Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/170

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135

sultan as gata (the equivalent of tutoyer) remarking "we are not wont to say dèëlat." Of the Panglima Pòlém it is said that he often disregarded for months all invitations to the Dalam, and finally, as a token of goodwill, journeyed to the Sultan's frontier and had a heavy gong beaten to announce his presence, after which he returned home! Yet there arose in his own sagi another chief who thought himself no whit his inferior, the ulèëbalang of the VII Mukims Baʾét. The power and influence of these two potentates are among the most ancient and most firmly established of all that now exist in Great Acheh. In the other sagis the preponderance alternated between one ulèëbalang and another.

The panglima of the XXVI Mukims, had long been a person of small importance, as may be gathered from what follows. When the holder of the title died during the reign of Ibrahim Mansō Shah (1858–70), one Teuku Muda Lampasèh was according to the adat the proper successor; he was accordingly, after reporting himself in the Dalam, solemnly recognized by the sultan as panglima.

Even before he had quitted the Dalam the firing of guns was heard from the direction of the XXVI Mukims, and it appeared on enquiry that the people of that district, who objected to Teuku Muda Lampasèh on the ground that he was an opium-smoker, had installed a younger brother of the deceased panglima as the latter's successor. This was Teuku Chut Lamreuëng, father of the present panglima Teuku Nyaʾ Banta, who is also called Teuku Lamreuëng[1].

The sultan knew no better way out of the difficulty than to recognize the second aspirant as well, so that there were then two panglimas in the XXVI Mukims.

At the commencement of the war both chiefs fled to Keumala, but Teuku Lamreuëng in the end re-established himself in his territory and tendered his submission to the Dutch Government. For this he was murdered in Pidië, whither he had gone to fetch his family, by the adherents of Teuku Lampasèh. His infant son escaped the same fate through the help of a faithful servant.

This son was afterwards recognized by the Government as Panglima of the XXVI Mukims, while after the the death of Teuku Muda Lampasèh, the latter's son Teuku Juhan was appointed panglima at


  1. Both were called banta as they had borne this rank during the panglimaship of their predecessor. See p. 92 above.