N.I.L. troops — died at Koeta-Radja on 11 May 1937. He had become ill in 1935; by 1936 it was clear that his ziekbed was his doodsbed.

The funeral

The funeral at Koeta-Radja was “indrukwekkende, grootse.” As slippendragers acted four old, retired Marechaussees, all Ridders M.W.O.: Salawono (3e kl.), Pattiasina, Kazen and Pattipuluhu. Vuurpeleton was a Marechaussee brigade. He was buried at Peutjoet “temidden van zovelen, die hij voorbereid had op die laatste gang daarheen.” His gravestone carries the verse from Job 4:3 — “Zie, gij hebt velen onderwezen, En gij hebt slappe handen gesterkt.”

The standbeeld

“Vóór zijn kerkje in Koeta-Radja richtte Atjeh voor hem een standbeeld op” — before his little church in Koeta-Radja, Aceh erected for him a statue. The standbeeld is the book’s marker that Thenu’s gezag had passed from the colonial army into the country itself: Aceh, not the K.N.I.L., erected the statue.

The broader colonial context

1937 was also the year of the *Tangkoeban Praboe incident (1928)|Tangkoeban Praboe incident]] (actually 1928 — but the book mentions the crater rescue in the chapter on marksmanship). The broader colonial context of 1937 is the late-colonial peace: the Aceh War was politically over since 1918; the Celebes pacifications were long concluded; the colonial army was at the height of its inter-war strength. The death of Thenu in 1937 is therefore the book’s marker of the end of an era: the Soldaten-Dominee who had served the colonial army since 1894 was gone, and the Marechaussee he had served was, in 1937, an army of peace, not of war.

Significance

1937 is significant in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. as the year of the death of Dominee Thenu. The book’s argument is that Thenu’s death — with the four M.W.O.-ridders as slippendragers — was the moment at which the decorations of the old Aceh War generation were laid at the feet of the man who had blessed them. The year 1937 is therefore the book’s moral closure of the Marechaussee: the men of courage carrying the man of faith, the colonial army at the height of its inter-war peace acknowledging the geestelijk gezag that had held it together.

The death of Dominee Thenu (11 May 1937)

“Op 11 Mei 1937 was het einde daar.” Dominee Thenu — who had come to Aceh in 1894 and served for forty full years as the Inlands Godsdienstleraar and universally honoured Soldaten-Dominee of the K.N.I.L. troops — died at Koeta-Radja on 11 May 1937. He had become ill in 1935; by 1936 it was clear that his ziekbed was his doodsbed.

The funeral

The funeral at Koeta-Radja was “indrukwekkende, grootse.” As slippendragers acted four old, retired Marechaussees, all Ridders M.W.O.: Salawono (3e kl.), Pattiasina, Kazen and Pattipuluhu. Vuurpeleton was a Marechaussee brigade. He was buried at Peutjoet “temidden van zovelen, die hij voorbereid had op die laatste gang daarheen.” His gravestone carries the verse from Job 4:3 — “Zie, gij hebt velen onderwezen, En gij hebt slappe handen gesterkt.”

The standbeeld

“Vóór zijn kerkje in Koeta-Radja richtte Atjeh voor hem een standbeeld op” — before his little church in Koeta-Radja, Aceh erected for him a statue. The standbeeld is the book’s marker that Thenu’s gezag had passed from the colonial army into the country itself: Aceh, not the K.N.I.L., erected the statue.

The broader colonial context

1937 was also the year of the *Tangkoeban Praboe incident (1928)|Tangkoeban Praboe incident]] (actually 1928 — but the book mentions the crater rescue in the chapter on marksmanship). The broader colonial context of 1937 is the late-colonial peace: the Aceh War was politically over since 1918; the Celebes pacifications were long concluded; the colonial army was at the height of its inter-war strength. The death of Thenu in 1937 is therefore the book’s marker of the end of an era: the Soldaten-Dominee who had served the colonial army since 1894 was gone, and the Marechaussee he had served was, in 1937, an army of peace, not of war.

Significance

1937 is significant in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. as the year of the death of Dominee Thenu. The book’s argument is that Thenu’s death — with the four M.W.O.-ridders as slippendragers — was the moment at which the decorations of the old Aceh War generation were laid at the feet of the man who had blessed them. The year 1937 is therefore the book’s moral closure of the Marechaussee: the men of courage carrying the man of faith, the colonial army at the height of its inter-war peace acknowledging the geestelijk gezag that had held it together.

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

Zentgraff records 1937 as the year T. Radja Sabi — the adelaarsjong of Keureutoe, who had lived in the forests from 1905 until 13 March 1919 — finally received de plaats waarop hij recht had: he became waarnemend oeléëbalang of Keureutoe, following the schorsing of his cousin (son of T. Tjhi Bentara) in late 1936. It was also the year the hoofd of the Samarkilang bende — the last followers of the Tengkoe di Mata Ië killed in 1917 — was finally gevangen genomen, twenty years after his chief’s death.

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

Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)

In 1937 T. Radja Sabi at last became oelèëbalang of Keureutòë, the office of which his father T. Tjhi’ Toenòng had been deprived in 1899. In 1937 the head of the Samarkilang-bende, formed from the last followers of Tgk. di Mata Ië, was captured — twenty years after the Teungkoe’s death. On 19 February 1937 H. N. A. Swart wrote to the Ambonese old soldier Jacob Lawalata, who celebrated his thirty-fifth year as Knight of the Militaire Willemsorde at Jogjakarta on 26 February 1937. Up to the end of 1937 Atjeh had issued sixty-nine agricultural concessions covering 71,069 hectares, seventy-four leasehold parcels covering 67,287 hectares and thirteen option parcels covering 287,000 hectares.

The ophthalmological survey of Groot-Atjeh (March-December 1937)

From March to December 1937 Dr. C. E. Gomperts carried out an orienting eye survey among the Atjehnese population of Groot-Atjeh, examining 18,808 persons — 3,732 men, 3,830 women, 6,113 boys and 5,133 girls — in the kampongs of the two onderafdeelingen Seulimeum and Koetaradja. It was the largest eye survey undertaken among the Acehnese in the colonial period.

The survey found 459 cases of xerophthalmie among 11,400 children (about 4 per cent); 240 persons blind in one eye and 125 in both; pterygium in rather more than 10 per cent of men and about 9 per cent of women; 215 cases of conjunctivitis follicularis; and no trachoma at all. Eighteen children with keratomalacie were nursed that year in the Militair Hospitaal te Koetaradja.

1936 and 1937 were, Gomperts recorded, marked by long-continued drought, so that the paddi planting failed except in VI Moekims Lhong and Moekim Lam-Teuba, where mountain streams fed the sawah irrigation; in V Moekims Montassie a walangsangit plague brought an almost complete crop failure. The estimated population of the surveyed area for 1937, based on the Volkstelling 1930, was 51,122.

The total cost of the survey was ƒ2,187. Its results were written up in 1939 and published in 1940.

See Also

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Mid-1937: Military seaplanes visited Atjeh, landing on Atjeh-rivier at Koetaradja and on more van Takengon. November: 25-year jubilee of Teukoe Hadji Tjhi’ as zelfbestuurder of Peusangan. Start of 1937-1938 course: houtbewerking added to Sigli ambachtsleergangcurriculum.Zentgraaff made a journalistic journey through the Tripa-vallei; coined the name ‘terpentijnstraat’ (turpentine road) for the proposed road from Gajo Loeös to Aceh’s Westkust.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 25, 59, 68, 80, 198, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208.

Source

Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapter “Dominee Thenu.”

1937 was the year of the death of Dominee Thenu — the Soldaten-Dominee of Aceh — on 11 May 1937 at Koeta-Radja, and of his indrukwekkende, grootse begrafenis with four retired M.W.O.-ridders as slippendragers and a Marechaussee brigade as vuurpeleton. It is the year that closes the moral arc of the Marechaussee in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L..

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), passim.

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. 25, 59, 68, 80, 198, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208.

Oriënteerend oogheelkundig onderzoek bij de Atjehsche bevolking van Groot-Atjeh gedurende 1937 (“Orienting Ophthalmological Survey among the Atjehnese Population of Groot-Atjeh during 1937”), by Dr. C. E. Gomperts, offprint from the Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië, Afl. 19, Deel 80 (1940), pp. 1191-1238 (Batavia-Centrum: G. Kolff & Co.). Received by the editors 25 October 1939. Offprint DLP-157, Bibliotheek KITLV.

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