The Achehnese/Volume 1/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
In July, 1891, I proceeded to Acheh in pursuance of instructions from the Netherlands-India Government to make a special study of the religious element in the political conditions of that country. During a residence in Arabia (1884–85) I had been in a position—especially at Mecca—to obtain an intimate knowledge of the influence of Mohammedan fanaticism upon the obstinate resistance of the Achehnese to Dutch rule; some time spent in direct relations with Achehnese on their own soil was required to round off the knowledge gained by me from literature and from my experience in the sacred city of the Arabs.
In Acheh I soon saw that the available data regarding the language, country and people fell far short of what was wanted, so I extended my enquiry beyonds the limits of my commission. In order to get at the very foundations of a knowledge of the influence of Islam upon the political, social and domestic life of the Achehnese, I took (so far as local conditions allowed me) that life in its entire range as the subject of my research. In February, 1892, I had got together enough preliminary matter for compiling a book; I worked up my materials at Batavia; and so, in 1893–94, first appeared the treatise which is now being again offered to the public in the form of an English translation.
When Mr. O'Sullivan, early in 1899, informed me of his project of translating the book and requested me to look through his version and give him the benefit of any amendments in the text which might seem to be needed, it was just the very time that the real conquest of Acheh was being commenced; and I—spending a great deal of my time in that country—was in an incomparably better position to investigate that old pirate-state than I had been in 1891 and 1892. Certainly had I begun to write my book in 1899, it would have differed in many respects from its actual form. Still, as the book was definitely out, there was no justification for re-writing it and there were some serious reasons for not doing so. The Second Volume had dealt with the religious life of the people; the more abundant data which were afterwards forthcoming had only confirmed in all particulars the account that I had given. Besides, in the First Volume, there was only the first chapter which would be less useful than one written in 1899, since that latter could so deal with the general political situation as to lay more clearly before the reader the alteration in the state of affairs since 1891. Much of what had then been important, had come to lose its practical significance,—new factors and persons had brought their influences to bear. Any one writing a new introductory chapter with his eye on the altered situation would have broken, more or less, the thread of connection which ran through the component portions of my work. Moreover the state of affairs in 1891–92 long remained unchanged, while in 1899 the march of events was so rapid that the situation might almost be said to be changing from day to day. Last of all, the undertaking might have been seriously delayed owing to the fact that the translator and the author were separated—one in the Straits Settlements, the other in Netherlands India—and that both, wrapped up in official duties, would already find it as much as they could do to get through their self-appointed task, especially as the English edition would have to be printed in Europe.
All these considerations led up to the decision that the text should be left substantially unaltered, and that only occasionally would some improvements and fuller explanations be included in it, that isolated additions to the text regarding individuals mentioned in it, should be put in brackets after the names referred to, and, finally, that in an introductory article as much should be said regarding the course of recent events in Acheh as would suffice to give the reader some idea of their significance. This last seemed specially needful in an edition destined for readers outside Holland as well as in it, since foreigners had constructed for themselves a legend of the Acheh War which, though completely refuted by Dutch writings, continues still, outside Holland, to be accepted as history. Speaking generally, the most absurd errors are accepted in Europe for the truth regarding events that concern the minor states; even in Germany, the land of learning, savants take each other more seriously to task over an error in an edition of a Pushtu text or in an essay on the ethnography of Corea than over a tissue of injustices to their neighbours and kin in the Netherlands.
Holland—so runs the European legend—has been engaged in war against Acheh for a period which has extended to about thirty years without having led to the subjugation of that native kingdom. Shaking their heads solemnly over it, many learned people outside the frontiers of Holland see in this worthy fable—to which naturally they do not devote any long investigation—a definite indication of Holland's inability to govern her colonies, whether this be due to faulty policy or to ignorance or to faithlessness on the part of those to whom the task of the subjugation of Acheh has been confided.
Now there is certainly no nation more disposed to learn from foreigners than the Dutch; and no Dutchman will deny that in the conduct of Achehnese affairs it is often hard to see how the administration can be considered to have been either adequate or suitable for what was needed. But the obstacles in the path of conquest were very, very great; with far more wisdom and power than little Holland possesses, the difficulties would have taken a long spell of time to overcome. And Holland has spent no thirty years in the effort; her error rather has been that she has continually suspended the action she has begun and that she has indulged in long periods of quiescence,—while the most serious trouble of all has lain in the fact that the strings of policy were pulled by ignorant majorities in the Mother-country, who did not discover the best path from the outset but learnt through a period of disaster and discredit the course that they should pursue. Is Holland the only colony-governing country that has now and then had cause to suffer from twinges of that complaint, or that has failed to immediately lay hands on the man appointed by destiny to put through an arduous enterprise?
Acheh was to be brought into the comity of civilized states or at least to be rendered innoxious to it. From Mohammedanism (which for centuries she is reputed to have accepted) she really only learnt a large number of dogmas relating to hatred of the infidel without any of their mitigating concomitants; so that the Achehnese made a regular business of piracy and man-hunting at the expense of the neighbouring non-Mohammedan countries and islands, and considered that they were justified in any act of treachery or violence to European (and latterly to American) traders who came in search of pepper, the staple product of the country. Complaints of robbery and murder on board ships trading in Achehnese parts thus grew to be chronic. Of central authority there had never been any for some centuries back; and the country was practically split up into countless miniature states under chiefs whose power depended on personal energy and who were generally in a state of warfare with their neighbours unless in peace and alliance with them for the joint perpetration of their national offences. The foreigner, who had dealings with the Achehnese, as soon as he found himself in difficulties, sought vainly for some authority that might redress his wrongs. Such indeed has been the situation since the seven- teenth Century when the Sultanate of Acheh lost its control over the great chiefs of the State and over their dependents; but even when the power of the Achehnese princes was at its height the foreigner could find no security for life or property in the country.
The arrangements which the British East India Company made with Acheh at the close of the XVIIIth and the beginning of the XIXth Century for the establishment of friendly relations, were overridden in the most insulting way; we can satisfy ourselves upon this point by referring to a recent essay upon the treaty made with Acheh[1] by Raffles in 1819, in which long extracts have been quoted from the archives of the India Office[2].
In 1786 Warren Hastings received from the then Sultan of Acheh a discourteous letter in reply to an expression of goodwill. In that same year, Captain Francis Light pointed out to the Governor-General of Bengal that a settlement at Pulau Pinang possessed greater advantages than one on the Achehnese coast: "Acheen is a good road but no place of security against an enemy there. The country is fertile beyond description and very populous. The inhabitants rigid and superstitious Mohammedans, sullen, fickle and treacherous. To form a settlement there of safety and advantage, a force sufficient to subdue all the chiefs would be necessary". In the same spirit wrote James Price to the chairman of the Company in London: "I prefer Penang to the Port of Acheen as being more healthy and entirely free from that oppression, war and confusion which have ever[3] distressed and at length driven out every European nation who has attempted to settle there". And in 1825 Governor R. Fullerton wrote: "With respect to the future establishment of European influence over Acheen, it may be observed that such an arrangement on our part was long considered a desirable object, but it has been found utterly impracticable without employing a large military force to overawe the inhabitants".
As the one power which was settled in Sumatra and had brought the other territories in the island under its suzerainty or control, Holland, during the second decennial period of the XIXth Century, was compelled to take measures to ensure the safety of foreign trade in Acheh. In 1824, the Dutch Government, with great lack of foresight, entered into a treaty with Great Britain, under which it guaranteed the security of trade and shipping in Acheh—with its fanatical and treacherous population, turbulent and warlike to a degree unknown among the other races of the Archipelago, as well as hopelessly divided against itself,—and made the further stipulation (which rendered its undertaking impossible to carry out) that it would respect the independence of the country.
No wonder then that in the following half-century the complaints of wrongs of every sort suffered at the hands of the Achehnese by European and American traders became more and more plentiful, and that these ultimately led up in 1871 to a new treaty with England, under which Holland was left with more freedom of action in the control of Acheh.
The British experience of 1786—that to effect the security of trade and shipping in Acheh it would be absolutely necessary "to subdue all the chiefs" and "to overawe the inhabitants"—was now, after a long struggle, to be acquired by the Dutch as well. People flattered themselves quite seriously with the hope that a treaty with the Sultan of Acheh—forced out of him, if need be, by menaces and by the despatch of a small force,—would succeed in doing all that was wanted; they did not trouble their minds in the least degree with the internal condition of the country. Even after the war had actually begun in 1873 they continued to entertain the vain hope that a treaty of this sort might be the basis of a solution of our Achehnese difficulties. After the abolition of the royal authority and the death of the last Sultan, the Netherlands India Government came forward as his successor and claimed the allegiance of the chiefs of the dependent kingdoms. Many chiefs of Achehnese coast-dependencies formally gave in their submission in order to protect their commerce from injury, but the number who withheld their allegiance was greater; and many chiefs in the interior did not consider themselves bound by the promises of the raja of the coast. Furthermore the state of war—as may be learnt from our first chapter—added to the many chiefs who already disputed authority in Acheh a countless number of others: adventurers, religious leaders, military chiefs of every type. For years the Dutch authorities remained under the illusion that by taking up certain strong positions (one having the former Sultan's residence as its centre and others being important harbours in the dependencies) the rest of the country could be forced to submit, and that by the submission of certain of the principal Chiefs the other headmen and the rest of the people would be brought under Dutch authority.
At last under the governorship of General van der Heyden (1877–1881) they learnt by experience that while a defensive policy in no way advanced Dutch dominion, a vigorous offensive would make the enemy come to his senses. All Great-Acheh was conquered in this way. The coast-dependencies which, in parts, were densely populated and supplied the nervus rerum, money, to the war-party, were of greater real importance than the mother-state from which the colonies of pepperplanters had spread out. This fact the politicians forgot when in 1881 they thought that now that the war seemed virtually at an end they could fall back upon a more defensive attitude and introduce a purely civil government. The years 1881 to 1854 were necessary to enable them to see that the establishment of widely extended military posts in Great-Acheh and the introduction of a settled administration could never lead to the breaking down of the opposition in the dependencies; and that, on the contrary, so long as one did not oneself take the offensive against the Coast-states, the military posts in Great-Acheh would be the target of continual attacks by the Achehnese. The Government and the House of Representatives in the Netherlands came to the decision—alas, an erroneous decision,—that the expenditure on Great-Acheh must be curtailed, that the resistance in the Coast-states must be overcome by naval coercion alone, and finally that developments must be awaited and that time would reconcile the Achehnese to their Over-lords. In 1884 this "concentration-scheme" was taken up and a beginning was made by the construction of a "concentrated line" of forts stretching about the old seat of the Sultanate. A widespread opinion exists that the statesman who inaugurated this so-called scheme, besides being entirely unversed in Achehnese affairs, was cynical and sceptical and only sought for some temporary way of shelving the burden of the Achehnese question, and that Parliament followed him. I am not in a position to controvert this belief. Certainly no one ever rendered a greater service to the War-party in Acheh than the inventor of "concentration". The Achehnese were free, at whatever time and in whatever way suited them best and without heavy expenditure or loss, to harrass the line and the coast-stations, as often as they pleased; the troops within the line were as little able to prevent them as they were to punish them when the thing was done. In the presence of a quite harmless enemy within the country, the religious party and the energetic adventurers had a most desirable opportunity of establishing war-chests and, with them, imperia in imperio. There was no reason whatever why this most enjoyable state of affairs—for the Achehnese—should ever come to an end. Moreover all Acheh and its dependencies, including the headmen in nominal subjection to the Dutch Government, remained under the influence of the Government’s foes; and these latter everywhere derived more profit than injury from the presence of the Dutch forts in the country.
Coercive measures dealing with Achehnese trade and shipping failed to be effective not only because they were not pushed on with sufficient energy, but still more because it is always possible for an Achehnese to supply himself with his own limited requirements even without the aid of foreign trade, so long as he is left (as the "concentration scheme" left him) in undisturbed possession of the whole land.
No wonder then that no one with any knowledge of local conditions expected any good from this "scheme". A child could grasp that it offered either too much or too little. If one hoped to effect the subjugation of Acheh, it offered little help,—in fact none at all; if one only desired so much conquest as would permit of the Dutch flag flying over the village of the old Sultans, then the tenure of a very small area would have sufficed, and one might have been spared the trouble and expense incurred in the holding of the "line" which necessitated a considerable military force to do a work of the Danaides under the continuous harassing of the Achehnese.
From the commencement too, every one whose duty it was to supervise the working of this "scheme" found it necessary to do either more or less than it implied; the Governors of Acheh themselves expressed such opinions sometimes by action sometimes by recommendation. We need not trouble the reader with the dozens of different schemes proposed by officials or unofficials. It may however be borne in mind that firstly the trial of a purely civil government (based on the theory that Acheh had been sufficiently subdued), and afterwards the "concentration" (really intended to save statesmen at home from troubling their heads about these questions, but nominally based upon the theory that Acheh would ultimately submit of its own accord) take out fifteen years from the tale of the legendary thirty first referred to by us.
The last three years of the "concentration" time have earned an unhappy notoriety under the name of the "Uma"-period. This adventurer, whose character is depicted in our first volume, came from the Meulaboh country; he was a typical Achehnese in his complete untrustworthiness and in his slavery to opium and gambling, but he differed from most Achehnese headmen in his energy and consummate tact in his relations with all sorts and conditions of men. As he had acquired a commanding influence over the West coast and in one of the three sagi's of great Acheh by cunning and intrigue and by violence of all sorts—and the "concentration" theory debarred any idea of depriving him of his ill-gotten authority—he was a troublesome enemy to the Dutch Government and he could become by prudent policy on the part of those in authority, a useful ally of that Government. It is true that he had many crimes standing to his debit and had more than once been guilty of double-dealing—but these are offences which can be laid to the charge of all "friendly" Achehnese chiefs, and although in Uma's case the proportions in both respects were greater than in the case of other treacherous allies, this was only due to the fact that the others were less subtle and energetic than he.
Thus in 1893 when Uma, intending to advance his own interests had repeatedly asked for the forgiveness of his past offences, the acceptance of his submission could not be censured from the point of view of the concentration scheme. With a prudent endeavour to reconcile Uma's private interests with those of peace and order throughout the territories he ruled, there would have been much to gain and nothing to lose. For even if the fickle chief once more had changed his mind, one would still have been as far advanced as before and would have had some chance of increasing one's knowledge of the proper course to pursue in matters concerning the condition of the districts under his influence. But inexcusable it was that a Governor absolutely unacquainted with native affairs should, immediately after Uma's submission, have given his entire confidence to this adventurer and, in defiance of all warnings, should have persisted in strengthening Uma by generous subsidies of Dutch weapons and Dutch money.
Thus assisted, Uma overcame his own enemies—for partizan struggles and civil war raged even after the Dutch power was established in Acheh—and, under the guise of fighting against the foes of the Dutch regime, he dealt out, as his own, plentiful subsidies to his friends in the War-party and tried by all means in his power to acquire the maximum of influence both over the Dutch and their opponents. Of course this could not go on for long; as soon as it ceased to be possible for Uma to continue to combine the satisfaction of the wishes of the War-party with the appearance of advancing the interests of the Government, the barrel would burst—and there was not much doubt on which side Uma would elect to be. From the very first he set himself to winning substantial gains for the War-party and nominal advantages for the Dutch, which last advantages however seriously taken had no real value whatever. A "line" of greater extent than the original "concentrated" line, could effect nothing whatever in the way of terminating an insurrection that had its centres and its granaries outside Great Acheh in the dependencies. Yet this extension of the line was the only apparent gain which Uma, appointed a commander of friendly Achehnese forces and considered by the Governor as a trusty councillor, brought to his protector; and this gain was due to—and continued to depend on—the slender thread of his good-will.
In March, 1896, Uma thought that the time had come to remove the scales from the eyes of the blindly-trusting General Deykerkoff. He had then sufficient money and arms to play a leading part among the War-party, and the claims which his friend Deykerhoff pressed upon him began to be burdensome.
His secret opposition to Dutch rule thus changed to open hostility, but since the real purport of his actions had long been as obvious as the day, we cannot speak—except in a highly specialized sense—of Uma's "defection".
The Uma episode, however melancholy in itself, indirectly exercised a healthy influence upon the management of Achehnese affairs. Its termination opened all eyes to the need of vigorous action if one did not wish to abandon altogether the subjugation of Acheh. In 1896, the war against the Achehnese, which had been allowed to be suspended since 1881 without any real resultant gain, was resumed. Above all since Governor Van Heutsz in 1898 took the direction of affairs everything has been methodically done to make the necessary end, once and for all, of this insurrection.
The enemy, by nature more warlike and from of old more devoted to war than any race in the neighbouring islands, was by this time far better equipped than at the outset of the Dutch invasion of Acheh. He had a superfluity of arms and munitions; he possessed a better knowledge of the tactics of European troops and the difficulties that they had to overcome; and he had, during the concentration-time, formed no high estimate of his foe's intelligence. Thus then his self-confidence stood higher than ever.
Whenever the Dutch troops encountered the Achehnese in the open field the die was soon cast; these latter could not—owing to lack of unity and organization—keep in the field anything like a military force for long. On the other hand the Achehnese have an advantage in guerilla warfare which makes their subjugation a gigantic task and through which the combatant numbers at their foe’s disposal are of even less avail than his superior strategy and organization. Between the populated districts the Achehnese finds sometimes jungles and sometimes swamps in which he can conceal himself; from the central highlands of North Sumatra where the Gayōs and Alassers live, a huge ring of forest separates him. In ordinary times he makes clearings for pepper and rice fields in the jungle; in time of need such clearings offer themselves as excellent hiding-places over which bands can scatter themselves. For gampong-dwellers who do not wish to submit, the abandonment of their habitations is thereby rendered less distressing; they settle in the ladangs or open up new clearings in the jungle,—for preference, in out-of-the-way corners.
Thus then the gampongs of Acheh and its dependencies became partly depopulated, and the illimitable virgin forest became dotted, here and there, with temporary clearings used as the settlements sometimes of large communities, sometimes of petty bands,—situated as far as possible from any common path, very difficult to trace and as good as inaccessible for large military forces. The people remaining in the gampongs in apparent submission really sided with the expelled section so that the ladang-dwellers always found a cordial reception awaiting them in the gampongs, while the gampong-dwellers, when they had anything to their discredit, knew where they could safely retire to. Furthermore bands could count on safe hiding-places when they wished among the Gayōs and Alassers, Mohammedan subjects of Acheh.
Achehnese bands had to gather together and act for short periods only wherever through enquiries or the reports of their spies, they had reason to believe that they stood a good chance of winning some advantage or another. They were rarely exposed to attack on any large scale, for the almost inaccessible country that they understood in every detail helped them as an ally and enabled them to break up into small parties or even singly to betake themselves to their temporary places of refuge whenever necessary. The question of provisions troubled them but little; they found on the spot pretty nearly everything necessary to satisfy their modest requirements. For serious attacks they made use of fanatics who, fortified by the assurance of their teachers that any one who fell in a war against infidels would go straight to heaven, eagerly went to their death, and of assassins who pretended to be friendly so as to help the cause by gaining admission to some camp and there plunging into slaughter. Is it wonderful then that many a man, shrugging his shoulders, asked himself how all this was to end, and believed that the troops, to accomplish their task, would have to be not only brave and resourceful but ubiquitous?
Truly Francis Light and James Price, whom we have already quoted, had grasped the situation in its most literal sense. It was necessary "to subdue all the chiefs",—and their name was legion!
Only as guerillas against guerillas, by using the most lightly equipped native troops under the leadership of first-rate European officers with non-commissioned officers of like quality, and by operating in small detachments, could any real results be arrived at. In less than six years General Van Heutsz made such progress that now even the most sceptical must admit that we have come to the beginning of the end. The traitor Uma and numbers of adventurers, fanatical leaders and guerilla chiefs perished; the chiefs of dependent states, the members of the Sultan's family, and finally their head himself who in 1878 as a child had been proclaimed Pretender-Sultan, submitted almost without exception; and thousands of refugees came back to their gampongs under the authority of Government. The continuance of the revolt is now censured by all chiefs of mark except a limited number of universally respected religious leaders. This exception—and in fact the whole attitude of the teungkus (men learned in the scriptures) during the closing years of the war—confirms anew the accuracy of what was said in this book in 1892 regarding the significance of the religious factor in the war; at that time no one believed it, but for the last two years every one has accepted it as a truth that he acknowledged from the first.
If one casts a glance over the map so as to form some idea of the extent and desolate character of the country in which, by day and still more by night, operations had to be continually carried on; if one knows that several military expeditions lasting weeks,—yes, and months—were necessary towards the central highlands of the Gayōs in order to track down the enemy; that from 1898 the rule was enforced that all houses and settlements should be spared—in the case of enemies as well as in the case of those who submitted; that one should always behave with the greatest indulgence towards hereditary chiefs, and that even repeated evidence of treachery formed no sufficient reason for not receiving them back into favour when they repented;—one then can understand what an effort must have been made to attain the position in which matters stand today.
Truly, although this guerilla warfare gave no place to feats of arms generally called famous, the courage, the devotion, the foresight and local knowledge necessary to enable officers with their small detachments of troops to march tens of miles a day over very hilly ground, often pathless, through forest, swamp, and riverbed, to reach some hidden destination, were greater than one can picture from the plain military reports; and the hardships and privations which they and their subordinates had to patiently undergo would have caused any less sober nation than the Dutch to blow their own trumpet very loudly.
The whole former kingdom of Acheh with the dependencies connected with it is now subject to Dutch rule; all the districts are administered by hereditary chiefs under the constant supervision of Dutch Civil Servants and officials, and the military force is engaged in hunting down and reducing to impotence the last elements of disorder—the irreconcilable fanatics and the incorrigible plunderers—in their own selected hiding-places. The very reciprocal dissensions of the Achehnese, their efforts to impede the subjection of their opponents among their fellow-countrymen, make this work laborious and slow, but no one has any doubt about the ultimate issue, and even the surviving bands no longer delude themselves with the hope of baffling the Dutch for long.
This commentary on the above-debated events of the last few years does not aim at giving the reader an extract of Acheh's most recent history; the treatment of history lies outside the scope of my work. But just as in 1892, for a proper comprehension of the political, domestic, social and religious life of the Achehnese it was necessary now and again to recall certain historical events in order to explain the present by the past, so now it seems desirable not to leave the reader unacquainted with the important changes which have taken place on the political stage at Acheh since the appearance of the Dutch edition of my work. This further thought occurs to me as its writer: that the period separating the two editions of the work has, in all material details, placed the seal of truth upon the diagnosis of the disease made by me in 1892, when many doubted me, while other doctors thought that the complaint was beyond healing. Now no one any longer doubts that the dogmas of Islam on the subject of religious war, so fanatical in their terms, supplied the principal stimulus to this obstinate rebellion; that the teungkus, or religious leaders, came more and more during the war to be masters of the country and terrorized the hereditary chiefs as well as the populace wherever these last were disposed to peace; that only a forcible subjugation followed by orderly control over the administration could bring about peace; that the Dutch Government in Acheh could effect nothing by pressure from outside; that the control of the country through controlling its harbours was impracticable; and that Tuanku Muhamat Dawōt who had been made Sultan as a child, however much he enjoyed the homage mingled with fear that natives are apt to give to the descendants of their tyrants, was a nonentity in a political sense and was in a position neither to do the Dutch much harm nor to give them any serious assistance in the pacification of the country.
It was precisely during the most important years of the Acheh War that the work of translation was going on, with many pauses and at a slow pace. When the book was at last completed in manuscript, and when the first volume had been printed in full and the second to the extent of some pages, Mr. O'Sullivan was, in August 1903, carried off by a most sudden death. Shortly before his death it had been arranged between us that he should compile an alphabetical index rerum which would take the place of the lists of contents of chapters as well as of the list of Achehnese words attached to the original edition. Besides this, Mr. O'Sullivan planned a translator’s preface to follow mine. This last feature must now be lost to the reader; the compilation of the index as well as the translation of this introduction was kindly undertaken by Mr. Wilkinson who was intimately acquainted with Mr. O'Sullivan's project.
Besides the above-mentioned differences the English translation differs from the original edition in the following respects. Mr. O'Sullivan has appended some notes, marked as coming from the translator and dealing especially with the aspect of the phenomena cognate to those in the text whenever they are also met with in the Malay Peninsula. The two geographical maps which accompanied the Dutch edition have been entirly re-cast, as the expeditions which traversed the country during the last years of the war were extremely useful for topographical purposes. The portions still unsurveyed we are able to fill in by means of outline-sketches and reliable data from native sources. All that could be gathered from all the above-mentioned sources of information up to 1903 has been embodied in our two maps which were prepared in the topographical bureau at Batavia. Of the photographic plates which illustrated the first edition, some have been omitted, others replaced by better, and many are inserted for the first time. Some texts in the Achehnese language, of which a summary or translation appeared in the course of descriptions (e.g. regarding the conclusion of a marriage in Vol. I, and regarding the sadati-games in Vol. II), were given in the Dutch text as appendices to the first edition; these appendices are now omitted. Finally the spelling of Achehnese words has been somewhat modified to suit English eyes and ears.
The Achehnese language of which the consonants as well as the vowels present great difficulties to foreigners and of which a correct grasp and imitation can only be acquired by Non-Achehnese after great labour, is written by the Achehnese themselves in the Arabic character. This character is inadequate for representing the consonants and wholly incapable of representing the vowels of the Achehnese. Thus it comes about that the Achehnese adhere to the spelling which represented their language in a bygone age when many sounds now lost or modified occurred in it; thus for instance they write an r at the end of syllables but do not sound it; they write l at the end of syllables but sound it as y or e; s is changed in the same position to h or ih. For all these reasons one can hardly read Achehnese as written by Achehnese without having previously mastered the colloquial.
There can thus be no question of transliterating the native tongue. We must treat Achehnese according to phonetic systems of spelling. The system drawn up by me for the purpose is now generally followed and is here employed with the necessary modifications for English use.
Here follow some remarks on the phonetic value of the letters used, though they can only serve to give the reader a rough idea of the true sound.
The ʾ in words like aneuʾ, baʾ, seuʾōt, stands for a consonant which European orthographical systems usually neglect although it occurs among us. It is that consonant with which all words begin that are incorrectly written with an initial vowel; it arises out of the rush of breath after a sudden opening of the larynx. When this consonant occurs in English between two vowels (e.g. in be ʾout, too ʾold when such words are uttered without the use ef the connecting semi-vowels y and w), it is called the “hiatus”, and in some words—usually interjections—where it occurs as a final, it is altogether omitted in writing just as it is omitted as an initial. In Achehnese (which knows no diphthongs) this consonant plays too great a part to be omitted; it also frequently occurs in this as well as in many other native languages as a final, and is sometimes a weakened form of k, t, etc. We write it as ʾ in the middle and at the end of a word but we leave it unwritten as an initial; this latter concession to European orthographical methods can cause no confusion.
A peculiar nasal variant of ʾ we write as ᶜ; the reader must infer that the vowel following this symbol is pronounced very nasally.
The letters d, t, l and n are uttered (more delicately than in English) by a short blow with the tip of the tongue against the base of the teeth.
g is approximately the English g in gun.
j and ch approach the sound of those letters in English but are enunciated in a drier way.
h is the well-known aspirate, but it is also very distinctly sounded at the end of a syllable, e.g. in bòh, sah, sahbat, however much the untrained European ear may miss it. The h has also its full sound when it occurs after another consonant; in pha, kaphé, dhòë, that, lheë, it is sounded as distinctly as in uphold, red-heat, out-house, etc., at the beginning as well as in the middle of words.
ng is sounded as in bring but it also used as an initial, e.g. in ngeu. This consonant, as also the m, is pronounced very nasally.
ny usually stands for the single sound which in French is represented by gn, e. g., in oignon.
r in the predominant dialect is sounded as a very soft guttural, so that this letter dwindles away at the end of a word and is not marked by us in our system.
s sounds like the English th in think; but it is uttered in a very palatal way by the pressure of the front part of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. Untrained ears often confuse this sound with t.
The remaining consonants need no explanation.
a is sounded as in French; i as ea in sea and beat; u as oo in too and soon; é as ay in say or ai in sail; è as in the French père or (in closed syllables) as in set; ō as in boat, home; ò as in the French sort but this vowel often occurs in open syllables and is then pronounced very long.
eu is a vowel very difficult for European organs of speech to exactly reproduced; it approaches closest to the French eu and the German ö, but one should try to utter it with firmly closed teeth and without pushing the lips forward in the least, so that the distance between the corners of the mouth is rather increased than decreased. The back of the tongue must be pressed against the palate and between these two one should force out the breath steadily with the least possible opening of the glottis. Unaccented, this vowel resembles the indeterminate vowel in the French je, le, se.
ë is a very slightly marked vowel which only appears in the prolongation of others, e.g., of i, è, u, ò and eu (thus ië, èë, uë, òë, euë, in which the soft connecting semi-vowel y is heard in the case of the first two and the soft connecting semi-vowel w in the case of the last three) and it sounds then like the final vowel-sound in the French amie or in the Dutch harmonieën.
ï is almost as furtive; it only appears after other vowels (all except i, é, è) and separates them from a final h, e.g. alōïh, bagaïh. The ïh is only the corrupted sound of an original s.
e is the protracted and accented pronunciation of the vowel in the French je, le, se; in Achehnese verses make it rhyme with o.
- ↑ Or rather with "Johor Allum as king of Acheen", concerning whom the Chairman of the Company wrote to Bengal on the 4th August 1824: "that chief, so far as we can collect from your correspondence, not having possessed an established authority in the country which he assumed to represent, has never been in a situation to maintain the relations into which he entered".
- ↑ Essay of P. H. van der Kemp in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indië, vol. LI, pp. 159–240 (the Hague, 1900). In the English documents quoted there are many writer's or printer's errors.
- ↑ Obviously this is the correct reading, and not "however".