Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/159

 corpses of the slain for both parties, and permitted no fighting to be carried On within their own territory.

The only instance of the administration of these Mukims by a single ruler within living memory is that of a certain ulama named Teungku Chòt Putu, who succeeded in attaining to some degree of authority there in the middle of the present century. This expounder of the law derived from his piety, learning and severity such an overwhelming influence over the three imeums and their subjects, that although not invested with any political power, he acted in fact as ruler of the Mukim Lhèë. Before his appearance and after his death these mukims were self-governing, yet held in due respect the tradition of their peculiar constitution. His son Chèh Chòt Putu, though essentially a worldly man and no scholar, inherited some of the respect paid to his father, but his efforts at playing the role of ulèëbalang of the III Mukims have not been crowned with success.

The name of III Mukims Keureukōn now usually given to that district, coupled with the fact that a family resided therein, one male member of which enjoyed the hereditary title of Teuku Keureukōn, points to the efforts made by the holders of that dignity to gain the supremacy there. Here we have another example of that same degeneration of offices in Acheh, which we have seen above in the case of the Teuku Kali Malikōn Adé etc.

Among the principal court officials in the period of prosperity of the sultanate there was a royal secretary with the title Keureukōn Katibulmuluk (vulg. "Katibōy mulut"). This title could more easily pass from father to son than the art of composing and writing Malay letters; and besides, the importance and extent of such correspondence dwindled with the decay of the court.

The work performed in earlier times by the Keureukon Katibōy Mulut, in so far as it did not altogether fall into abeyance, was carried on by common servitors of no rank, who were called Krani Pòteu or "writers to our supreme lord." As however all official documents have even down to the present day been modelled on the pattern of those of the prosperous period, there were and still are often to be found at the beginning of letters and edicts of the sultans of Acheh